Qualitative Data Lab

1.5 Credits · Level: Graduate

This new, hands-on course considers the challenges and benefits of working with qualitative data, and offers practical strategies for doing so. The course runs all academic year (1.5 credits per semester); students are encouraged to, but do not need to, take both halves of the course. In the fall semester, we will examine a range of techniques that scholars who conduct field research employ to collect information and generate qualitative data (e.g., creating a data-generation plan, observing, interviewing, and carrying out focus groups, oral histories, archival research, ethnography, and participant observation). In the spring, we will consider strategies for managing, documenting, and sharing qualitative data; deploying qualitative data for inference; engaging in the secondary analysis of qualitative data; making qualitative research transparent; and replicating the results of qualitative research. Throughout, we will consider questions of ethics, such as the potential tensions between research transparency and the protection of human subjects. Course products may be posted on-line through the Methods Coordination Project (https://qdr.syr.edu/mcp), PSFieldResearch (http://www.psfieldresearch.com/), and the Qualitative Data Repository (https://qdr.syr.edu/guidance).