Public Affairs 7573: Qualitative Methodologies for Public Affairs Research

This course is designed to prepare students to engage in thoughtful, rigorous qualitative research. Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

• Understand the range of methodologies that guide qualitative inquiry and the practical and ethical issues that can arise while conducting such research;
• Demonstrate competence in evaluating qualitative research studies; 
• Design and conduct a qualitative study within an established tradition of inquiry, including the presentation of empirical findings in a cogent and rigorous manner

Class Participation 15%

Workshop Assignments 45%, 5@9% each 

Final Project 40%, inclusive of proposal, presentations, and deliverable

Students are expected to attend class each week, and complete and contemplate the readings and/or materials before class. They are required to demonstrate this preparation by contributing meaningfully during class.

Every week, the instructor will document each student’s contribution as having been good, adequate, or inadequate. To get full participation credit, students will need to have received a rating of “good” more often than not, and they cannot have received a rating of “inadequate.” Your contribution will be evaluated based on your preparation and engagement with class discussion (reading the pieces assigned) and activities, not on your demonstrated mastery of the material. Some of the materials may be dense. I expect that you will read the materials prior to class and document any questions, confusion, or concerns that you have with the readings.

In addition to participation in workshops and seminars, students will be expected to serve as discussion facilitator for one seminar over the course of the semester. Students will have their choice of sessions to facilitate. The responsibilities of the facilitator(s) are to give a brief, 5-10 minute introduction to the seminar readings and kick off discussion with a question. In tandem with the instructor, the facilitator(s) will continue to ask probing questions throughout the seminar. In preparation for your facilitation, read the assignment materials particularly closely and prepare broad questions for discussion.

The class will select a research topic of interest and students will collect and analyze data on the topic over the course of the semester. The objective is to practice data collection and analysis on a common topic so that we can discuss challenges and techniques. Instructions for the assignments will be provided in class and via Carmen. Assignments should be submitted to Carmen by class time on the due date.

1. IRB Citi Certification Training (provide certificate)
2. Interview Guide
3. Interview Transcript
4. Field Observation
5. Analysis with Codebook

Students have a choice of final projects. The objective is for the student to complete a project that furthers their interests and degree curriculum. All projects will result in a written deliverable of similar length. Here are the options:

1. Research proposal and instruments for a qualitative study; this is a good option for students who wish to develop a new qualitative research project
2. Class project report; write a report using data collected by all students to analyze results and report results to the appropriate stakeholder(s)
3. Qualitative data analysis; conduct a qualitative analysis of existing data and write up the findings – a good option for students that have already collected qualitative data
4. Systematic literature review; use qualitative analysis to compose a literature review of a topic of interest
5. Other project; I am open to other qualitative projects that further your goals

Students are encouraged to begin thinking about their final project from the beginning of the semester and discuss projects of Type E as early as possible. The instructor welcomes meetings during office hours to discuss students’ final project plans and is available to provide feedback on draft proposals or deliverables. Students will create a ~10-min presentation video outlining a proposed final project at the mid-point of the semester (10% of final project grade) and provide feedback on a peer’s video (10%). Final projects will be presented in class (10%) and should be submitted via Carmen during finals week (70%).