Thank you all for your engagement with the course so far, including your interactions with each other. This is very valuable because it helps to create a community of researchers on each of our platforms - Edraak and FutureLearn.

We have also been really pleased to see the connections the participants are making with the research methods and their own research projects. By sharing your experiences from your own research projects, you are bringing so much extra value to the course.

For example, on Edraak, we heard about a “photo voice” style collaborative research project being conducted to revive a heritage building in a historic neighbourhood by giving cameras to residents to take photos of what is important to them and discuss their points of view.

On FutureLearn, we heard about research being conducted to assess how people manage their money using using multiple methods including immersive field techniques such as observations of how people make transactions. Please continue because in this way we can all learn so much from each other.

There have been some interesting discussions about which research methods you prefer. The method you eventually choose, however, will be led by your research question and your context.

We have some useful interview questions added to the Padlets. And we had an interesting question posed in Edraak about how can you prevent people not telling the truth in interviews. This makes a nice link back to week 1 where we emphasised the importance of building trust with participants.

We are looking continuing the conversations next week.

Eileen and Diana

Over to you

In the forum, you can post your questions to the educators at any time during the week.

Also, please ‘Like’ the other questions you would most like to have answered. Then at the end of the week the educators will post their replies to all the most popular questions.

We look forward to seeing you in Week 3 when we will:

• Produce a proposal for a community based research project

and consider ways of analysing data, look again the sensitivities of the research process, think about making an impact with your research and hold a live networking event.