The Social Research Methods MSc provides essential training for employment where an understanding of social research is important, as well as for further academic research in a social science discipline.
This MSc course at Kent exposes students to a wide range of thinking and approaches in social science research presented in a multi-disciplinary context and at an advanced level.
The focus of the course is on developing practical skills in data collection, in data analysis and interpretation, and in the presentation of research findings so that students gain insight into the research process from design to the production of new knowledge.
More generally students will broaden their understanding of the philosophical, theoretical and ethical issues that matter in research, and will become aware of debates about the relationship between theory and research and between research and policy/practice.
It is possible to study certain individual modules from the MSc on a Standalone basis. They provide a taster and introduction to studying Social Research Methods, and if you wish to continue studying, you can use the credits from your taster modules to work towards a qualification in Social Research Methods (PCert or MSc). Costs for standalone modules can be found on the Kent Online Store (please note that you must submit an application (link below) before paying for a module on the online store).
A good honours degree in a relevant subject. In certain circumstances, the School will consider applicants who have not followed a conventional education path and these cases are assessed individually.
All applicants are considered on an individual basis and additional qualifications, professional qualifications and relevant experience may also be taken into account when considering applications.
Please see our International Student website for entry requirements by country and other relevant information. Due to visa restrictions, students who require a student visa to study cannot study part-time unless undertaking a distance or blended-learning programme with no on-campus provision.
This course requires a Very Good level of English language, equivalent to a high B2 on CEFR.
Details on how to meet this requirement can be found on our English Language requirements webpage.
Examples:
IELTS 6.5 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component
PTE Academic 67 with a minimum of 59 in each sub-test
A degree from the UK
A degree from a Majority English Speaking Country
Please note that if you are required to meet an English language condition, we offer a number of pre-sessional courses in English for Academic Purposes through Kent International Pathways.
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The following modules are what students will typically study, but this may change year to year in response to new developments and innovations.
You take the compulsory modules listed below, choosing to take either Quantitative Data Analysis or Advanced Quantitative Methods, and Data Analysis in the Real World or Analysing Data with Quantitative Methods. You must then choose two modules from the optional list below.
Alternatively, you can take Quantitative Data Analysis and Advanced Quantitative Methods, and then select only one module from the optional list below.
This course provides students with the understanding and skills necessary to use research, whether within a research career or outside of it. Building on other training in the details of specific methods, it focuses on two sets of broader questions. First, it critically analyses central concepts such as truth, power, ethics, and uncertainty in social research. When addressing these issues, the module engages with how they are dealt with and approached in qualitative and quantitative research. In the module students will engage actively with these issues and critically reflect upon their own views and how they apply them in their own research projects. We particularly discuss the difficulties of causal inference and generalisation, coming to conclusions from research reviews, and philosophical issues around ‘truth’ and values. Second, it looks at the link between research and action. In doing this, it goes from the very practical (how to ensure that your research is used by policymakers and/or practitioners, and to deal with the political pressures on researchers) to the conceptual (in what ways does evidence get used by wider society?) to the normative (should researchers be ‘critical’, and if so, what are their ethical obligations in doing this?).
Asking questions about society is primary to the work of a social scientist. However, how we go about asking those questions is not straightforward. When planning reliable and generalisable research many steps need to be taken to ensure robust results. This course provides students with the tools to do just that.
The course introduces students to the logic and methods of social research, including the central topics in research design, understanding the methodological choices necessary when designing social research, and the realities of ensuring ethical research from the start. Throughout this process, students will be introduced to both the positivist and critical/interpretive debates behind social research. Additionally, both qualitative and quantitative will be covered. This will prepare students to design a research proposal, including selecting appropriate methods, formulating a research plan which covers data collection and analysis, and ultimately allowing them to successfully conduct their own research.
Qualitative methods allow us to explore and understand complex phenomena in-depth. They are particularly well-suited for situations where the aim is to gain insights into the meanings, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of individuals or groups.
