Tag Archives: Social Sciences

Call for Papers: 11th International Young Scholar German Socio-Economic Panel Symposium (extended Nov. 30)

March 12-13, 2015
Delmenhorst (Bremen), Germany

We are pleased to announce the 11th International Young Scholar German Socio-Economic Panel Symposium. The symposium provides an opportunity for doctoral students and young postdoctoral researchers of all relevant disciplines (e.g. economics, demography, psychology, sociology, public health, geography) to present empirical research in progress – carried out with panel data (especially SOEP data). Each accepted paper will be discussed by a leading senior researcher, giving participants the unique opportunity to receive thorough and individual feedback on their research project.

Moreover, we will award the Joachim-Frick Memorial Prize for the most innovative, best written and best presented symposium paper. The award comes with € 200 prize money.

We encourage interested young scholars to submit a preliminary paper or an extended abstract (about 350 words in English) before November 21, 2014 (extended to November 30, 2014). We will inform you whether your proposal has been accepted by December 19, 2014. The deadline for submission of the full paper is February 10, 2015.

All accepted papers will be made accessible to commentators one month prior to the symposium. During the symposium, each presenter will have about 20 minutes for the presentation, 10 minutes for commentary by a senior researcher and 15 minutes for plenary discussion. The official language of the symposium is English.

Catering as well as accommodation will be provided. The conference fee is € 25.

The symposium is organized by the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) of the University of Bremen and Jacobs University in collaboration with the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) and the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (HWK).

Please send your applications to SOEP-symposium11@bigsss.uni-bremen.de.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Katharina Klug
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences
Wiener Straße/Ecke Celsiusstraße
28359 Bremen
Tel.: +49(0) 421 218-66366
Email: kklug@bigsss.uni-bremen.de

Ulrike Ehrlich
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences
Wiener Straße/Ecke Celsiusstraße
28359 Bremen
Tel.: +49(0) 421 218-66434
Email: uehrlich@bigsss.uni-bremen.de

44th GESIS Spring Seminar: Challenges for Empirical Social Science Research: Assessing Data Quality – Identifying Structures in Complex Data

Institution: GESIS Institute for Social Sciences

Date: March 2-20, 2015

Place: GESIS Cologne

Language of instruction: English

Registration and further information

Course Overview: The GESIS Spring Seminar comprises three training courses for social scientists interested in advanced techniques of data analysis and in the application of these techniques to data. Each course comprises lectures and exercises using personal computers. While in the lectures the logic of models and the corresponding analysis strategies are explained, during the exercises participants are given the opportunity to apply these methods to data. Different types of data are investigated in each course. The courses can be booked either separately or as a block.

Each year, the focus of the Spring Seminar is on another key theme. In 2015, it is “Challenges for Empirical Social Science Research: Assessing Data Quality – Identifying Structures in Complex Data”. The three courses mainly deal with various data reduction techniques for identification and visualisation of latent dimensions.

The courses will start on Mondays at 10:00 a.m. and will end on Fridays at about 4:00 p.m.

SDU BIB: Getting Published in the Social Sciences

Institution: University Library of Southern Denmark, Odense (Denmark)

Lecturer: Emerald Group Publishing

Date: 4 December, 15.00-17.00

Place: University Library of Southern Denmark, Odense (Denmark), Campusvej 55, meeting room ‘BIB Undervisningslokale’

Language of instruction: English

Registration (preferably before 1 December)

Course Overview:

Emerald will introduce the publishing and peer review process of international academic publishers and go into details of what editors and reviewers look for, when evaluating a manuscript. Emerald will also present journal selection strategies, and more hands-on paper structuring and writing tips.

The seminar will enable authors at University of Southern Denmark to give their papers the best possible chances of getting accepted and published.

The seminar is specifically targeted at young researchers, but everyone is welcome.

GESIS: Meet the data: Beziehungs- und Familienpanel (pairfam)

Institution: GESIS Institute for Social Sciences

Lecturer: Dr. Claudia Schmiedeberg, Nina Schumann & Philipp Schütze,  Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Date: December 4-5, 2014

Place: GESIS Mannheim

Language of instruction: German

Registration

Course Overview: Das Beziehungs‐ und Familienpanel pairfam („Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics“) ist eine multidisziplinäre Längsschnittstudie zur Erforschung partnerschaftlicher und familialer Lebensformen in Deutschland. Das auf 14 Jahre angelegte DFG-finanzierte Langfristvorhaben startete im Jahr 2008 mit einer Ausgangsstichprobe von 12.402 zufällig ausgewählten Ankerpersonen. Die im jährlichen Abstand durchgeführten Befragungen der Ankerpersonen sowie ihrer Partner, Eltern und Kinder ermöglichen eine detaillierte Analyse partnerschaftlicher und familialer Verläufe. Die Längsschnittstruktur und das Multi-Actor-Design bieten dabei einzigartige Potenziale, erfordern jedoch auch spezielle Kenntnisse in der Datenaufbereitung und -analyse.

