Preparing the Next Generation of Conflict Researchers

One of the curriculum innovations at ICAR this year is a full-year course on research methods. This course is intended to provide doctoral students with the skills and tools needed to do research, critique research proposals and journal articles, and prepare a dissertation project. Using the methods textbook by Colin Robson, Real World Research (Blackwell, 1993), the course surveys a dazzling array of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research in the social sciences. Students are introduced to ethnographic field methods, comparative case study approaches, survey sampling, experimentation, quasi-experimentation, and simulation as ways of generating new knowledge about conflict processes and behavior. They learn about the epistemological foundations of these methodologies, explore their use in current published research, and have an opportunity to use at least two approaches in research projects that they design and implement. Coordinated and taught by Dan Druckman, the students also benefit from guest lecturers, including Professors Kevin Avruch and Tom Dietz of George Mason's Sociology and Anthropology Department, and Juliana Birkhoff, formerly with ICAR's clinical program. That the course has already made an impact is indicated by a fair amount of enthusiasm expressed by students for doing research and being part of a larger research community.