GS2321: Seminar 1

Thursday, September 9, 10.00-12.00 or 13.00-15.00 at the School of Global Studies

The following is posted on GUL, https://gul.gu.se/public/courseId/41279/lang-sv/publicShowMessage.do?id=456149

Purpose of Seminar 1
There are two main purposes of the seminar. The first is to assess and discuss research design (including epistemological and ontological considerations) in a given thesis, based on the initial lectures of the course and the literature assigned to these lectures. The second purpose the seminar is to discuss the criteria by which we assess the quality of a master thesis.

Individual preparation for the seminar
Each student shall read one of the three master theses uploaded at GUL (entitled master thesis 1, 2 and 3) intensively (in detail) and the other two more extensively (you should be able to follow discussions on the research design of these master theses during the seminar). Each student should write a short report on the thesis which they have read in detail, based on the following questions:
1. Please describe and reflect upon the underlying epistemological and ontological assumptions of the thesis, according to your own understanding,.
2. Is the research question/s well formulated and motivated? Why/why not? Is the research question answered during the course of thesis? How?
3. How is theory used in the thesis (in relation to the research problem/research question/s? In the analysis? In the form of a theoretical framework?). In what way/s, if any, does theory add to the quality of the thesis?
4. Are the choice and implementation of the research method/s well formulated and motivated? How/why not?
5. How are the conclusions of the thesis drawn? Do you agree with the conclusions? Are the conclusions firmly based on the empirical data presented in the thesis?
6. Is this a thesis of high quality? Why/why not? (e.g. according to which criteria is the thesis good/not so good?)

If you participate actively in the seminar (e.g. contributing to the seminar discussions based on your individual preparation), you don’t have to submit your written report. However, if you fail to participate actively (being at the seminar unprepared or being absent from the seminar) you are requested to submit a written report of 2 – 4 pages (12p Times New Roman, 1,5 line spacing) to Per Knutsson (per.knutsson@globalstudies.gu.se).