After this module you will have gained the ability to apply critical qualitative methods to complex social issues, skills that are highly sought after in the job market. During your studies on the module, you will get a chance to apply your skills on real-life issues, with deep critical skills leaving you with the experience of being able to apply these both digitally and in real life.
This module focuses on the theory and practice of qualitative research and will give you a chance to develop and apply state of the art qualitative research methods skills. The module allows you to apply your skills, readying you for using these as a researcher and in future employment. It explores the various aspects of using and collecting qualitative data, how to analyse your findings and to present them.
The aim of the module is to illustrate a range of practical and advanced qualitative techniques while considering related problems of evidence and inference in qualitative analyses. You will be versed in a range of qualitative techniques in an interactive and real-life focused teaching and learning environment, and will have the opportunity to practice some of them, such as:
focus groups;
oral history;
case study methods;
ethnographic theory and method;
action research;
critical discourse analysis;
narrative analysis;
visual methods.
Quantitative research is a vital part of social science. Without understanding quantitative research and quantitative evidence, a substantial fraction of the social scientific literature will be closed to you. This module will teach you how to conduct quantitative research in the social sciences and how to interpret the findings of quantitative research.
You will learn the fundamental principles that lie behind statistics and statistical techniques. You will also learn how to produce descriptive statistics, and how to use statistical techniques to examine relationships between social variables. You will also learn how to use regression methods to answer causal research questions.
By completing this module you will be equipped both to interpret quantitative research conducted by others, and to carry out your own quantitative studies and describe them in a scientific format. You will also understand the limits of statistical techniques and what different kind of claims are (and are not) warranted by different kinds of statistical evidence.
The skills you learn on this module are highly sought after in the job market, in particular the ability to apply them to real life scenarios, and critically assessing which quantitative methods work to study a particular issue arising in your job. At Kent we are a leading social research methods team, working with government, third sector and private sector organisations who seek students with these skills.
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his is a module that set you aside employability wise, as it equips you with advanced quantitative methods skills that are lacking in the job market. The skills acquired in this module are highly relevant across various disciplines and professions where statistical analysis and causal inference play a crucial role. The skills you learn on this module are particularly sought after in private, third sector and government jobs that requires the analysis of data, from social to political and financial data.
This module provides you with advanced knowledge and skills in statistical analysis, focusing on two key topics: the General Linear Model (GLM) and Causal Analysis. The GLM serves as a fundamental framework for modelling relationships between variables, encompassing techniques such as linear, logistic, nominal, ordinal and various log-transformed regression techniques.
The module also delves into causal analysis, addressing the complex relationship between variables and identifying causal mechanisms. Topics include causal inference methods, counterfactual reasoning, and the potential outcomes framework. You will learn how to design studies, identify causal relationships, and assess causality in observational and experimental settings.
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The aims of this module are twofold:
First, to provide students with the opportunity to independently carry out an in-depth inquiry to investigate a research question(s) of their choice, producing a coherent review of the relevant literature, a logical discussion and a clearly communicated set of conclusions in the form of a dissertation.
Second, to prepare students to become ‘research-minded’ practitioners in order that they have the capacity to undertake research in practice settings and/or take a lead role in supervising others in such work.
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Understanding what works, why, where and for whom remains a fundamental inquiry across diverse organisations and financial sectors, especially in the realm of designing and implementing policies with far-reaching impacts across populations, locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally. This module equips you with a comprehensive grasp of qualitative and quantitative tools, and other research methodologies crucial for executing evidence-based evaluations.
You will delve into the analysis of policies, examining their design, outcomes, and impacts to determine whether they effectively achieve their intended goals and objectives. Exploring key principles of impact evaluation and experimental design enable you to develop essential skills for understanding and critically assessing the policy process, enhancing your ability to navigate the challenges and political dynamics in policy.
