Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), a member of Qatar Foundation (QF) for Education, Science and Community Development, invites professionals and students to enhance their qualitative research skills through an interactive workshop on February 7th and 8th at the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS) building in Education City. Committed to helping build a culture of research in Qatar and equip those interested in research with relevant skills and tools, the university is opening this workshop to the wider academic community in Doha. Participants will have the opportunity to partake in group exercises designed to hone their interviewing skills, and learn how to gather, encode, and analyze qualitative data using the leading qualitative software, Nvivo.
Dr. Leslie A. Pal, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy and Administration, as well as Director of the Center on Governance and Public Management at Carleton University, will be responsible for training participants. Commenting on the purpose of the workshop, he said: “This workshop is for anyone who uses interview or documentary data in their research. It will cover various techniques, but also the big picture of research design and the logic of explanation.”
He emphasized the practical element of the training: “Included is a hands-on introduction to Nvivo software, both for analyzing interview data and for literature reviews. I am excited about sharing knowledge that will help individuals organize their research more powerfully, using the most up-to-date software suite available.”
The workshop features two core segments. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore interviewing techniques and ethics, research strategies, data collection and storage. Participants will work together to analyze and assess hands-on materials, confronting a range of real-life scenarios, and receive instruction in how to use open source software, such as Survey Monkey, for questionnaire design. In part two of the workshop, Dr. Pal will introduce participants to the Nvivo software and teach how to use it to work with a variety of datasets.
Following the workshop, attendees will be versed in cutting edge research methods and be prepared to design high quality theses, research products as well as analyses, integral across professions and academic disciplines. The training costs QR 2500 and those interested in participating are encouraged to register early as space is limited. For more information about the workshop, and in order to register, please contact Dr. Mohamed Evren Tok at etok@qfis.edu.qa or via phone at +974 4454 2894.