Lab: Applied Qualitative Research

The quantitative methodology workshop will provide participants with practical skills for applied social research. Specifically, the learning objective of the course is to develop knowledge related to:
a) how to define a research question in the field of sociology and assess whether it can be addressed with a quantitative approach;
b) literature review and why it is important in quantitative research;
c) how to identify and develop a data collection tool suitable for answering the research question and testing the hypotheses;
d) the main descriptive statistical techniques (and, depending on participants' initial level, inferential techniques) to analyze the collected data;
e) how to interpret data to identify useful and meaningful information to answer the research question.
The workshop aims to equip students with the necessary skills to collect and analyze data to answer a research question on a topic agreed upon based on participants' interests. Participants will therefore have the opportunity to engage in a research exercise that we will carry out together throughout the workshop, starting from the formulation of the research question and hypotheses, moving on to the design, development, and administration of the questionnaire, and concluding with the analysis of the collected data and the effective presentation of the research results through graphs and tables.
The work carried out during the workshop can represent a first step towards a future undergraduate thesis and will allow participants to acquire knowledge and develop skills applicable not only in academic settings but also in the job market, in fields such as marketing, public policy, and consulting.
The workshop is in ideal continuity with the courses "Social Statistics and Population Dynamics" and "Social and Evaluation Research Methodology": however, it is not necessary to have taken these two exams to participate in the laboratory, but it is advisable to have attended at least one of the two courses.

At the end of the workshop, students will be able to:
· conduct a bibliographic search that supports the definition of a research question on a given sociological topic of interest;
· define a research question and formulate hypotheses;
· critically reflect on the process of moving from concepts to variables, from variables to the "operational definition," and from the "operational definition" to the questions to be asked to respondents;
· design and write a questionnaire to collect data to answer the research question (e.g., using Google Forms, Survey Monkey — no prior knowledge of these platforms is required);
· conduct univariate and bivariate data analysis using Excel and STATA (no prior knowledge of these software programs is required);
· present research results using tables and graphs appropriate to the variables considered.