Im Rahmen dieses Workshops werden die Datenstruktur und die verfügbaren Datensätze der ersten fünf pairfam-Wellen vorgestellt sowie Analysemöglichkeiten anhand von anwendungsorientierten Beispielen präsentiert. Dies beinhaltet konkrete Hinweise zum Datenmanagement (z.B. Zusammenführen verschiedener Datensätze für Quer- und Längsschnittanalysen, Verwendung generierter Variablen und Datensätze) sowie die gemeinsame Umsetzung von Beispielanalysen unter Anwendung von Verfahren der Längsschnittdatenanalyse (Panel- und Ereignisdatenanalyse). Darüber hinaus wird es eine Einführung in Design, Stichprobe, inhaltliche Themengebiete und Dokumentationsmaterialien der Studie geben.

Für die anwendungsorientierte Umsetzung wird das Statistikprogramm Stata verwendet.

Further information

GESIS: Offene Fragen und quantitative Inhaltsanalyse

Institution: GESIS Institute for Social Sciences

Lecturer: Cornelia Züll, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

Date: December 2-3, 2014

Place: GESIS Mannheim

Language of instruction: German

Registration

Course Overview: Gegenstand des Workshops ist der Umgang mit offenen Fragen, wie sie in einem ansonsten standardisierten Fragebogen eingesetzt werden. Das Themenspektrum umfasst verschiedene Ansätze der Codierung der Antworten. Dazu gehören die konventionelle Inhaltsanalyse mit und ohne Software-Unterstützung genauso wie die dictionär-basierte (automatische) Inhaltsanalyse. Zunächst wird kurz auf die offene Frage im Interview eingegangen, bevor die zentrale Frage des Codierens der Antworten mit Hilfe der Inhaltsanalyse diskutiert wird. Hier wird der Workshop ausführlich die folgenden Themen ansprechen: Erstellung eines Kategoriensystems, verschiedene Möglichkeiten der Kategoriendefinition, der Codierprozess selbst und die Frage der Reliabilität und Validität der Kategorien und Codierungen. Im Anschluss daran wird kurz auf andere Formen der Analyse von offene Fragen eingegangen.

In praktischen Übungen kommt sowohl die manuelle als auch die computergestützte Inhaltsanalyse zur Anwendung. Statistische Programme zur Auswertung der Codierdaten, z.B. SPSS, werden nur am Rande behandelt.

Further information

GESIS: Harmonizing your data with CharmStats

Institution: GESIS Institute for Social Sciences

Lecturer: Dr. Kristi Winters, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

Date: November 27-28, 2014

Place: GESIS Köln

Language of instruction: English

Registration

Course Overview: Harmonizing variables is an important part of social research but precise and transparent documentation of harmonization can be time-consuming and tedious. The GESIS software package CharmStats provides a quick and easy way to harmonize your variables. CharmStats allows you to work with your own variables, to document the process as you go and even electronically publish your completed harmonizations for review and citation.

In ’Harmonizing your data with CharmStats’ participants will receive the software packages QuickCharmStats and CharmStats Pro and training in them. The course content includes advice on planning a data harmonization strategy, data management practices, the CharmStats interface, importing data for use in CharmStats, creating Projects in CharmStats, how to generate syntax for use in SPSS and Stata with QuickCharmStats, and how to publish harmonizations as citable references with CharmStats Pro.

Further information

GESIS: Using Paradata to Improve Web Surveys

Institution: GESIS Institute for Social Sciences

Lecturer: Prof. Mick P. Couper, University of Michigan

Date: November 27, 2014

Place: GESIS Mannheim

Language of instruction: English

Registration

Course Overview: Paradata are process data that are generated as a byproduct of conducting Web surveys. There are a variety of types of paradata, including user agent strings (used to identify the device and systems used to access the survey), server-side paradata (which records information transmitted to and from the Web server), client-side paradata (which can capture respondent actions while completing a Web page), and call-record data, which records the outcomes of survey requests. Paradata can thus be used to manage, evaluate, and improve Web survey data collection. This course will introduce participants to the various types of paradata and their uses. Given that the type and format of paradata generated is sometimes specific to the software being used, the course will not focus on technical and programming issues relating to paradata capture. Rather, the course will focus on how the paradata can be used to make informed decisions about Web survey design. Various examples of paradata analyses will be discussed.

