Scholars Program Workshop: Methods and Methodology in Interdisciplinary Studies

On August 8, 2025, the Department of English and Humanities at ULAB organized a workshop titled “Methods and Methodology in Interdisciplinary Studies” exclusively for the Scholars Program students. This workshop was conducted by Prof. Mahmud Hasan Khan, PhD, Department of English and Humanities, ULAB.

Prof. Hasan began the workshop by explaining what a “discipline” is– he defined it as a field of studies, with the term “interdisciplinary studies” being used when one needs to use a discipline to talk about another. He later explained the “parallax view,” which refers to inherent differences in perspectives being utilized when examining a subject from multiple disciplines.

The next item on Dr. Hasan’s agenda was differentiating between methods and methodologies – methodology is a broader term under which we chip in our methods. While methods are specific, a methodology is abstract.

One must know a discipline’s origin, as well as its most updated version. Dr. Hasan also pointed out a simple pattern – discipline→ sub-discipline→ methodology→ methods. When preparing the methodology, one must choose a type: qualitative, quantitative, or mixed. It is also important to explain the reason for choosing that specific methodology to the readers.

Dr. Hasan explained methods with a simple analogy – methods are like a recipe, with specific measurements. These measurements must be followed correctly, in order to get the dish to come out perfectly. For instance, when collecting data for a research, one must collect it from the affected or minority groups. One must also not push their own agenda on to the paper, instead, let the evidence speak for itself.

When it comes to the participants in the study, Dr. Hasan mentioned that the researcher must understand how those participants read the papers. This can be done by simply analyzing the pages that they find appealing.

Lastly, he introduced the students to NLA (natural language analysis), which is used to study emotions from larger data.

Scholars Program Advisor Dr. Md. Mahadhi Hasan, Assistant Professor, Mr. Al Mahmud Rumman, Senior Lecturer, and Ms. Irtifa Hasan, Lecturer, DEH, were present at the workshop. The workshop concluded with a question and answer session with the students and a group photo.

Report by Tarannum Ahmed (231013042)