Thursday, May 01, 2008

Social science PhD students short on quantitative skills

Doctoral students in the social sciences are failing to develop the research skills required for an academic career in the field, according to a research paper.

While students prefer to use qualitative methods of research in their PhDs, job vacancies for academic posts indicate a need for quantitative research skills such as computer programming and handling statistics, according to a paper by Rose Wiles, a research fellow at the University of Southampton.

"There is a dire shortage of properly trained quantitative researchers," one employer told Dr Wiles, whose paper "Methodological Approaches at PhD and Skills Sought for Research Posts in Academia: A Mismatch" was published in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology.

Read more here in the Times Higher Education Supplement.

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