Policy evaluation necessitates proficiency in research methods, data analysis, and critical thinking. This module guides you through each of these components, empowering you to gain the necessary skills. Recognising the significance of policy evaluation in establishing and sustaining effective, responsive, and accountable governance structures across various organisational contexts, the module places equal emphasis on both public and third-sector policies. This ensures you are equipped with applicable skills and prepared to leverage them across a broad spectrum of future roles and responsibilities.
Urban studies are often eclectic, bringing together a range of scholars from a wide range of disciplines who are interested in understanding some of the key social issues facing those who live and work in urban spaces. The module will introduce key methodological innovations in studying cities, including visual and sensory methods. This module will explore key theories related to urban studies (including key thinkers from geography, sociology, and criminology), urban methods literature, and literature on visual and sensory methods.
Globally we are seeing a wide range of pressures and challenges to national, regional, and international public policies, including rising social and economic inequalities and climate change. This course delves into the critical challenges faced in International Public Policy by systematically examining and differentiating key areas and issues. It does so by taking a deep dive into key policy areas of contemporary international public policy through critical discussions of empirical examples.
The module engages empirically and theoretically with contemporary international public policies, allowing students to engage with ‘real life’ public policy issues. It offers students a structured overview and critical discussion of the primary domains where international and national public policy agendas intersect and evolve and critically analysis variations in international policy responses. Specific areas of public policy covered include climate change and environmental issues, demographic changes including ageing societies, health, social security, migration policy, social and political exclusion and urban versus rural policies. The module will engage and teach students how various policy sectors grapple with transformative political, environmental and socio-economic processes their responses to these challenges will differ based on a range of internal and external socio-economic and political factors.
On this course you will take a deep dive into the world of comparative public policy where students develop tools allowing them to critically analyse the pressing challenges of our day and how they influence the policy landscape including globalisation; populism; the intersection of labour markets with society; and the evolving dynamics between welfare systems, social structures, and economic trends. On the module students will develop a comprehensive understanding of comparative public policy theories and methods, and an in depth understanding of what approaches to use in what circumstances. You will learn about the theoretical frameworks that shape the field, illustrated by captivating examples from diverse national, regional and international perspectives. Students will also get an understanding of how comparative public policy is shaped, by which institutions at these different governance levels, in other words analysing organisations such as the EU and the UN. Overall, the module will equip you with the theoretical, methodological and analytical tools needed to analyse comparative public policy issues. You will gain an in-depth understanding of policy developments, drivers, constraints and responses to key challenges within and across countries and over time.
The resolution of deep-rooted international conflict remains a challenge to the rapidly evolving field of international conflict resolution. This module responds to this challenge by providing students the opportunity to explore international conflict resolution methods such as mediation, negotiation, collaborative problem solving, and alternative dispute resolution. The approach is interdisciplinary and juxtaposes traditional approaches in conflict management with the scientific study of conflict and cooperation. Through a combination of lectures, seminars, role-plays, and practical exercises, students will develop essential negotiation and mediation skills while gaining a deeper understanding of conflict resolution processes. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to navigate complex negotiations and mediate disputes effectively in various professional settings.
Our teaching and assessment focus on applied skills and real-life scenarios, key in engaging students and making hard to teach skills easier to grasp and develop.
All assessments, lectures and seminars are designed to be cultivate your skills and enable you to apply knowledge in ways closely resembling the practices of independent social researchers in academia and beyond. Most of our teaching is in-person, however, we also have some online delivery.
For course aims and learning outcomes please see the course specification.
The atmosphere in the School is informal and friendly and has at its centre a lively and diverse postgraduate community. The weekly staff/postgraduate seminar series is designed to introduce you to the work of major scholars from the UK and abroad, and there is also a wide range of other seminar and workshop series each academic year.
Our postgraduate students have access to dedicated office space within the department and are able to take advantage of excellent library and computing facilities. Where appropriate, research students are encouraged to expand their experience by teaching part-time in the School.
Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. Among others, they have recently contributed to: Journal of Social Policy; Journal of European Social Policy; Voluntas; Social Policy and Administration; and Social Policy and Society.
