The How & The Why: The Certificate in Qualitative Research Methods

Certificate in Qualitative Research Methods

There is a growing need for evidence-based, rigorous, methodologically sound social research in a wide variety of fields in the public and private sectors—business, government, non-profit, social service, public health, criminal justice, law enforcement. The list is long. Yet many professional staff in these fields feel inadequately trained to conduct the necessary research. With this in mind, the SSRC has developed a certificate course in qualitative research methods that will be offered at DePaul in the spring quarter.

This course will teach students the fundamentals of scientific qualitative research design and how to conduct the most common types of qualitative field research, including in-depth interviews, ethnography, life narratives, focus groups, and participant observation. Students will get hands-on, practical experience designing and conducting qualitative research, including data collection techniques. By its conclusion, they’ll be able to:

• Develop and elucidate testable hypotheses
• Understand how social theory and specific research methods work together
• Recognize an appropriate methodology based on research questions and develop a corresponding research design
• Craft quality control mechanisms for data collection activities
• Design data collection instruments
• Enumerate various ethical and political dilemmas in qualitative research
• Conduct qualitative field research
• Identify the most common qualitative field research pitfalls and strategies to avoid them

Chicago-area professionals working within behavioral and/or social science research and those just wanting to bolster their marketable research skills will benefit from the certificate program, which will run on five Saturdays from March 31 to May 12 (with the exception of April 7 and May 5).

Recent graduates, both graduate and undergraduate, current graduate students, and advanced upperclassmen considering a career in social or behavioral science fields or graduate programs in sociology, psychology, anthropology, public service, policy studies, social work, and public health would also benefit.

Registration is now open! Contact Jessica Speer (jspeer3 at depaul.edu) to learn more.

Kristen Miller: Question Design

Kristen Miller, the director of the CDC’s Question Design Research Lab, will be at DePaul next week sharing her survey know-how with anyone who wants to learn more about how survey research on a grand scale operates on the ground. Check out the schedule below and join us at the SSRC for a promising display of survey and methodological insights and derring-do.

Friday, February 10, 1 pm: Faculty Seminar
“Development and Evaluation of a Sexual Identity Measure for the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)”
Miller will describe the use of qualitative research in developing a precise sexual identity measure for a large-scale quantitative survey and the resulting complications.

Monday, February 13, daytime: Lab Visits
Faculty are invited to schedule appointments to meet with Miller to discuss their research, questionnaire design, or other research questions. 

Monday, February 13, 6 – 7:30 pm: Public Lecture
“Question Evaluation at the National Center for Health Statistics”
This lecture, open to the public, will center on Miller’s work at the CDC and will consider examples of questions that inadvertently compromised data quality through a lack of rigorous evaluation.

I talked with Kristen today to learn more about what she does and why it matters.

HyperRESEARCH Mac-based qualitative data analysis

If you are a qualitative researcher and Mac-user, you might be interested in using HyperRESEARCH, a Mac-native computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS). The SSRC will be offering a HyperRESEARCH workshop in the fall. Meanwhile, ResearchWare, the creators of HyperRESEARCH, are offering a free webinar to introduce the software next Wednesday, June 15. From ResearchWare:

On Wednesday, June 15th, at 12:00 Noon EDT, ResearchWare will host a webinar on “HyperRESEARCH Basics”. This webinar is designed as a basic orientation to the “code & retrieve” process using HyperRESEARCH. To join our webinar, go to https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/623084630. You will be connected to audio using your computer’s speakers (VoIP). A headset is recommended. The meeting ID is 623-084-630
ResearchWare is also offering live online chat sessions to help researchers on the following days:

• Monday, June 13, 2pm – 4pm EDT
• Wednesday, June 22, 2pm – 4pm EDT
• Monday, June 27, Noon – 2pm EDT

Note that you must register on the website (free) to participate in the chats. You can access ResearchWare chats by going to http://researchware.com, registering or logging in, and choosing “Chat” from the “Community” website. ResearchWare also keeps an archive of previous chat sessions here:
http://researchware.com/support/forums/view-topiclist/forum-7-online-chat-transcripts.html