On Friday 19th August, ENROPE’s special interesting group in Research Methodology and Ethics organised its first online session. Methodological challenges related to multilingual research was the title and the topic of this first session. The idea behind the session was that participants could bring with them a challenge that they currently face in their research. By presenting these challenges to each other and discussing these together, the aim was to learn from each other’s experience and knowledge and to make connections.
The underlying thought of the initiators, Tian Yan and Paulette van der Voet, is to provide a format that did not require a huge investment in time of the participants. Therefore, the session did not require any preparation other than thinking of a challenge that you face in your research. In addition, it was a rather short session, so that it would be easy for participants to fit it in their schedule.
The participants had together a lovely small group discussion about the methodological challenges that they are facing in their research. The challenges presented were very broad, but the group members could always contribute with different input and thoughts about the challenges. It was very useful that the participants came up with related examples from the specific contexts that they are working in. In addition, several reading tips were shared during and after the session.
In brief, it was a successful session with good discussions in the group about both research methodology and ethics. Further information about the SIG please contact Paulett van der Voet at voet.paulette@umu.se or Tian Yan at t.yan@exeter.ac.uk.