Humanities Research Methods in a Liberal Arts and Science Programme

Abstract

The humanities research methods course at University College Utrecht is one of the graduation requirements for students who major in a humanities discipline, in law, or in politics. There are several challenges to the design of such a course in a Liberal Arts and Sciences (LA&S) context. In our paper, we review the literature on the teaching of research methods across the humanities and beyond. Secondly, we assess student experiences of the humanities research methods course at UCU, using surveys and interviews, to explore to what extent the course deals with aforementioned challenges, and to find out where improvement is possible. Our research suggests that the value of this course lies in helping student develop an interdisciplinary research identity rather than in directly preparing them for writing a BA- thesis within a specific discipline.