“Qualitative research methods and content analysis” - course RUB 34,000. from MSU, training (2 months), date of November 30, 2023.

Program Focus:

In a very condensed form, this course is part of the popular distance learning course “How to do scientific research: methodology, tools, methods” of the E. Foundation Open University. Gaidar (about 2 thousand. listeners per year). The Faculty of Economics at Moscow State University provides students with the opportunity to study in detail qualitative research methods, methodology and technology content analysis with a teacher, work with your own hands with a program for analyzing and visualizing mixed data (MAXQDA). It is possible to work not only with databases proposed by the teacher, but also with data listeners, the teacher will advise which tools and how to use to analyze your data

Themes:

1 Theoretical ideas about the methods of sociological research: quantitative and qualitative methods, typology, features of application.

This topic will provide insight into existing popular quantitative and qualitative methods for collecting and analyzing information. In addition to exhaustive lists of such methods, examples of successful studies and a comparative table of the pros and cons of each type will be provided. Let's discuss how to most effectively combine methods in one study.

2 Research planning, selection of methods and tools, approaches to selecting respondents/informants

In this topic we will learn what a research program consists of when working with qualitative methods; what parts of the program look like: goals, objectives, hypotheses, methods, tools, expected results, budget, calendar, composition of the research team. You will learn to choose a specific method and tool. You will also learn who should be invited to an interview or focus group and how to do it so as not to be refused.

3 Development of qualitative research tools, introduction to content analysis of texts, generation of analytical reporting based on the results of qualitative research

We will learn what a script (guide) for an interview or focus group is, what group dynamics are, what are the typical mistakes when writing scripts and conducting interviews or focus groups and how to avoid them.
We are developing our own interview script. We learn techniques for conducting interviews and focus groups using the inquiry procedure.
We talk about participant and non-participant observation, about collecting data through experiments, about the tools that are used in these methods. And as always, we discuss many examples.
We learn how transcriptions of interviews, focus groups, and other research methods should look like, and how to make a report in qualitative research.
Let's move on to content analysis of texts and mixed data, talk about the possibilities of content analysis and We consider various examples of software for content analysis and visualization of results research.
We gain the skills to independently obtain information and data using qualitative methods and skills analysis (yours and not yours) of qualitative materials: we devote 38 hours out of 68 hours to topic 1-2-3 classes.

4 Content analysis of texts

Let's find out the difference between quantitative and qualitative content analysis of texts. How the method of content analysis appeared and developed. Let's look at interesting examples of applying the content analysis method (analysis of documents on social, demographic and economic policies, formal and informal institutions, media, economic intelligence, pharmaceutical forecasts, etc.) and visualization of results among the best types of software. We master the principles of studying discourse and the procedure for coding content. We discuss typical researcher mistakes. We begin to apply the method of content analysis on materials from listeners. We gain the skills to independently conduct content analysis: we devote 30 hours out of 68 hours of classes to topics 4 and 5

5 Using software for data processing (using the example of the MAXQDA program)

This topic is entirely devoted to working in the MAXQDA program for analyzing qualitative and mixed data. We will learn how to enter data, structure data, code, select tools. Let's take a closer look: tag cloud; construction of diagrams, tables, mind maps; code matrix; portrait document. We will learn how to analyze mixed (quantitative and qualitative) data; analyze audio and video material; publications on social networks. Let us answer the question of what the researcher’s notes provide. Let's discuss how the analysis, interpretation and visualization of different texts and documents will help your research become unique and give useful results (interview texts, texts in the field of socio-demographic, environmental, economic policy, transcripts of open discussions of socially significant issues, media materials and social networks, scientific articles (content analysis as an assistant in compiling a literature review in articles and dissertations), corporate policy materials, advertising materials and etc.).