A very warm welcome to this massive open online course on qualitative research methods. My name is Gerben Moerman. And I'm very honored that you are taking time to watch this video, and probably even watch the other lectures. And it would be so cool if you'll also join in with the assignments. Because learning qualitative research method is not something that is done binge watching from your comfortable armchair. But it's a craft that you also learn by doing. I think it's amazing that so many people from around the world are eager to learn something about qualitative research. Thank you for that. And in this course, I will try not to disappoint you. The main objective of this course is to introduce you to qualitative research methods. And in order to do so, I will do three things. First, I will explain about two of the most important modes of data collection. And those are observation and qualitative interviewing. Second, I will try to give you some ideas on different forms of qualitative analysis. And third, I want to touch on important concepts, issues and discussions in qualitative research. So I will introduce you to some discussions in philosophy of science that are relevant to qualitative research. I will talk about the quality of qualitative research. I will also discuss some ethical issues, issues of representation and mixing methods. All topics I touch upon deserve a complete course in itself, so some of my colleagues would say that it's ridiculous to discuss qualitative analysis in just a few videos. But please don't forget, it's just an introduction. So that's the objective of this course. My great hope for this course is that in some way, I can inspire you to do qualitative research yourself. And also to inspire you to get involved in debates on qualitative research. And in order to try to inspire, we ended up not using auto ques. So I simply prepare the lectures, use my sheets to structure and then try to show my enthusiasm and passion. This has a flip side though. Sometimes, I'm terrible messy. I use weird sentences. I have a quirky and inconsistent pronunciation. I have very lame jokes and I will never ever stand still. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. But do not hesitate to comment on contest aspects, such as unclear parts of the lectures. Then please send us a short note and we will look into it. Qualitative research methods is a highly debated field with different schools of thoughts and people claiming to use completely different philosophies of social science. And I have my favorites as well. I, too ,have blind spots and a pretty blinkered view. And, therefore, I will sometimes reflect on my own position and relate my claims and argumentation to various scholars of qualitative methodology. I will refer to them. Obviously. And all references used in the lectures are added to the readings of that week. And sometimes, additional references will be given as well. We also tried to have open access material as much as possible. Again, video lectures alone and small assignments do not make you a good quality researcher overnight. And my suggestion is to read a lot, discuss, reflect. But mostly do what Robert Park suggested his students. And that is, and I quote, go and sit in the lounges of luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses. Sit on the Gold Coast settees and on the slum shakedowns. Sit in the Orchestra Hall and in the Star and Garter Burlesque. In short, go and get the seat of your pants dirty in real research. End of quote. So to get your pants dirty in real research, we devised three rather big practical assignments. The first big assignment in week two is on observation. You're asked to meticulously observe a social situation. Describe it in a very detailed manner. And then interpret what you saw. And we hope that, due to the intercultural backgrounds of all the participants from around the world. We will build up a rich data set that we can analyze as well. The second big assignment will be, that every participant has to do an interview and reflect on it. The third big assignment will be on analysis. You will have to analyze some material. Obviously, there will be peer-reviewed discussion assignments, and a few quizzes to test your knowledge. Now, I want to thank all the colleagues from all over the world, for watching some of the videos and then commenting on them. Thank you for all the discussions. And obviously, all mistakes that are still in the videos are mine. I want to thank the following people here at the University of Amsterdam, Anna Marie for the general project management, her advice, and her great help in setting up this course. I want to thank Marie for her great illustration and especially for her creative thinking about abstract quality of concepts. And then make illustrations out of them. I want to thank and for filming, editing the complete production of the video's in general. And I want to Thank them specifically for the patience they had when filming the 20th take of drama theory, and I started using very bad words. I want to thank Sonya Hoekstra for meticulously going through all the videos, and her advice on the content, her support and general organization of the course. And thank you for joining in. And if you enjoyed the course, we have many more courses here in the University of Amsterdam. For now, enjoy Qualitative Research Methods, and get the seat of your pants dirty in real research.
