Apologies for Cross- Posting

Focusing on the Case in Quantitative and Qualitative Research

ESRC Research Methods Training Programme   Advance Notice

The purpose of this email is to give advance notice of the following ESRC
funded training / research methodology initiative. Attendance at each
seminar will be limited to 25 people and all travel and subsistence costs
will be born by the programme.

Focusing on the case in quantitative and qualitative research

Researchers:

David Byrne   University of Durham
Wendy Olsen   University of Manchester

Aims

This project has two interlinked aims:

" To develop the expertise of UK based researchers in the integrated
employment of a range of case centred methods including  
o Numerical Taxonomy methods
o Qualitative Comparative Analysis
o Qualitative Statistical Modelling
o Traditional Case Study approaches

" To engaged in a dialogical research exercise with researchers about their
needs for and understanding of case based approaches in relation to the
actual research problems with which they are engaged.

Rationale

One of the major tasks of social science is establishing how things come to
be as they are   establishing causal systems in the real world. It s a
truism to say that the social world is complex. In other words you can t
explain it in terms of single causes with single effects. However, the
traditional quantitative approaches in social science based on variable
analysis have tended towards such simple explanations. Sociology has a long
tradition of another approach in the form of the comparative method based on
detailed comparison across a range of cases. Recently, developments in
computer based methods have facilitated an integration of quantitative and
qualitative approaches in a way which focuses upon the cases and allows us
to address the complexity of social causes. This project combines training
in the use of such approaches with an exploration of the way in which social
researchers, at all stages of their careers, have thought about these issues
in the past and can develop new strategies in the future based on case
centred methods.

Workshops

The combined training and research dialogues will be run through a series of
2 day research workshops to be held during July, September and December
2004, and January 2005. Participants will be fully reimbursed for travel
costs and accommodation and training is free. It is intended that
participants will attend all the sessions if possible but this is
negotiable. Applications are invited from academics, graduate students, and
practitioners and it is intended to achieve a mix of people, interests, and
academic / practitioners. The package has a value of some £2,500 per person.

Anyone interested in participating should send a note of not more than 250
words (email or Word attachment) outlining why they are interested to David
Byrne on: [log in to unmask]

I can be contacted to discuss this as above or on 0191 33 46826

Participants will be selected on the basis of their indication of interest
and general background. There is no formal deadline as yet but early
indication of interest would be helpful.

This project is part of the ESRC Research Methods programme   details of
which can be found at:

http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/method