Bringing Together Qualitative and Quantitative Data

Date: Friday 9 May 2008, 9.30-4pm

Location: Beech Grove House, University of Leeds

Workshop Organisers: Sarah Irwin and Real Life Methods colleagues

This workshop is now full. To be added to the waiting list please email a.chantry@leeds.ac.uk.

Workshop Content

The workshop will explore issues in combining qualitative and quantitative methods and data in social science research and analysis.

It will explore arguments that the qualitative and quantitative ‘divide’ is artificial and inappropriate to researching social life, and examine a range of areas in which different types of, ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’, data have been brought together in advancing understanding, theory and social explanation. It will also review some of the challenges and complexities entailed in working across diverse types of data.

The workshop will explore the issues through exemplars from different areas, including research into childhood, education and family, and social networks, mobilities and community research. It will include presentations from experts in the area, small group work, and a panel and whole group discussion.

Workshop audience

This is an intermediate level workshop which should be of interest to social science researchers, policy makers and practitioners.

Programme

Time	Session
9.30	Registration
9.55	Introduction Sarah Irwin, Real Life Methods, University of Leeds
	Session 1
10.00	The death of mixed methods Stephen Gorard, University of Birmingham
10.45	Qualitative and quantitative narratives about individuals’ lives: the British Cohort Studies as a resource for mixed methods research Jane Elliott, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education.
11.30	Groupwork Participants will work together in small groups to conduct some data analysis through tasks designed to exemplify issues raised in the presentations.
12.40	Lunch
	Session 2
1.20	Structures of encounterability: negotiating space, place, path and identity Frances Hodgson, Real Life Methods and University of Leeds, and Margaret Grieco, Napier University and Cornell University.
2.20	Groupwork Participants will work individually to explore their own social networks and in small groups to examine how different types of data and techniques provide different lenses on their social networks.
	Session 3
3.20	Panel session Question and Answer with presenters, and whole group discussion, with participants encouraged to reflect on the uses of different data sources in their own research.
3.50	Tea / Close