Qualitative Interpretive Research Methodology (QINR) - Graduate Certificate

Meet a growing need for qualitative research

This 15-hour Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Interpretive Research Methodology is suitable for any graduate student from education, arts and humanities, and social science who wishes to understand the world and conduct research through an interpretivist perspective.

About This Certificate

Catalog and Course Details

Graduate certificates are intended to meet the supplemental post-baccalaureate education needs of professionals. A graduate certificate program is a set of courses that provides in-depth knowledge in a subject matter. The set of courses provides a coherent knowledge base.

The Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education at Texas Tech University offers graduate students the opportunity to earn a Qualitative/Interpretive Research Certificate (QINR). Over the course of the past three decades, qualitative research has been increasingly conducted and influential in social and applied sciences. By responding to the growing need for local, national, and international training in qualitative research, this certificate program is suitable for any graduate student from education, arts and humanities, and social science, who wishes to understand the world and conduct research through an interpretivist perspective. We are also welcome to degree holders who wish to pursue this certificate for additional training and credentialing. This program considers what constitutes sound, ethical, and rigorous research from different theoretical and epistemological approaches. It further acknowledges the role that “scientific” research plays in promoting and maintaining various power relations across groups. We seek to use qualitative research to trouble concepts like researcher/researched, knowledge and practice, and truth. Finally, this program also provides those who may be interested in teaching qualitative research courses with a broad knowledge base, along with a variety of learning experiences, useful tools, and skills.

In this 15-credit hour (5 courses) certificate program, students will be invited to thoroughly investigate critical issues in the field as they think qualitatively and act reflectively to design and conduct meaningful qualitative studies to answer impactful research questions.  

Requirements

Prerequisite courses: 

• Introduction to constructivist inquiry methodologies (or equivalent) 

Core Courses:

• Advanced constructivist inquiry methodologies 

Elective Courses (choose 4): 

• Critical Ethnography 
• Narrative Inquiry 
• Discourse Analysis 
• User Experience Research 
• Digital content analysis 
• Case Study Research 
• Design-Based Research 
• Community engaged Scholarship 

Additional Requirements

Several of the above elective courses could be completed using either a qualitative or quantitative orientation. We ask that within these courses, students adopt a qualitative orientation.  

Additionally, while we recognize the importance of coursework, we also feel that production of scholarship is a hallmark of this certificate. As such, students pursuing a certificate in qualitative research must:  

• present their work at least one regional, national, or international conference, and 
• prepare a manuscript for publication. 

While the conference does not have to focus exclusively on qualitative research, the student’s presentation must rely primarily on qualitative research as a methodological approach or further thinking/theory regarding qualitative methodologies. Similarly, the manuscript does not have to be submitted to a journal that exclusively focuses on qualitative research, but the material should either be empirical in nature and investigated primarily via qualitative methods, or it should further thinking regarding qualitative research in some capacity.