Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

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IPSG 9507

QualitativeDataAnalysisMash-Up

This lively, hands-on course focuses on analysis of qualitative data. By “data”, we mean interview, focus group, written reports and visual records, hundreds of pages of them. Students will have a choice of qualitative data sets – there is no time in this short course to engage in primary data collection -- and our entire focus will be on a) deciding how to interrogate the data (what is it you wish to know, demonstrate, reveal, test?), b) developing code books and coding, c) inter-coder reliability, and d) a wide variety of analytical approaches you can use, once you have qualitative data reduced and organized. The first seven weeks of the course focus on a-c. Then, during a final weekend workshop, students will engage in hands-on analysis, using techniques introduced rapid fire during the workshop: expect to practice no fewer than 20 qualitative analysis techniques over three days. This course emphasizes the importance of studying/reading high quality qualitative research studies as fundamental to learning – we will dissect one study each week to understand how the researchers put it together – while also emphasizing learning-through-doing, making mistakes, and collaborative analysis (qualitative inquiry is almost always improved through collaboration). Your final product will be a 10-page analysis, due two weeks after the final workshop.
Subject:
International Policy Studies
Department:
International Policy Studies
Division:
Intl Policy & Management
Requirements Fulfilled:

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