A major objective of the University of Transkei Research Resource Centre is to enable staff and students to acquire research knowledge and skills. This is intended to empower faculty to initiate quality research projects and participate effectively in ongoing research. We recognised that research skills of staff and students ranged from none to well-experienced. In addressing different needs we found that an effective method was to relate all activities to the context of the research and where possible to specific research projects. Importantly we endeavoured to anticipate needs and afforded researchers with face-to-face sessions, a number of workshops, short courses and research seminars. This paper discusses how the consultancy process is used to empower social science researchers.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education