Institution: German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

Lecturer: Dr. Susanne Friese, QuaRC

Schedule: 16.-17.11.2015

Place: GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20534 Hamburg, Germany

Registration: Online via the GIGA website

Course description:

The course starts with an overview of analysis approaches to qualitative data in order to provide the context for coding approaches that are mainly used when using software to support the analysis process. As part of the course, the software ATLAS.ti is introduced and you learn how to set up a project, how to prepare and code data. Throughout the course, the technical aspects of the analysis process are related to methodological considerations, as just knowing the mouse clicks will not help you to conduct your analysis. Students will have the possibility to present their project. If you want to do so, please get in touch with the instructor one month before the course, so we can discuss where you are at and where your presentation best fits in.

About the lecturer
Dr. Susanne Friese studied Nutrition, Home Economics, Family Resource Management, and Marketing at the universities of Bonn and Oregon (USA). During her studies she became interested in qualitative research methods and computer-assisted data analysis.
In 1996, she founded QUARC, a consultancy that specializes in procedures and methods of qualitative data analysis, with a special focus on computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS).

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Institution: German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Leipzig

Schedule: 12.-13.11.2015

Place: GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20534 Hamburg, Germany

Registration: Online via the GIGA website

Course description:

The workshop will introduce to principles, forms and techniques of interviewing in qualitative social research. It will discuss questions like: Why and for what purposes do we use interviews as opposed to other forms of data collection? What are the basic principles and specific types of interviewing in qualitative research as opposed to quantitative approaches? Which type of interview (individual/collective, narrative/semi-structured etc.) do we use for which type of research question? Which problems do we face in specific types of interviews (narrative, expert, focus interviews, group discussions etc.) and with regard to specific interview partners (age, class, gender, region). How does our own role and standpoint influence interviews and how can we deal with that in the course of the research? What are typical mistakes and problems during the interview? etc. The workshops will combine input lectures with intensive discussions of the participants’ projects and research experience. Active participation is necessary.

About the lecturer
Prof. Dr. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr is professor of cultural sociology at Leipzig University. Her research focuses on Islam in Western societies, secularisation, and qualitative methods. She has published extensively in German and International Journals. Her publications on social science research methods include the book “Qualitative Sozialforschung. Ein Arbeitsbuch” (co-authored with Aglaja Przyborski, 2008, German).

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Institution: German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

Lecturer: Dr. Michaela Saisana, EC-JRC

Schedule: 05.-06.11.2015

Place: GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20534 Hamburg, Germany

Registration: Online via the GIGA website

Course description:

Topics such as welfare, sustainable development, good governance, innovation, culture and creativity, are so versatile that they cannot be captured by a single (existing) variable alone. This is why we need summary measures to make sense of the complexity around us. Yet, there is a polarized audience when it comes to performance indices. On one side enthusiastic supporters, mostly from advocacy groups developing their own indices to advance a cause; on the other skeptical economists and official statisticians concerned by the subjective nature of the variables’ and weights’ selection and aggregation procedure. This course touches upon the composite indicators’ turbulent growth over the last years in the international arena and within the European Commission, where they are used to help shape EU policies and monitor progress in areas such as financial risk, consumers and markets, innovation, environmental pressure and rule of law just to name a few. We offer principles of good practice, established between the JRC and the OECD already in 2008 and continuously refined since then. We shall also discuss surprising examples of how things can often go wrong and unnoticed with adverse consequences on the policy implications of the measures.

About the lecturer
Dr. Michaela Saisana works at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission where she leads the Composite Indicators Research Group (COIN). The group works on multidimensional measures related to social, economic, health and environmental issues in support to the policy directorates of the European Commission. Ms. Saisana has a PhD and an MSc in Chemical Engineering. She has offered lectures at international conferences and workshops, and has organized all twelve annual JRC trainings on composite indicators and multicriteria analysis.

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Institution: German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

Lecturer: Dr. Steffen Mohrenberg, Zürich

Schedule: 02.-03.11.2015

Place: GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20534 Hamburg, Germany

Registration: Online via the GIGA website

Course description:

Day 1: Intro to linear and logistic regression
This first day of the seminar is meant as an introduction to regression analysis for social scientists with no previous background in statistics and regression. We cover the basics of linear regression and logistic regression, and focus on using regression techniques for data description. We do not go into detail on statistical inference and causal inference with regression.

Day 2: Presenting and commenting on regression results the smart way
During the second day of the seminar, we discuss multiple ways how identical regression results can be presented. We assume that the goal of such a presentation is not a thorough and complete coverage of all mathematical and technical details. Instead, such a presentation is intended to enable an audience with diverse scientific backgrounds to understand the most important aspects of the results and to give comments that may help the author to improve her/his research. While the first day of the seminar was mostly lectures and short exercises, this second day will have a workshop character. Given interest and time, individual participants may give short presentations of their own work. This is not meant as a platform for substantive feedback about participants’ PhD theses but rather as a possibility to acquire specific presentation skills for future colloquia. Participants who are interested in giving such a presentation are kindly asked to submit a short outline together with their course registration.

About the lecturer
Dr. Steffen Mohrenberg is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences at ETH Zurich. In the past, Steffen worked as an academic staff member (wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the University of Hamburg, where he taught political science research methods, data analysis and visualization using R, and courses on social network analysis.

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