Qualitative Research Graduate Certificate

Location(s): Manhattan Campus, Manhattan Online

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This 18-credit hour graduate certificate is offered by the Department of Educational Leadership in collaboration with other departments within the College of Education. This certificate was created in response to the demand for trained qualitative researchers at the national and international levels. The need for trained qualitative researchers reflect an interdisciplinary demand, such as those who can work in academia, public health, non-profit sector, business and marketing, amongst others.

This program is suitable for anyone who wants to use qualitative inquiry in their professional spaces. This would include people who want to conduct qualitative inquiry in their scholarly, or scholarly practitioner projects. Students will be introduced to learning qualitative methods from a broad social science perspective so they understand how qualitative research has been taken up in education and other fields. This experience will allow students to make connection between different parts of the inquiry process, thereby developing a stronger understanding of how to conceptualize, execute, and report projects conducted through qualitative inquiry.

This certificate may connect with one or more master degree programs. At the recommendation of the academic program, students may apply credits earned through this graduate certificate completion towards a graduate program at Kansas State University, provided that all Graduate School policies are fulfilled.

Course Requirements

Required Courses

EDLEA 838 - Qualitative Research in Education Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 938 - Advanced Data Analysis in Qualitative Methods Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 948 - Data Representation and Writing in Qualitative Research Credits: 3 or equivalent

Elective Courses

6-9 credit hours

EDLEA 828 - Scholarly Orientation to Graduate Studies Credits: 3 or equivalent
Can only be used if students choose to write a research interest paper that explores a research interest via qualitative inquiry.
EDLEA 958 - Case Study in Qualitative Research Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 848 - Understanding Theoretical Frameworks Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 968 - Discourse Analysis Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 988 - Differentiated Research Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 978 - Qualitative Data Management and Analysis Using Nvivo Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 938 - Advanced Data Analysis in Qualitative Methods Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDLEA 929 - Narrative and Arts-Based Inquiry in Qualitative Research Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDCI 760 - Action Research in Education Credits: 3 or equivalent
EDCI 920 - Narrative Inquiry in Education Credits: 3 or equivalent
Outside Electives
THTRE 862 - Workshop in Playwriting Credits: 3 or equivalent
THTRE 880 - Master’s Project Credits: 3 or equivalent
Project in Ethnodrama
HDFS 809 - Qualitative Research Methods in Human Development and Family Science Credits: 3 or equivalent
HDFS 808 - Topics in Applied Family Science Credits: 1 or equivalent

Optional Courses

Applied project could constitute a completion of a dissertation using qualitative methods. Students who wish to use their completed dissertation using qualitative methods could use a maximum of 3 credit hours to complete this requirement. Certificates will be granted only after the completion of a dissertation.

Students who wish to submit a publishable paper to a refereed journal based on an empirical study, could use 3 credit hours earned from EDLEA 988 - Differentiated Research (Pre-requisite EDLEA 838 ).

Other ways of submitting a publishable paper to a refereed journal could include, but not limited to, preparing the manuscript as a result of specific coursework, or preparing the manuscript as an independent study with a faculty member, or preparing the manuscript, outside of coursework through the student’s own initiative.

Kansas State University

Course Catalog