Lecture overview

Author

Affiliation

📖 The main lecture

This is the landing page for the main lecture of the module Theoretical and Empirical Research Methodology. The lecture introduces the theoretical and methodological foundations of empirical research; the Implementation Lab then puts these concepts into practice using the statistical programming language R.

The lecture takes place on Mondays, 11:30–13:00, in Room MAD 024 (Madrid Building) during the lecture period 14 September – 11 December 2026. It is taught jointly by several members of the teaching team (see the individual session pages for who teaches what). The goals, rules and workload of the module are documented in the seminar description.

How does the lecture relate to the lab?

The two parts run in parallel and are designed to complement each other: a topic discussed conceptually in the Monday lecture is, where applicable, implemented hands-on in the Friday lab. You find the lab schedule on the lab overview page.

🗓️ Lecture schedule

The lecture of 5 October had to be cancelled and was moved to 19 October; all later sessions shifted accordingly. There is no class in the week of 12–16 October 2026. Lecture 08 is a **video lecture** released on 2 November and has no on-site session, which is why the numbering does not follow the dates. The Monday of 7 December is kept in reserve. The concluding open Q&A of the whole module is the lab session on 11 December.
Lecture	Date	Topic	Instructor
1	14 Sep 2026	General introduction	Anna-Katharina & Claudius
2	21 Sep 2026	AI tools in practice	Claudius
3	28 Sep 2026	Basics of logic	Anna-Katharina
—	05 Oct 2026	Session cancelled — moved to 19 Oct 2026	—
—	12 Oct 2026	No class (non-teaching week)	—
4	19 Oct 2026	Logic, argumentation, models, and explanation	Anna-Katharina
5	26 Oct 2026	Quantitative and qualitative research	Anna-Katharina
6	02 Nov 2026	Interviews	Anna-Katharina
8	02 Nov 2026	Literature reviews — video lecture	Claudius
7	09 Nov 2026	Case studies	Anna-Katharina
9	16 Nov 2026	Statistics recap	Claudius
10	23 Nov 2026	Regression analysis	Claudius
11	30 Nov 2026	Experiments	Claudius
—	07 Dec 2026	Reserve slot — no lecture	—

Slides and reading lists are distributed via the individual session pages above and via Moodle.