ISR Short Courses, Spring 2003

(Form)

Focus Groups For Social Research

This course is an introduction to focus group research. The morning session will deal with the basic features of focus group planning and implementation. The afternoon session will consider practical aspects of conducting focus groups, with a special emphasis on moderator techniques. Participants are invited to raise concrete problems for discussion relating to focus group design, the identification and selection of participants, and data collection.

Interpreting Qualitative Data - An Overview

The focus of this workshop will be on strategies for analyzing qualitative social science research materials, such as field notes or transcripts of in-depth interviews and focus groups. Major topics include: the characteristics and process of qualitative analysis, organizing data, emergent concepts and analytic memos. Organized around the major themes of keeping track of what you are doing, what you are finding, and how you are feeling about it, the session will pay particular attention to coding and indexing as integral components of the analytic process.

Using Computers In Qualitative Analysis: An NVivo Workshop

The focus of this workshop will be on using the software package NVivo for analyzing qualitative data, such as transcripts of in-depth interviews, focus groups and field notes. The morning session will focus on when and why to use NVivo, how to import text and how to code it.

In the afternoon we will examine the tools for analysing qualitative data in NVivo. This workshop will include a hands-on component.

An Introduction To Questionnaire Design

This course provides a broad examination of questionnaire design, reviewing methodological research and setting out design guidelines. A wide range of examples will be used to address major design issues such as question wording, question order, avoiding bias, dealing with social desirability, and the problem of recall. The relationship between questionnaire design and data collection, including the role of the interviewer, will be briefly considered.

Using Web-Based Surveys In Social Research

This seminar will include presentations from a number of researchers who have used Web-based surveys in their research. When and when not to use Web-based surveys will be discussed as well as the ways in which they differ from more traditional modes of data collection. Important topics to be considered include design issues, implementation, technological concerns and data analysis. Examples from surveys conducted on the Web will be included in the discussion.

An Introduction To Sample Design For Surveys

The first session is devoted to a review of the statistics of sample design, including alternative sample designs, the calculation of errors from sample data, the use of weights, and decisions about sample size. The second session deals with sample selection in a number of practical situations, including sampling from lists, drawing samples of organizations, two-stage sampling strategies for population sectors, and random digit dialing. The course concludes with a very brief introduction to resampling methods for computing errors in complex samples. While the material is presented at an introductory level, it will be difficult to understand without some background in elementary statistics.