Successful Qualitative Research Masterclass with Professor David Silverman
NARTI/LUBS Online Training & Development
If you are in the UK and your school is a NARTI member, you should definitely consider this event. Prof David Silverman is a qualitative scholar with a deep understanding of different qualitative approaches and a long-time proponent of collecting naturally occurring data, such as documents. For archival researchers, this is an important aspect, as it helps position historical research as a qualitative method.
NARTI/LUBS Online Training & Development
Successful Qualitative Research Masterclass with Professor David Silverman
3-5 March 2026 (10.00-12.30 UK time, each day)
Online via Zoom
Course Content:
Qualitative researchers often try to do the same as quantitative research but with smaller samples. This interactive master-class is relevant to PhD students and early career researchers who want to do qualitative research and to write it up rigorously and effectively. It offers lectures and data workshops covering the latest approaches to key areas of qualitative research. The workshop will consist of 5.5 hours of lectures, each followed by a Q&A and a concluding session where you are invited to raise questions about your own research in the light of this course. The topics covered are:
Foundations of Qualitative Research:
Majority versus minority conceptions of qualitative research. The value of naturalistic data. Meanings versus practices. Discovering the ‘black box’ of how social phenomena are constructed. Naturalism vs Constructionism.
Theorising with Qualitative Data
Why your theoretical contribution is a concern. Inducing theories. How theories derive from research models. The case of organizations. Positivism, Naturalism and Constructionism. Grounded Theory. Avoiding overblown theories.
Being credible
Why many qualitative research findings are not credible. What makes data reliable. Intensive and extensive data analysis. Using simple tabulations. Discovering deviant cases. Sequences vs instances in data analysis.
Mixed methods research
Two kinds of mixed methods: quant plus qual versus multiple qualitative methods. Two conventional assumptions: beginning with quant and using qual to ‘go deeper’. How to begin with qual to find a phenomenon, then moving to quant to find variance.
Impactful Qualitative Research
Our various stakeholders. Overcoming suspicions about qualitative research. Discovering relevance vs beginning with a social problem.
Prior viewing:
Please watch a recent Sage webinar where David introduces his latest book Qualitative Research 6th edition and explains how he reimagines qualitative research:
Schedule:
The course will be taught over three consecutive mornings with the following timetable:
March 3
10.00 Lecture 1 Foundations of Qualitative Research
10.45-11.00 Q&A
11.00-11.15 Short break
11.15-12.15 Lecture 2 Theorising with Qualitative Data
12.15-12.30 Q&A
March 4
10.00 Lecture 3 Being credible
10.45-11.00 Q&A
11.00-11.15 Short break
11.15-12.15 Lecture 4 Mixed Methods
12.15-12.30 Q&A
March 5
10.00-11.00 Lecture 5 Impactful qualitative research
11.00-11.15 Q&A
11.15-11.30 Short break
11.30-12.30 Q&A about your own research in the light of this course.
About the course leader:
Prof David Silverman is Visiting Emeritus Professor at Leeds Business School, Professor Emeritus in the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths College, London Visiting Professor in the King’s College Business School, University of London and the Business School, University of Technology, Sydney as well as Adjunct Professor at QUT, Faculty of Education. He has authored 15 books and over 60 journal articles on qualitative research, ethnography and conversation analysis. Thirty of his students have successfully completed their PhD and three are now full Professors.
His bestselling textbook Doing Qualitative Research [now in its 6th edition] is a manual for writing a qualitative PhD. Uniquely, it is based on conversations he has had with hundreds of social science research students in five continents.
Further readings:
A primer for writing up a qualitative PhD based on my responses to students’ queries:
Chapters by world-renowned scholars on how to analyse qualitative data
A provocative version of my kind of qualitative research:
25% off books with code: SAGEAUTH25
Order your copy at sagepub.co.uk
Didn't expect this take. Valuing naturalistic data, crucial insite.