Tuesday 20th of June

11am - 1pm

Dr Qudsia Kalsoom

Dr Qudsia Kalsoom is a lecturer at the University of Dundee. She has extensive experience in teaching at graduate and postgraduate levels. She has developed and taught different modules. Some of them are: Research Methodologies; Philosophies of Education; Policy Analysis: Tools and Practices; International Education; and Leadership and Organizational Development. In addition to teaching, Dr Kalsoom has experience in research supervision at Master’s and doctoral levels. She is a fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Dr Kalsoom's research focuses on the issues related to sustainability and environmental education in higher education. Her interdisciplinary work has connections with environmental humanities. Dr Kalsoom also serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education.

About this Session

The session aims at helping doctoral students to situate their research under an appropriate research paradigm by clarifying their own ontological, epistemological, axiological and methodological assumptions. The session will include a discussion on classification of different research paradigms and their relationship with research questions and research methods. The session will specifically focus on discussing the major paradigmatic perspectives which have been widely discussed in mixed-methods literature. They include pragmatism; critical realism and transformative/ Critical Theory. The participants will unpack their own paradigmatic assumptions and compare them with the assumptions made by others. They will also find connections between paradigms, research questions and research design.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Identify their own philosophical assumptions (ontological and epistemological).
• Compare their ontological and epistemological assumptions with those of others.
• Situate their assumptions under the broader research paradigms of positivism, interpretivism, pragmatism, transformative or critical realism.
• Make connections between their philosophical assumptions, their research questions and research design.

Who might be interested?

This session will be of particular interest to all doctoral researchers (especially in the first and second year) in all disciplines of the arts and humanities.

Participant pre-requisites

Participants are expected to have developed draft research questions. No pre-work is required. 

Event contact: qkalsoom001@dundee.ac.uk 

Click here to register

Zoom links will be emailed to registrants prior to the events.

First published: 11 May 2023