Course Description
This course (INF2242H – Information Policy Research Methods) prepares students for the practice of applied and formal policy research to complement future endeavours in professional practice or scholarship that intersect with public or institutional policy development. We ground our approach to methodological design in the critical fields of STS inclusive of ethnographic field studies, laboratory studies, critical discourse and rhetorical analysis, feminist science studies, social construction of technology, actor-network theory, activity theory, and organizational studies. The course focuses on how to study policy, how to engage in critical analysis of live policy issues in the public and private domains, and how to weigh the merits of quantitative and qualitative approaches to the task at hand. We discuss the applicability of different methods, methodologies, and frameworks within the context of research design. INF2242H may be used to satisfy the research methods requirement for the thesis pathway.
Recommended: INF1001H
Note: Title and Description are effective September 1st, 2025. Previously “Studying Information and Knowledge Practice”