Educational researchers are often encouraged to reflect on their ‘philosophical positioning’, i.e. the ontological, epistemological and axiological (ethical) assumptions that underpin their research design. Meanwhile, in recent years in anglophone educational research departments, using philosophy as a ‘method’ in its own right, as opposed to a tool supporting empirical research, has tended to go out […]
Whether it’s ant colonies, traffic jams, fisheries, predator-prey interactions, segregation patterns in urban areas, or viruses spreading through populations, we are surrounded by complex systems. Those have lots of different parts that interact in non-linear ways, giving rise to patterns that are difficult to predict by looking at individual components in isolation. And when these […]
Years ago, you wrote a data analysis script. Hundreds of lines of R code, all in a single file. It was not beautiful, but it worked, and you got a great paper out of it. But now some new version of one of the datasets you used has come out, and there is also that […]
Join us at the GW4 Neurodivergent Postgraduate Community Festival 2026 for a day of celebration, connection, and support! Registration now open for the GW4 Neurodivergent PGR Community Festival 2026 We’re excited to invite neurodivergent postgraduate researchers from across Cardiff, Bath, Bristol and Exeter to join us on 23 February 2026 in Bristol for a […]
Making Sense of Messy Legal Data: Analysing Climate Litigation in Latin America and the Caribbean Cristian Heredia Ligorria, PhD researcher in Socio-legal Studies at UWE Bristol My doctoral research investigates rights-based climate litigation (RBCL) in Latin America and the Caribbean applying a socio-legal methodology and from a decolonial perspective. Chapter 3 of my thesis is […]
Date: 3rd – 6th March 2026 (four consecutive mornings) Location: online The National Centre for Research Methods are offering the opportunity to attend this introductory short course for the reduced price of £25 for all participants. Improve the efficiency and reliability of your research. Learn foundational computational skills including automating tasks using the command line […]
Using multi-dimensional experience sampling via smartphones to map thought-emotion interactions in daily life Anqi Lei, PhD researcher at the University of Plymouth Patterns of on-going thought have crucial implications for emotional health. In the present study, we used multi-dimensional experience sampling (MDES) via smartphones to examine how daily-life thought patterns relate to concurrent affective states […]
Reflexive Thematic Analysis on researcher’s position as an “in-betweener” Claire Hadfield, Senior Lecturer and PhD researcher in Education at Plymouth Marjon University Reflecting on my journey using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) in a qualitative longitudinal study of early career secondary teachers’ professional identities, I draw on my position as an “in-betweener”—moving from school teaching into […]
Networks shape nearly every aspect of our lives, from the spread of ideas and diseases to the dynamics of friendship, crime, and power. This two-day workshop introduces the theory and practice of Social Network Analysis (SNA) using R, combining insights from sociology, data science, and computer science. Participants will learn how to map, measure, and […]
Understanding home deathcare through narrative. Sam Hooker, SWDTP-funded PhD researcher in Social Policy at the University of Bath My PhD project used a narrative methodology to capture people’s experiences caring for the dead at home. Two interviews were conducted with participants. The first consisted of asking them to tell me their experience, while the second was […]