SC1.48 ECS
Social Science methods for natural scientists
Convener: John K. Hillier | Co-conveners: Heather Sangster, Harry West
Fri, 12 Apr, 14:00–15:45
 
Room -2.31

People. Stakeholders. Other humans. If any of these may be involved in your work, and insight into what they may think or do could be useful, you are entering the realm of Social Science. This session is on the basics of social science methods, presented by geo-scientists with some experience of implementing Social Science investigations.

The content will include a selection from; data collection techniques, expectations from analysis, risk & ethics, and data storage. At least, there will be enough to demystify Social Science, and to get you started on an investigation. The focus will be on practicalities and examples from the published literature.

Examples of areas in which Social Science methods may be needed include 'Knowledge Exchange' - the process of co-designing, co-working, collaborating, and generally engaging with non-academic partners. Anything where you may need to formally report views of colleagues (e.g., expert elicitation).

AFTER the session, course materials will be available on the following link for a few weeks.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qOWhKgGxnLR3D-tZAkg8BbN_p1sOkuuQ?usp=sharing

Public information:
Social Science methods for natural scientists will run from 14:00 to 15:30, and comprise a single coherent course that is best experienced as a whole. So, please turn up at the start. Large parts are participatory, but absolutely no prior knowledge or experience of doing social science research is needed (indeed this is our working assumption).

The sessions structure is as follows:-

• 0. Introductions
• 1. Demystifying the concept of social science
• 2. Outlets & modes of publication
• 3. The basics: Ethics and doing …… (interactive & participatory)
• 4. Simple but useful: Mind-maps and dots – (interactive & participatory)
• 5. Selection of vignettes ….. i.e. examples of social science done by natural scientists.
• 6. Summary list of top tips