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ESRC National Centre for Research Methods
Assessment of the Training Needs in Research Methods in
the UK Professional Social Research Community
Rose Wiles, Nicholas Bardsley, Jackie Powell
University of Southampton
December 2008
1
Acknowledgements
This work was carried out with the co-operation of the Social Research Association
who assisted us in distributing questionnaires and in providing information in relation
to various aspects of the project. We thank them for their support. The project,
however, was undertaken solely by the National Centre for Research Methods and
they are responsible for the findings presented here.
We would also like to thank the people who took the time to respond to our survey or
participate in an interview.
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Executive Summary
One of the aims of NCRM’s work is to assess the research methods training needs of
the UK social science community in order to inform both NCRM and the ESRC in the
strategic planning of their activities. Two assessments of training need have been
conducted. The first focused primarily on the perspectives of methodologists, key
academic stakeholders and representatives of learned societies (Beissel-Durrant and
Lang, 2004) and the second on the academic sector (Wiles et al., 2005). The work
being reported on here focuses on social researchers who work outside of academia.
Data were collected from three sources to investigate the training needs of
professional researchers: an online survey; qualitative interviews and an analysis of
job vacancies for social researchers. Data collection focused on the topics in which
research methods training were perceived to be needed, the levels of training (i.e.
introductory, intermediate or advanced) and the modes of training delivery. The
online survey was distributed to all members of the Social Research Association
(SRA). A total of 95 responses from researchers outside of academia were received, a
response rate of 11%. The...