Sociology (BA) at The University of Akron

The MA Social Research Methods is part of a suite of advanced postgraduate methods-based courses delivered across the University faculties. The MA aims to provide core accessible and inclusive cross-disciplinary advanced research methods training across the social sciences with specific subject-specific training in research practices related to a chosen field of social policy, criminology, sociology or social work.

The course will equip you with the research and employability skills required to transition successfully to enhanced careers in academia, commercial companies, public sector, non-governmental organisations or other sectors. This degree will provide academic rigour and coherence, whilst allowing a degree of flexibility and choice within the chosen course in terms of disciplinary focus and advance research approaches.

The course covers conceptual and practical underpinnings and implications of research, looking at various research techniques and the rationale behind them. It will enable you to develop essential skills in both quantitative and qualitative work and to apply those skills to social research in a particular subject area (criminology, social policy, sociology, social work).

Some combinations of options within our Social Research Methods degree offer recognised training as part of the North East and Northern Ireland Doctoral Training Partnership. Particular modules are subject to availability, in particular academic years.

Physical Geography examines the natural and physical systems of the Earth including the atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere (ice and snow), hydrosphere (water) and lithosphere (land surface).

Physical geographers also look at the connections between these systems, how they change over time, and the implications of these changes.

This Economic and Social Research Council approved MA provides training in research methods with a focus on methods used by researchers in anthropology. At the end of this course, you will be well-prepared to go on to do research in Anthropology or a related discipline. Most students expect to move on to a PhD.

The course includes training in qualitative and quantitative methods needed by researchers in social sciences and draws on expertise within the Department of Anthropology to provide specialised training in either sociocultural anthropology, medical anthropology, the anthropology of development or cultural evolution (depending on your chosen pathway). It is affiliated to the Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Partnership, which offers funding to British and European Union students interested in taking the course preparatory to moving on to a PhD at Durham.

The full-time course runs for a full year, from October to September. You will attend classes between October and December (Michaelmas Term) and January and March (Epiphany), with assessment in April and May (Easter Term), and then work, under the supervision of a specialist supervisor, to complete a dissertation in September. This is often a pilot project for a PhD project. You will take core modules on qualitative and quantitative methods which will be co-ordinated through the Durham Research Methods Centre. Further modules are chosen from within each specialist pathway.