SRA Training

Quality in Social Research
Summary:	Promoting and assessing ‘quality’ in social research is now a major growth area, with a number of ‘how to’ textbooks, the development of evidence-based policy and practice, and the increasing use of systematic reviews. Despite these developments, assessing quality in social research remains a difficult and contentious area. Not only do many different approaches and criteria exist, but questions about the desirability, feasibility, status, scope and application of quality standards remain unresolved. This course offers insight into how to deal with the “quality issue” in both qualitative and quantitative research.
Objectives:	During the two-day course, participants will become familiar with key debates and issues learn about a range of quality assessment tools perform quality assessments by applying quality criteria to examples of social research proposals and reports develop the confidence to critically appraise the value of different criteria and approaches to quality assessment
Topics:	Content includes: Challenges of assessing quality: philosophical and practical issues Participants’ review of their own quality standards Review of existing formalised criteria for assessing quality of qualitative and quantitative methods Practice in applying criteria to different types of research activity: proposals, conduct, outputs (articles, journals, books) A re-review of participants’ own criteria for judging quality Discussion of advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to judging quality
Who will benefit?	Mid-career and senior social researchers working in a wide variety of sectors and settings, research commissioners.
Learning outcomes:	Participants will achieve an awareness of the key issues/dilemmas in judging quality, become familiar with some of the main approaches to appraising quality in both quantitative and qualitative research, understand the respective strengths and weaknesses of formal and informal assessment and form their own opinions about key issues and challenges in the quality field.
Course tutor:	Liz Spencer is a Sociologist and an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences who has specialised in qualitative methods since 1973. She has held research posts at a number of British universities, including the London School of Economics, The London Graduate School of Business Studies, and the University of Essex, and was a Research Director at the National Centre for Social Research. She teaches a range of courses for the Social Research Association and for the Universities of Hong Kong and Essex, and has been a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Higher Studies in Vienna. Currently Liz is a Research Associate of the Institute for Social and Economic Research as well as an independent research consultant. Her recent methodological publications include chapters in Qualitative Research Practice and a report for the Cabinet Office on judging the quality of qualitative research and evaluation. Dr. Pamela Campanelli is a Survey Specialist, Chartered Statistician and Chartered Scientist who has focused in quantitative methods since 1982. Pamela has worked at the University of Michigan, the Center for Survey Methods Research at US Bureau of the Census and has been a Chief Research Officer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex and a Research Director at the Survey Methods Centre at the National Centre for Social Research. In addition to her consultancy and research work, she regularly teaches short courses to a range of public sector organisations, private institutes, survey research organisations and for a variety of universities in the UK and abroad.
Date & Location:	20th - 21st October 2010 Location: Dublin Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis, Please return application form by Monday 20th September 2010. To download an application form click here (doc 210k)
Cost	€350 for members €450 for non-members Booking more than one place on the course? Get a 10 per cent discount on the second and subsequent fee. Booking more than 5 places on the course? Contact sra.ireland@gmail.com for large groups rates To apply for membership please go to the SRA membership page