Introduction to Social Research Methods

Social research is the careful study of how people live, what they think and how communities change. This course explains, in plain language, how that work is done and how to tell a sound study from a weak one.

The course has four modules. The first shows how a general interest becomes a research question and then a study design. The second describes the main ways of collecting evidence: surveys, interviews, observation and documents. The third explains sampling, bias and reliability, the ideas that decide how far a finding can be trusted. The fourth covers research ethics, the basics of analysis, and how to report findings without claiming more than the evidence supports.

Each lesson is a short text with key points and one practical exercise you can do alone, with a notebook and no special software. The examples are general or hypothetical, so the methods can be applied to any community or topic.

The course is written for students, community members, journalists and anyone who reads research and wants to understand how it was made. Respect for the people being studied, including informed consent and privacy, is treated as part of good method throughout.