All students registered for a taught Master's programme are eligible to apply for a place on our Global Skills Award Programme. The programme is designed to broaden your understanding of global issues and current affairs as well as to develop personal skills which will enhance your employability.
Academic staff at Kent share a number of interests, grouped here for your guidance. However, there is often a degree of overlap between groups and your research project does not have to fall neatly within any one of them. The School also has several research centres that bring together experts in the field, co-ordinate research, organise talks and offer opportunities for postgraduate students to get involved in discussions and research projects.
Staff in this research cluster seek to: understand the social forces and cultural interests that move people to take moral responsibility for responding to/caring for the needs of others; document and explain the institutional organisation of charitable behaviour and its social impacts; the socio-cultural dynamics of philanthropic behaviour and its effects on society. They also perform research into contemporary humanitarianism and its powers of influence over social policy and political process; and the character of the social ties and cultural values that structure the interrelationships between humanitarian action, charitable endeavour and philanthropic intervention; as well as the bearing of government policies and governmental processes upon the charitable sector and philanthropic activity.
Using the framework of studying different welfare regimes, academic staff research a wide range of topics, while postgraduate students conduct research projects in every part of the world. Many of these projects involve overseas students making comparative studies involving their own country and European or UK services. The work of academic staff has resulted in a wide range of policy research related to Europe. Recent cross-national work has included projects examining home care services for older people, formal and informal social care systems, institutional change and the future of welfare reform, industrial relations, housing and community activism. Other interests include globalisation and welfare, and subsidiarity and convergence. Current or recent thesis topics include: democratisation and social policy in Korea; youth homelessness in Greece and the UK.
Present studies cover a range of issues within the fields of health services, social work and health policy. Particular interests include health care organisation and policy; risk assessment and management; primary care; public and user views of health care; health inequalities; occupational therapy; care work in health and social care; adoption; foster care; adult attachment theory; mental health; child protection; body work; psychoanalysis; race, ethnicity and health. Current or recent thesis topics include: women’s health in Uzbekistan; improving men’s health: the role of healthy living centres; women, the body and madness.
Though socially and discursively constructed, ‘race’ continues to be a key basis of social division and identification in British society, across Europe, and globally. Not only do many disparate ethnic minority groups continue to identify along ethnic, racial and religious lines, but ethnicity and race continue to shape a variety of outcomes, such as employment, educational attainment and senses of ‘belonging’. In this sense, ‘race’ and the recognition of difference continues to matter and is a key element in the School’s research interests.
The critical analysis of risk and perceptions of risk have become central issues in the sociology of the ‘risk society’ and this is an important focus of activity in the School. Staff research includes work on health risks and their management, the implications of attitudes and behaviour concerning risk for the welfare state, the development of a culture of risk and anxiety, moral panics, risk and crime, risk and the life course, suffering, and the perceptions of new communications technology.
Interest in the issues surrounding work stretches across SSPSSR and current projects focus on work identity and meaning; work/life balance; age, generation and employment; visual representation of work; deindustrialisation; organisational sociology; gender, ethnicity and class at work; historiography of work sociology; moral economy; workplace ethnography and oral histories.
The School also has several research centres that bring together experts in the field, co-ordinate research, organise talks and offer opportunities for postgraduate students to get involved in discussions and research projects.
The Centre for Child Protection is part of the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) and is the first centre of its kind in Europe. Combining research with distance learning programmes and a range of innovative serious training games, the Centre for Child Protection is leading the way in building knowledge and training opportunities for professionals working in this area.
We aim to:
The Centre is led and informed by a team of experts in the field of child protection. With many years of experience in both research and practice, we are committed to improving the provision of continued professional development to enhance the skills of those involved in child protection.
The Centre for Health Services Studies has a strong record in attracting research grants from the National Institute for Health Research, European Union Framework Programme, ESRC, Department of Health, as well as local health authorities and trusts. It is a designated NIHR Research Design Support Service. Particular areas of expertise include pragmatic trials, risk assessment and management, care of vulnerable adults including older people, and public health.
