Teaching
Tuula Juvonen teaches Qualitative Research Methods to postgraduate students at the University of Tampere, Finland. This is an internet-based course with an objective to teach students about the different methods available to analyse qualitative data.
Juvonen’s students come from a variety of countries and academic backgrounds. According to her, having students from different parts of the world can be challenging. In responding to her students’ interests and needs, Juvonen identified two qualitative data collections from UK Data Service, both focused on migration topics: Polish Migrants in London and Meeting Basic Needs? Exploring the Survival Strategies of Forced Migrants and eventually used the latter in her course.
Juvonen notes that this data collection works really well for students who are exploring content or discourse analysis. “They wrote fabulous analyses on the issues of re-using data,” she says. Juvonen chose four interviews from each data collection because she “didn’t want to overwhelm the students” with the collection’s rich resources. She further elaborates on how they managed the data in the classroom:
“I asked students to write one page about a research question that they wanted to explore. I tried to work with them on specific and answerable questions. They were writing in two steps: [first] a draft [that] I would comment [on], [then] they would rewrite it. The students liked the idea that they had some comments in-between and that the papers were delivered through the website so they could see others’ work and learn from that.”
When talking about the benefits of using real data in the classroom, she notes that students get a good sense of how carrying out research takes place. Some have trouble realising that real data is messy and not ideal as in their textbooks. In her own words:
“When you read books you only see the final version of it and it always looks nice and neat, but now you have the chance to look at how the process takes place. It’s really useful and good for them to realise how this process takes part. This was a really good learning experience for students.”
Her plans for the future include using more real data in the classroom. She says that, “the idea of using original research data is something that works very well and I would be happy to continue on those lines. If I teach to international students I would use it. It was easy to understand and required very little effort on my side.”