Professor Anne Cranny-Francis: PhD Students Workshop

Method in your Madness: Exploring research practice

As part of her visit to Brunel University London, Professor Anne Cranny-Francis will be holding a workshop for Brunel PhD students. This workshop explores different research practices and how they might enhance your own project and/or add to your repertoire of research methods.  The session starts with a short presentation on Sensory Research developed for a specific project; to demonstrate the development of an innovative methodology that grew from both the demands of the project and the researcher’s own training.  

This is followed immediately by a discussion of the participants’ own projects and the methods they are using.  The aim is to identify the positive elements in their research design and also to explore the problems researchers have encountered and limitations they might be experiencing.  We also discuss how to characterize a methodology effectively for the purposes of thesis examination and subsequent publication.

After a short break, participants will be challenged to use an alternative method, randomly assigned, on their current project.  The purpose of this exercise is to open up the possibilities that a different method offers – not just of how to do the research, but also of the way of thinking that it enables.  Participants are asked to discuss in pairs their assigned method and the possibilities or problems it raises.  To conclude, this discussion will be shared with the group with the aim of exploring new ideas and ways of thinking opened up by trying a different way of conducting your own research.