In June 2012 HEA Social Sciences held a teaching and learning summit at which delegates discussed what they viewed as the current key issues past projects that had provided innovative approaches to teaching research methods and how the HEA might focus the strategic project to help address issues and support the social science community. John MacInnes's paper was one of three which formed the basis for our 'state of the nations' panel discussion.
It is beyond reasonable doubt that quantitative methods have been unduly neglected in most of UK social science over the last thirty years. For the last decade ESRC has attempted with mixed success to improve training at postgraduate level and has now shifted its attention to undergraduate teaching. Along with substantial investment by the Nuffield Foundation the British Academy and other stakeholders there is now some prospect that a problem which has been recognised but left unresolved for at least a quarter of a century might be energetically tackled. Success depends upon both an adequate diagnosis of the roots of the problem (as opposed to awareness of its symptoms) and a treatment that offers some prospect of a cure. I suggest that the root of the problem is the way in which UK social science has been co-opted by what I call ‘social comment’. This has led to too much emphasis on critique exposition and the presentation of argument and the relative neglect of methodology statistics and rules for the collection analysis and testing of empirical evidence. Reversing decades of neglect will not be easy since there is something for everyone in social comment: career success for graduates engaging teaching and ‘relevance’ for faculty and even good NSS scores; while numerical or statistical illiteracy can often be seen as something of a badge of honour. Quantitative methods can also be made exciting and rewarding: not least because of the well proven capacity of good scientific methods to shock inspire and challenge complacency. However this will require some creative innovation in how we teach them.
