Qualitative Training & Courses

Learn how to manage difficult interview dynamics. We will cover defining, assessing and understanding sensitive interviews, vulnerability, distress, and risk, ways to avoid harm during interviews, designing interview tools, safely facilitating sensitive discussions, and ethics.

Improve the quality of your focus group research. This training will teach you how to independently design, undertake, and moderate focus group discussions, and includes practical exercises where you design and moderate a mock online focus group.

In my experience, groups benefit from a range of participants with different experiences in and outside of academia. I also have substantial experience delivering qualitative training to clients outside of universities.

Typically, no prior experience of qualitative methods is required. 

The courses are designed to assist you in creating a qualitative research project from scratch. However, for the Narratives and Storytelling, Narrative Analysis, Participatory Action Research, Reflexivity, and Challenging Interviews courses, it is preferable that you have some foundational knowledge of qualitative research methods. 

If courses require previous foundational knowledge, this will be noted in the advertisement.

The courses are delivered via a combination of mini-lectures, interactions, reading, writing, video clips, workshop activities, group work and discussions, and individual work and feedback. 

I have designed these courses to be enjoyable, informal, engaging and based on open discussions. They are also practical, focusing on examples of the complexities of qualitative research, my own experiences, and publications, and what works/doesn’t work in various contexts. 

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach; the main goal is that you take lessons away to specifically apply and tailor to your qualitative projects.

I have designed and delivered various Masters and postgraduate methods training courses, lectures, and summer school content for almost two decades.

My experience is that, except for some taught master’s level ESRC research methods courses (where/when available), you are unlikely to receive intensive qualitative methods training which will prepare you for your doctoral research. Most students end up seeking this elsewhere via summer schools. 

Moreover, university graduate school courses are often designed and run centrally by graduate schools and so are at the will of teaching staff expertise, availability, and workloads. This means they can differ year-on-year. 

Although you might receive training in some of the typical qualitative methods used, this is unlikely to be to the depth required to equip you to complete your own qualitative research project. It is also unlikely that you will get the chance to practise these techniques hands-on, as you will in my courses.

As a social scientist and qualitative researcher, I have almost two decades of experience in designing, implementing, teaching, and publishing on qualitative research methods. 

I have delivered ESRC courses, seminars and presentations at various universities including, for example: 

• University of Aberdeen
• University of Glasgow
• University of Strathclyde
• University of Leicester
• Loughborough University
• Cardiff University
• University of Bournemouth
• Kings College London
• Royal Holloway, University of London
• University of Essex
• Kingston University
• London School of Economics
• The University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Australian National University

I have taught at various universities and summer schools and currently deliver qualitative training via the Social Research Association and the European Consortium for Political Research. I have also delivered qualitative training to local authorities, NHS, government departments, social and market research organisations, police officers, and staff, and have mentored them on their in-house qualitative projects. 

I have supervised PhD students successfully to completion, each of whom used various qualitative methods and techniques in their projects. I regularly coach and mentor academics, PhD students, and social researchers in areas such as doctoral study, qualitative research design, methods, and analysis, and academic skills and career development.

I have also published extensively on qualitative research. I am the author of Reflexivity: Theory, Method and Practice, co-editor of Reflexivity in Criminological Research, and Crafting Autoethnography and have published qualitative articles in high-ranking international journals such as Sociology, Qualitative Research, Theoretical Criminology, and the British Journal of Criminology. 

I have been on various journal Editorial Boards. I was Chair of the Editorial Board of Sociological Research Online and I am currently on the Editorial Board of Qualitative Research. 

I share all of the course material with participants via a secure Google Drive folder 3 working days before the course. It is then up to you if you want to print copies or consult them on your laptop.

The courses are designed as live training sessions and this is the opportunity you have to ask questions about the course material, interact with peers and the trainer, and get the full value of the course.

For those who wish to book on a course but not attend the live session (instead reading the material in their own time): I do not respond to queries (i.e. via email) outside of the live delivery on Zoom for those who do not attend on the day. The information on slides is a summary only, and you will not gain the full benefits of the course from only reading through the material. For ethical reasons, I cannot issue certificates of attendance to participants who do not attend the entirety of the live training on Zoom.

I cannot stop people from choosing to consume the course content in this way. However the training is designed as a live session and this is the opportunity you have to ask questions about the course material. I will not respond to queries (i.e. via email, and outside of the live delivery on Zoom to make up for non-attendance on the day). The training is designed as live content delivery, so the information on slides is a summary only, and you will not gain the full benefits of the course. These are gained from attending and participating in the live interactive sessions. For ethical reasons, I also cannot issue certificates of attendance (see below) to participants who do not attend the entirety of the live training on Zoom.

I can provide coaching and/or mentoring for those undertaking qualitative research projects and on various aspects of qualitative methods and academic skills. 

You can find out more on the Coaching and Mentoring page on my website.

For any PhD students considering this service, there must be an open dialogue between you and your supervisor/s so that they are aware of the coaching you have been receiving. You must have the permission of your supervisors and university to engage in coaching and/or mentoring services. Your supervisor/s should always be your first port of call.