WIMEK Course to strengthen skills in interviews and questionnaires (for PhDs)

Contact: wimek@wur.nl
Course coordinators: AJ (Anouk) de Plaa MSc & Dr. ir. PJ (Peter) Vermeulen
Organising Lecturer: PA (Peter) Tamas, GF (Gretchen) Wagner

Scope

Interviews and Questionnaires in the Natural and Environmental Sciences enable PhDs who do not have a background in the social sciences to design, conduct, analyze and report interviews and questionnaires. Foundational learning objectives are met through participating in a MSc course (YRM31306). In addition to responding to questions during the course that are specific to PhDs’ own projects, enhanced learning objectives for PhDs are met through a) individual consultations with PhDs during and after the course and b) replacement of the written final exam with a delayed critical discussion in which the PhD explains why and how they will integrate what they learned into their own PhD project. The approach to interviews and questionnaires taken in the course is tailored to the themes and purposes typical of research at Wageningen.

Learning goals

After successful completion of this course/programme students are expected to be able to:

• Work out and scientifically justify a conceptual design for an interview and for a questionnaire
• Be able to design an interview and a questionnaire appropriate for purpose and context following taught design principles
• Identify when, and with whom, to collaborate in the design, execution and analysis of interviews and questionnaires
• Transparently report meaningful analyses of interview and questionnaire data, taking into account a life cycle approach and ethical concerns

Contents

During this course students will follow interactive sessions where core principles will be explained and then applied in groups to concrete research projects. In-class discussions and (roleplay) exercises will be used to stimulate effective learning. There will be practicals using qualitative analysis software and RStudio to analyse the data. With the help of instructor and peer feedback, students will learn about, and practice with, the complete cycle of research design, pre-testing, data collection, coding and analysis for both semi-structured interviews and structured questionnaires (with the latter building on the outcomes of the former).

• Work out and justify a conceptual design (or 'blueprint’) for the interview guide and for the questionnaire
• Design a practical interview guide based on the blueprint and following taught design principles

• Pre-test the questionnaire using appropriate interviewing techniques
• Code and analyze interview data using methods such as inductive and deductive content analysis in Atlas.ti
• Construct and test scales for a questionnaire using Cronbach’s alpha and Principal Component Analysis in RStudio
• Conduct meaningful statistical analysis of questionnaires using among others general linear models and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)

Programme

Qualitative 

Lecture: Qualitative descriptions  

Tutorial: qualitative analysis software 

Tutorial + Groupwork: analysis Milfont  

Lecture: TCI ch3 

Tutorial + Groupwork: Sensitizing Framework 

Tutorial + Groupwork: Invitation email/informed consent 

Lecture + Tutorial: opening account 

Lecture: transcription and interview body 

Tutorial + Groupwork: transcription 

Tutorial + Groupwork: interview body and descriptives 

Lecture: data management, ATI 

Tutorial: Prepare for interviews 

Lecture: Analysis 

Tutorial: Analysis design for interviews  

Tutorial: content analysis 2 

Groupwork: Merging Results

Quantitative 

Lecture: Intro to Questionnaire Design 

Tutorial: Questionnaire Blueprint 

Groupwork: Research Questions 

Tutorial + Groupwork: Operationalization 

Lecture: Question Formatting 

Groupwork: Writing Questions 

Lecture + Groupwork: Question Selection 

Lecture + Groupwork: Question Order, intro & closure, layout 

Tutorial + Groupwork: pre-testing (cognitive interview) 

Groupwork Merging Questions 

Statistics 

Tutorial + Groupwork: Data Processing, Descriptives 

Tutorial + Groupwork: Bivariates: chi-sq, t-test, corr, reg 

General information

Registration deadline

Early bird registration deadline before the November 5
Regular registration deadline is after the November 5 until the December 5.

Go to Registration form

Target group

PhD candidates outside of the Social Sciences

Mandatory required knowledge

No prior knowledge is required. For the final assessment PhDs will need to identify a task in their project that will require interviews and/or questionnaires.

Group size

Maximum: 10. Note that this is a MSc course. As such, you will be a part of bigger group of students but only 10 of which can be PhD students.

Credit points

6 EC

Hours

The course runs from 9h to 17h on scheduled days.

Fee

Cancellation conditions

Up to 4 (four) weeks prior to the start of the course, cancellation is free of charge.

Up to 2 (two) weeks prior to the start of the course, a fee of € 150,- will be charged.

In case of cancellation within two weeks prior to the start of the course, a fee of € 250,- will be charged.

If you do not show at all, a fee of € 500,- will nevertheless be charged.

Note: If you would like to cancel your registration, ALWAYS inform us.