ARTS40230: Reimagining Health Research: Methodologies in the Critical Medical Humanities

• None

• ARTS40330 Concepts and Frameworks in the Critical Medical Humanities

• None

• To equip students with advanced knowledge and skills in critically appraising key health research methodologies utilised in the critical medical humanities.
• To foster students ability to assess ideas and evidence from a variety of sources and kinds of evidence bases, and to choose, justify, or critique work done in across the key disciplines within the critical medical humanities
• To engage students in reflective work that encourages the denaturalisation of their existing competences, habits, and disciplinary backgrounds, as well as fostering their interdisciplinary literacy
• To contribute towards students' preparation for carrying out research projects in the critical medical humanities

• This module will introduce students to a variety of research methodologies utilised in critical medical humanities research. Students will gain foundational familiarity with critical methodologies (including close reading, the use of case studies, narrative and thematic analysis, historical textual/archival research, conceptual engineering, and phenomenology); qualitative methodologies (including conducting interviews, working with focus groups, qualitative surveys, ethnographic and participatory action approaches) and quantitative methods that can support interdisciplinary medical humanities research. Students will be able to situate their knowledge of different disciplinary methodologies in relation to inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that have been developed within the critical medical humanities. Students will gain practice in the evaluation of different kinds of evidence and assessing the strengths and limitations of methodological approaches within the varied contexts of health research. Working collaboratively, students will have the opportunity to apply this knowledge in the design of original research projects.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Identify the strengths and limitations of a range of critical, qualitative and quantitative research methodologies as they are used within the medical humanities, and as they function to situate debates about health, illness and medicine within broad debates about social, political and economic processes and disciplinary commitments.
• Critically reflect upon their own disciplinary and/or professional background and/or training
• Recognise and articulate the importance of interdisciplinary research on health and some of the difficulties it involves
• Utilise their knowledge of a variety of research methodologies to design multi- and interdisciplinary research projects with a health relevance

Subject-specific Skills:

• Analyse and evaluate key research methodologies from the humanities and social sciences as they are applied within a health-related context
• Identify methodologies appropriate to answering complex health questions and justify those selections
• Differentiate multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, articulating their value within the context of health-related research
• Apply knowledge of different methodological approaches in the design of research projects and communicate this effectively in written proposals to a high standard

Key Skills:

• Acquire complex information of diverse kinds in structured and systematic ways, using a wide range of subject-specific and interdisciplinary tools and sources
• Evaluate and interpret complex information of diverse kinds produced by a range of methodological approaches
• Engage critically with discipline-specific and interdisciplinary health research through rigorous evaluation of the way diverse forms of evidence are produced, valued and analysed
• Demonstrate independence of thought and judgement
• Formulate a research question or problem and design a multi- or interdisciplinary approach to its investigation
• Work collaboratively with students of varied backgrounds
• Reflect upon the nature of their experiences, and the capacity to improve own learning and performance through independent learning and peer feedback.
• Plan work effectively, with appropriate time-management skills.

• It will use a 'flipped classroom' model, drawing on short, pre-recorded video lectures and readings provided from across the departments contributing the programme.
• Each week, students will be able to access short (15-20 minute) lectures addressing that week's topic, linked together by reflective exercises, multi-media explorations, and readings to support their engagement with the material. Weekly seminars will then provide time and space for student responses to provided questions, supplementary content from the module convenor, and further discussion of the week's topic.
• Students will have two in-person individual supervisions sessions during the term, and be assigned to a study group with other students to complete the methodology portfolio. There are 20 hours of workshop time allocated for the study group.
• The module will be assessed through an independent reflective response paper (30%) and an independent peer review paper(20%), and a group methodology portfolio (50%). The reflective response paper requires each student to consider early in the term how they would intuitively approach answering a research question before then outlining an alternative method for answering that same question. This paper contains a formative element. It supports students to critically reflect on their own disciplinary background in formulating a question that can then also be explored using one or more of the other methodologies explored in the module. The methodology portfolio supports students to practice working with peers from different professional and academic backgrounds to design a collaborative critical medical humanities research project. Each student group will produce a portfolio outlining their understanding of a given research question or topic and proposing a programme of research to address this within given time and personnel constraints. Group presentations will be made available to peers. In the peer review paper, students will write a report independently evaluating another groups proposals, gaining experience of justifying their assessments of methodological decisions.

If you have a question about Durham's modular degree programmes, please visit our Help page. If you have a question about modular programmes that is not covered by the Help page, or a query about the on-line Postgraduate Module Handbook, please contact us.

Prospective Students: If you have a query about a specific module or degree programme, please Ask Us.

Current Students: Please contact your department.