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Methods Short Courses

 

Historically, one of the main reasons for the establishment of the Department of Methodology was the identification by the Economic and Social Research Council of a 'methods gap' in the training of research students.
Among the stipulated requirements was a set of research skills for each discipline. Given the considerable overlap in these research skills across departments, the Department of Methodology was established to meet some of these needs efficiently.

 

A key function of the Department of Methodology is to provide training for PhD and MSc students in the design of social research and in qualitative and quantitative analysis. Our short courses are open to all LSE students taking MSc or PhD programmes. This means that research students are welcome to attend any of the department's short courses, regardless of which department they are based in.

Watch our introductory Methodology course videos.

Methodology courses for MSc students

Methodology courses for PhD students

About our Methods Short Courses

We offer short courses under MY580 on a variety of specific and advanced topics in qualitative and quantitative research methods.

These courses are primarily aimed at PhD students but may be taken by Masters students. The short courses are non-examinable, self-contained and may be attended independently. They take place in Winter and Spring terms, with the schedule and course outline available below and on the MY580 Moodle page

Sign up via Eventbrite, which opens for bookings two weeks prior to the corresponding course. 

As part of the Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) network, the department reserves a small number of places on MY580 short courses for non-LSE external visitors. Interested parties can also sign up via Eventbrite under external ticket admissions (non-LSE)

Please ensure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions section below. For queries about our short courses, please email methodology.research@lse.ac.uk.

To browse our past short courses and keep up to date with upcoming ones, follow us on our Eventbrite page.


2024/25 schedule

Winter Term

Week 2 - Wednesday 29 January 2025
Qualitative Data Analysis by Dr Aliya Rao 
Available in-person only
Sign up here

Week 3 - Wednesday 5 February 2025
Impact Unpacked: Modern Techniques in DiD and RDD for Quantitative Social Scientists by Dr Micha Ganslmeier 
Available in-person only
Sign up here

Week 4 - Wednesday 12 February 2025
Applied Language Models for Social Science Research by Dr Zach Dickson
Available in-person and online
Sign up opens on 29 January 2025

Week 6 - Wednesday 26 February 2025 
Casual Interference for Observational Data by Dr Zach Dickson
Available in-person and online 
Sign up opens on 12 February 2025

Week 7 - Tuesday 4 March 2025 
Fieldwork Preparation and Logistics: Budgets, Ethics and Participant Recruitment by Dr Florian Kern 
Available in-person only
Sign up opens on 18 February 2025

Week 8 - Wednesday 12 March 2025 
Understanding Research Integrity by Dr Daniele Fanelli
Available in-person and online
Sign up opens on 26 February 2025


Week 10 - Tuesday 25 March 2025 
How to Write a Qualitative Methods Section for Academic Manuscripts by Dr Aliya Rao 
Available in-person only
Sign up opens on 11 March 2025

Week 11 - Tuesday 1 April 2025 
Applied Bayesian Statistics for Social Science by Dr Patrick English 
Available in-person only
Sign up opens on 18 March 2025

Spring Term

Week 1 - Tuesday 6 May 2025 
Measuring Policy Positions of Political Agents by Emeritus Professor Michael Laver 
Available in-person only
Sign up opens on 22 April 2025


Week 2 - Wednesday 14 May 2025 
Data Visualisations by Dr Daniel de Kadt 
Available in-person at the Data Science Institute and online
Sign up opens on 30 April 2025

Week 3 - Tuesday 20 May 2025 
Agent-Based Modeling by Dr Milena Tsvetkova
Available in-person at the Data Science Institute and online
Sign up opens on 6 May 2025


Week 3 - Wednesday 21 May 2025 
Creative research methods – an introduction by Dr Eileen Alexander 
Available in-person and online
Sign up opens on 7 May 2025

Week 4 - Tuesday 27 May 2025 
Modern Text Analysis and NLP with Python by Dr Patrick Gildersleve 
Available in-person and online (please note in-person attendance will be prioritised as remote debugging for this course may be difficult)
Sign up opens on 13 May 2025

Week 5 - Wednesday 4 June 2025 
Creating Social Science Datasets using Public APIs by Dr Zach Dickson 
Available in-person and online
Sign up opens on 21 May 2025

Week 6 - Wednesday 10 June 2025 
Participatory Methods by Dr Sonja Marzi 
Available in-person only
Sign up opens on 27 May 2025

Frequently Asked Questions 

I cannot find the Methods Short Courses schedule/ information/ sign- up link.

Any news relating to the Methods Short Courses will be updated on this page. If you cannot find the relevant courses or schedule that you are looking for, please stay tuned. Please note that sign- up links will only become available two weeks prior the course. Thank you for your patience.

I am an LSE student, where can I find the relevant details for the courses?

Please visit our MY580 moodle page

I am not an LSE student; can I still sign up for Methods Short Courses?

Yes, our courses are open to the public but spaces are limited. Please sign up via our Eventbrite page. Be sure to follow our Eventbrite page so you don't miss our public events. 

When do our Methods Short Courses run?


You can find a list of our upcoming courses on this page or on our Eventbrite page. Our courses run during the Winter Term and Spring Term. Please find the LSE Term dates here.

Where are these courses held?


Most courses are held in-person at CON 1.01, Department of Methodology, Connaught House, 65 Aldwych, London WC2B 4DS unless stated otherwise.

Some short courses are delivered in a hyrbid format. These sessions will be clearly stated above and on the Eventbrite sign up page. 

I can no longer attend the courses I signed up for.

Please diligently cancel your ticket on Eventbrite to allow another waitlisted participant to join.

Will I get a certificate for attending these courses?

Attendance Certificates are available upon request, please contact our team at methodology.research@lse.ac.uk

The course I signed up for has been cancelled.

Apologies for the inconvenience caused. Should any course be cancelled, a member of staff will contact you by email and let you know whether the course has been rescheduled or not.