Connecting research questions with methods

Benoît Rihoux (UCLouvain, ISPOLE)

“All social scientists, when they design their project, bump sooner or later into two key challenges: how do I formulate my research question(s)? And which main method(s) should I use? I will demonstrate that these two challenges are in fact interconnected, as different types of research questions [3 main types will be distinguished] relate to different research goals and call for different types of methods. The broader context of the research – in particular the accessibility to primary evidence, the more or less routinized or emerging nature of the phenomenon to be analyzed, and the state of existing theories on this phenomenon – also needs to be considered. So does the researcher’s epistemological position. I will thus propose some concrete guidelines and tricks of the trade on how to find your ‘best fit’ between your research question(s) and research method(s).” ( Benoît Rihoux)

Registration : https://framadate.org/CGI6FDQfKrJjpzfR 
Teams meeting link: 
Room LECL 93
Time: 12:00pm Sandwich Lunch / 12:45 – 14:00 Seminar

Benoît Rihoux is full professor in political science at the UCLouvain, Belgium. He plays a lead role in the development and diffusion of comparative methods, in particular Configurational Comparative Methods (CCMs) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). He is engaged in diverse disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects, also covering management, evaluation, development, health systems research and medicine, involving mixed- and multimethod designs and QCA. Besides, he is engaged in the Global Wo.Men Hub (https://gwmh.org/ ), an action/think tank pushing for equality and collaboration between women and men.