Dedicated to an understanding of the social processes and cultural experiences by which people acquire moral dispositions to care for others, the Centre for Philanthropy offers a focal point for much of this work. Research is conducted into the ways in which our capacity for feelings are socially cultivated, corporately structured, politically mediated and economically expressed. The School is also linked to the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC), collaborating with the University of Birmingham on third sector theory and policy analysis.
The Centre was established in 1992 in order to consolidate Kent’s leading position in the study in Britain of social and political movements. The Centre is actively involved in international networks of social movement researchers through its participation in the Erasmus network on ‘Social movements, conflict and political action’ and through its members’ activity in the relevant research committees of the International Sociological Association, the European Sociological Association, and the European Consortium for Political Research.
The Centre conducts research into the concept of risk and uncertainty: how and why risk is manifested and how it is experienced in today’s society. Staff take an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing upon sociology, law, social psychology, and history. The Centre’s research seeks to understand causal issues from the perspectives of both individuals and organisations while considering the wider political and social context.
The PSSRU is the largest social services research unit in the UK, and operates at three sites: the University of Kent, the London School of Economics and the University of Manchester. Facilities include the Griffiths Library of Community Care, a reference library of more than 10,000 books, journals and other literature linked to the Unit’s field of study. Research focuses on needs, resources and outcomes in health and social care: major concerns are resourcing, equity and efficiency from the perspective of users, agencies and others. The Unit has developed a distinctive analytical framework called the ‘production of welfare approach’ to illuminate this research.
The University of Kent is one of 15 universities in the UK to have a Q-Step Centre, significantly funded by HEFCE, the Nuffield Foundation and ESRC, to provide students with advanced training in quantitative methods in social sciences.
The Centre is based in SSPSSR and incorporates teaching from Politics and International Relations, Law, Business and Liberal Arts. At its heart is the delivery of quantitative skills training in a subject context, a community-based project and professional placements. Quantitative Methods (QM) training, which greatly enhances employability and provides a deeper and more secure grasp of the quantitative skills needed to evaluate evidence and analyse data within a discipline, is delivered in a practical and engaging manner.
The Tizard Centre is part of the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) and has excellent links with health and social care organisations, and other relevant establishments. The Centre is at the forefront of learning and research in autism, intellectual disability and community care, and in 2013 received a Queen’s Anniversary Prize in recognition of its outstanding work in these areas.
Our primary aims, through research, teaching and consultancy, are:
The Tizard Centre is recognised as leading the field in deinstitutionalisation and community living, challenging behaviour, quality of staff support, sexuality and autism, and has had a significant impact on national policies in these areas. We are committed to addressing issues arising from social inequality.
Building on Kent’s success as the region’s leading institution for student employability, we place considerable emphasis on you gaining specialist knowledge in your chosen subject alongside core transferable skills.
We ensure that you develop the skills and competences that employers are looking for including: research and analysis; policy development and interpretation; independent thought; writing and presentation, as well as time management and leadership skills.
You also become fully involved in the professional research culture of the School. A postgraduate degree in the area of social and public policy is a particularly flexible and valuable qualification that can lead to many exciting opportunities and professions.
Recent graduates have pursued careers in academia, journalism, local and central government, charities and NGOs.
The 2025/26 annual tuition fees for this course are:
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
Tuition fees may be increased in the second and subsequent years of your course. Detailed information on possible future increases in tuition fees is contained in the Tuition Fees Increase Policy. If you are uncertain about your fee status please contact information@kent.ac.uk.
The University will assess your fee status as part of the application process. If you are uncertain about your fee status you may wish to seek advice from UKCISA before applying.
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
Tuition fees may be increased in the second and subsequent years of your course. Detailed information on possible future increases in tuition fees is contained in the Tuition Fees Increase Policy. If you are uncertain about your fee status please contact information@kent.ac.uk.
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