Further information

GESIS: Einführung in die Clusteranalyse

Institution: GESIS Institute for Social Sciences

Lecturer: Michael Wiedenbeck & Cornelia Züll, GESIS Survey Design and Methodology

Date: November 11-12, 2014

Place: GESIS Mannheim

Language of instruction: German

Registration

Course Overview: Den Schwerpunkt des Workshops bilden die klassischen Verfahren der Clusteranalyse: hierarchische, agglomerative und K-Means-Verfahren. Anhand konkreter Beispiele wird die Anwendung der Verfahren einschließlich der Ergebnisinterpretation und Validierungsmöglichkeiten vorgestellt. Die praktischen Schritte von Clusteranalysen mit SPSS und ClustanGraphics werden am PC vorgeführt. Interessenten sollten mit den üblichen statistischen Verfahren der empirischen Sozialforschung vertraut sein.

Further information

Doktorandenweiterbildung: Research Designs for Causal Inference in Social Sciences

Prof. Dr. Dominik Papies und Prof. Dr. Oliver Schnittka bieten vom 11. bis 13. August 2014 an der University of Southern Denmark in Esbjerg einen Doktorandenkurs zum Thema “Research Designs for Causal Inference in Social Sciences” an.

Der Kurs richtet sich vor allem an Doktoranden, die an experimenteller Forschung interessiert sind. Die Teilnahme wird mit 5 ECTS vergütet. Die Teilnahme an dem Doktorandenkurs ist kostenlos.

Nähere Informationen zur Veranstaltung und Anmeldung erhalten Sie unter diesem Link.

 

8th International Research Workshop “Methods for PhD” near Flensburg, September 28-October 3, 2014

Empirical research is seeking through methodological processes to discover, hopefully, nontrivial facts and insights. Beside choosing a topic and grounding an idea in theory, empirical research consists of gathering and analysing data as well as presenting results in scientific contexts in order to contribute new issues to the body of acquired knowledge – not only to someone‘s own but also to that of others.

Our workshop tackles these steps of your research project:

  • Gathering data via (un)structured interviews and analysing standardized survey data,
  • using the computer for qualitative and quantitative data analysis.

These steps will strengthen the cooperation in empirical research to boost and streamline ones project.

The regular workshop fee is 399 Euro (including meals and accommodation). The workshop fee is 249 Euro without accomodation at Sankelmark (only meals are included).

It is possible to get a certificate on 5 credit points (according to the European Credit Transfer System).

In detail the following courses will be offered:

Parallel Courses in the morning (September 28-October 1):

  • Data Analysis with R
  • Data Analysis with Stata
  • Qualitative Research Methodology and Design Strategy
  • Expert Interviews
  • Introduction to German Data Sets

Parallel Courses in the afternoon (September 28-October 1):

  • Spatial and Panel Econometrics
  • Questionnaire Design
  • Qualitative Compartive Analysis (QCA) and Fuzzy Sets
  • Structural Equation Modelling with R
  • Case Study Research

Parallel Courses at the SDU (October 2):

  • Introduction to MaxQDA
  • Network Analysis
  • Mixed Methods
  • Academic Writing
  • Theoretical and Applied Aspects of Survey Sampling

PLEASE notice that every course has just a certain amount of participants!

For further information, especially lecturers & program, organizers and registration visit our website.

For any questions don’t hesitate to contact the workshop committee.

The International Research Workshop is organised by

  • Prof. Dr. Wenzel Matiaske, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of Federal Armed Forces and Research Professor at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)
  • Asst. Prof. Dr. Simon Fietze, Department of Border Region Studies, University of Southern Denmark, Campus Sønderborg
  • Dr. Heiko Stüber, Institute for Employment Research (IAB), The Research Institute of the Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg

The workshop is supported by

  • Vidensregion/Wissensregion Syddanmark * Schleswig-Holstein (Interreg 4A)
  • University of Flensburg
  • University of Hamburg, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
  • University of Hamburg, School of Business
  • Leuphana University Lüneburg, Faculty of Economics
  • GESIS – Leibniz Institute of the Social Sciences
  • Werkstatt für Personal- und Organisationsforschung e.V.
  • German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) at the DIW Berlin