MSc/PgDip/PgCert Applied Social Research Methods

Program Overview

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Applied Social Research Methods

Overview

This master’s in Applied Social Research Methods will equip you with the practical skills, academic knowledge, and professional attributes necessary to design and deliver research projects from start to finish. At heart, this course will build your capacity, expertise, and confidence in designing and undertaking research from inception to delivery. Our course is underpinned by academic rigour twinned with a commitment to workplace readiness.

Course Details

Attendance

• Full-time
• Part-time

Course Duration

• One year (full-time)
• Two years (part-time)

Next Enrolment

• September 2025

Introduction

This course sits within a suite of recently developed innovative social science postgraduate courses which bring together academic rigour with workplace readiness. This course will develop your practical, academic, and professional skillset in research methods and design across the following modules. Each module builds upon the former to deepen your understanding and build your confidence as a research practitioner.

Core Modules

Applied Research in Practice

This core module runs for all courses in the newly developed social sciences postgraduate suite. This means you will make connections and build relationships with peers across the social science postgraduate cohort. The module addresses the nuts and bolts of building a research project from inception to delivery. It explores how we respond to a social problem as researchers, how to design a project, recruit participants, collect and analyse data (quantitative and qualitative), and communicate findings.

Making Methods

This module explores innovations in applied social research methods with a focus on new and creative approaches to understanding individuals, communities, and organisations. This module will provide hands-on experience to trial creative methodologies—examples include photovoice techniques, ethnography, longitudinal diaries, and participatory design.

Supporting Research: Leadership and Impact

This module builds an advanced understanding of both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis and the philosophical traditions they are rooted in. This module explores current and likely future trajectories of research in an era of big data and challenges to traditional Western paradigms of research.

Social Sciences Postgraduate Dissertation

This 60-credit module will include a range of workshops to support you in developing and delivering a high-quality postgraduate dissertation assessment. You will be supported to deliver either (a) a traditional 12,000-word dissertation or (b) a 10,000-word report based on a workplace challenge you have used research to explore.

Optional Modules

• Changing Lives: Living with Justice and Injustice
• Making Change Happen

Teaching

This course is taught by an interdisciplinary teaching team who bring specific research and methodological expertise to module workshops. Teaching colleagues have extensive experience not only in using but, through their scholarship, challenging research methods. They have experience in building research capacity in diverse organizations beyond university settings and in conducting research across a range of communities.

Assessment

This course is underpinned by applied assessments that are appropriate to each module and relevant to current/future workplaces. Each module will include a range of formative assessment activities within workshops to test your skills. There will be two final summative assessments on each module that will give you a final overall module grade.

School of Health and Society

The School of Health and Society is a forward-thinking, dynamic school with a commitment to lifelong learning and real-world impact.

Teaching Staff

• Dr John Jordan, Programmer Leader and Lecturer in Social Policy
• Dr Emilie Whitaker, Senior Lecturer

Employment and Stats

Whilst many master's courses in social research focus on directing students into PhD programmes, our course brings the rigour, methodological curiosity, and philosophical awareness of an academic programme into conversation with real-world social issues and challenges. With that in mind, you will be well-placed for careers in a variety of sectors and organisations that engage with social issues and challenges.

Requirements

Applicant Profile

This programme is designed for those who have some research experience and those who have none. For those already in research and policy roles, this course will tighten and deepen your skillset and place it within an intellectual history and context. This sets you up well for PhD study or promotion. For those newer to research, but fascinated by a particular social issue or problem, you will be supported to translate your interests into a workable research plan and supported at each turn to try out methods and analysis.

Standard Entry Requirements

• Undergraduate degree: A lower second-class (2:2) or above in an undergraduate degree is required.
• English Language Requirements: International applicants will be required to demonstrate English proficiency by achieving an overall IELTS score of 6.5, with no component below 6.0.

Alternative Entry Requirements

• Salford Alternative Entry Scheme (SAES)

Fees

• Full-time home: £9,100 per year (2025/26)
• Full-time international: £14,000 per year (2025/26)
• Part-time: Part-time costs will be calculated on a pro rata basis.

Additional Costs

You should also consider further costs which may include books, stationery, printing, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits.