Combining methods and data sources

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PLEASE NOTICE. That you are registrated, does not mean you are approved. When Polforsk arranges a course, you will usually be informed about approval within one week after the registration deadline.

Responsible: Professor Uwe Flick, Hochschule Berlin - Unerversity of Applied Science.
From: 2012/09/18 to: 2012/09/19
Registration Deadline: 2012/08/20
Place: University of Roskilde
Fee: 60 EURO
ECTS (Get approval from your own department!!!): 2

Short description:

Short Description

Polforsk, the Danish Political Science Research Education Program, gives a course for Ph.d students within political science on how to combine data and methods in a research project. The course offers an overview of the state of the art of combining data and methods with particular emphasis on the field of political science, international relations and public administration. The course includes exercises and discussion of the Ph.d students own projects.

Lecturers: Professor Uwe Flick, Hochschule Berlin - University of Applied Science

Further information: sek@polforsk.dk

Ph.d course: Combining methods and data sources

Much research within political science uses several sources of data such as interviews, reports, media texts, political texts, observations, etc ., and this usually implies a combination of methods of analysis. It is a complex task to combine such data sources, and often, the use of different methods are advantageous, which makes it even more complex. It is the purpose of the Ph.d course to enhance the participants' competance in handling this complex task, an to give them an overview of the state of the art of combining different methods and data sources. There is an increasing body of literature on this: Triangulation, mixed method, method integration, etc.

The Ph.d students send a 3 pages paper containing description of:

1. Problem under investigation (plus theory)
2. Time schedule of the project.
3. Methods of data collection and data soruces
4. What questions would you like to work with in the course? Please connect this with your strategy of data collection and analysis.
5. Previous experience, if any, with combining methods and data sources.

The Ph.d students will receive a written critique of their project. The Ph.d students' presentation of their project should discuss this critique and how to use the methodological considerations of the literature. Taking into consideration that combining methods and data sources often will complicate research, the purpose is to support the Ph.d students in making deliberate decisions about how to combine methods and data sources in the project. The Ph.d students should make clear what are the purpose and feasible outcomes of combining methods and data sources.

The course has the following general structure:

Tuesday Sep 18. The forms of combining data and methods

The first day will focus on the expectation to the art of combining methods and the outcomes of it. Different methods will be reviewed:

• Qualitative method
• Observation
• Interviewing
• Narratives
• Quantitative methods (this course does not teach quantitative methods - but how to combine different methods incl. how to combine quatitative methods with other methods)
• Etc.

Then, the relations between the different methods are explained. A key question is whether the different sources and methods entail convergence, complementarity or contradictions - and what should be done then? Different method may provide results that require each other. For instance, analyses of interviews may refer to newspaper articles, which on the other hand are analysed in the light the interviews. In such case, the results converge or contratdict each other. But, inversely, the methods may be independent, and in that case the outcomes complement each other. But, even the same methods, e.g. interviewing, may be performed with different purposes and give different results that supplement each other rather than enforce or contradict each other. To some extent, different methods refer to different epistemological backgrounds, and then, combination of methods and outcomes requires particular care. Moreover, each data source may require the use of several methods, e.g. qualitative and quantitative methods. It is also common that different interviews may require diffent methods depending on who is interviewed: clients, therapists , experts, administrators, politicians, etc.   

Each data source and method as well as combining them consume time. Therefore, it is necessary to deliberately plan how to combine different methods and data sources in relation to the goals of the project:
On the basis of which questions of analysis is this combination performed? With which purposes, and at what cost? 

There are three important dimensions for how methods and data sources are combined:

1. The relation between theory and research field: Which different methods and data may contribute to the theoretical understanding of the research field? How do they supplement, enforce or challenge each other?
2. Width vs. depth in the empirical study: Methods differ as to width and depth of study. Therefore, they provide different truth claims.
3. Unity/complementarity of the studied objects. Do the different methods and data source neatly fit together to validate and confirm the conceptualisation of the objects studied? Or, do they produce different perspectives on the same objects which may be sythesised? Or do they entail incompatible perspectives or objects that cannot be synthesised?

Another key question is the sampling of data as well as the units of research. What is being compared? Interviews tend, for instance, to focus on persons, whereas observation gives rather focus on situation, interactions, institutional processes. Studies of media tend to focus on events.

Wednesday Sep 19. Research quality and the writing

The end result should be a design that links methods and data, sort them out and present them.  Therefore, the last day the lessons deal with the particular quality and writing problems related to the use of different methods and data sources. In a thesis, the following aspects must be related to methods and data sources:

1. Issues
2. Problems
3. Chapters/articles
4. The coherent picture - different kinds of thesis' - how is it integrated?

And How is quality ensured in the thesis that combines methods and data sources? - Different methods entail diffirent criteria of quality how is the quality demonstrated the Ph.d thesis?

When information is gathered in different ways and from different sources, there are often important ethical questions where (too) much, perhaps inconsistent, information is gathered about one person or one organisation. Moreover, the reseacher may be involved in conflicts or conflicting interests. Such problems are often unvoidable when methods and data are combined. How are these questions  handled in  a  thesis and  process of writing?

Preliminary program

	9.00-12.00	12.00-13.00	13.00-16.00
Tue Sep 18	The forms of combining data and methods Conceptualization Methods Different Approaches The planning and practice out projects using combined methods and data sources Planning Practical issues Motivation, expectations and setting up the final schedule	Lunch	Presentations
Wed Sep 19	Lecture: Research quality and the writing ---------------------- Presentations	Lunch	Final discussion Impact for the project Still open questions Advices Overview

Literature

Flick, Uwe: Managing quality in Qualitatuve Research. Sage 2007.

The course is to be kept Sep.18-19 in Denmark at Roskilde University or Copenhagen University.

Please, register here:

PLEASE NOTICE. That you are registrated, does not mean you are approved. When Polforsk arranges a course, you will usually be informed about approval within one week after the registration deadline.