Short Courses on Research Methods (SCRM)
Supported by the National Science Foundation
Now in its eighth year, the SCRM offers a program of intensive, five-day courses on research methods in cultural anthropology. The program is directed by H. Russell Bernard and a board of advisors, including Jean Ensminger, Jeffrey Johnson, Carmella Moore, Eric Smith, and Susan Weller, with support from the National Science Foundation. The SCRM courses will be held at the Duke University Marine Laboratories in Beaufort, North Carolina.
Since 1999, the Duke Marine Lab has hosted the NSF-supported Summer Institute on Research Design in Cultural Anthropology (SIRD), for graduate students in cultural anthropology, directed by Jeffrey Johnson and East Carolina University, with Susan Weller and H. Russell Bernard as co-directors. That three-week program on research design, now in its 16th year, is only for Ph.D. students in cultural anthropology.
The SCRM program is for colleagues who already have the Ph.D. in anthropology and who want to broaden or improve their skills. Because the program is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, eligibility is restricted to colleagues working in the U.S. (regardless of citizenship) or to U.S. citizens working abroad. The program covers room, board, and tuition. Participants are responsible for costs associated with travel to and from the Institute and required textbooks.
SCRM Summer 2012 Course Offerings
Behavioral Observation in Ethnographic Research (July 16-20, 2012)
Raymond Hames and Michael Paolisso
This five-day course focuses on methods for observing behavior in a field setting to answer questions of anthropological interest, like: time allocation and division of family labor and child labor; locational analysis (where people spend their time and what they do); what students and teachers do an elementary school classroom; energy expenditure and ecology; food and labor exchange; social groups and patterns of association (sex, age, family, kinship, mates); what people talk about during social interactions; and the nature of doctor-patient interaction.
Methods covered include systematic spot or instantaneous sampling of behavior, continuous monitoring of behavior, and computer-assisted approaches to collecting behavioral data in the field, in addition to survey methods, like recall methods, like time diaries. Finally, participants design a behavioral research project they anticipate investigating in the future, using one or a combination of the approaches presented in the course.
Social Network Analysis (July 23-27, 2012)
Jeffrey Johnson and Christopher McCarty
This five-day course focuses on the methods for collecting and analyzing social network data. The first part of the course provides an overview of social network analysis, including fundamental concepts such as cohesion, bridging, directed versus undirected ties, strength of tie, structural holes, one mode and two mode data. You will learn about specific types of social network metrics that are used to describe these concepts and test them against outcome measures that may interest you. You will also learn about social network visualization, which is a way to combine both the composition and structure of the network so that you can quickly identify patterns that are more difficult to find using metrics alone.
The remainder of the course will focus on hands-on data collection and analysis using social network tools. These include Ucinet for whole network analysis and Egonet for personal network analysis. You will learn how to construct a social network questionnaire and how to identify methods for collecting whole network data from existing data (such as e-mail, citations or just plain observation). During the course you will collect data from each other for both whole networks and your own personal networks. These will be analyzed in class so that you will better understand the benefit of these methods and measures.
Analyzing Video Data (July 30-August 3, 2012)
Elizabeth Cartwright and Jerome Crowder
This five-day course prepares participants to collect and analyze anthropological data gathered through video recording. In the first two days, participants learn to use high quality video and audio recording equipment and the basics of video interviewing, including location of audio and lighting, camera handling, and scene composition. Working in small groups, participants generate video footage that they use in the rest of the course to learn coding and analysis.
Participants learn to tag and code images and how to partition their footage into meaningful sequences that can be coded and analyzed for audio and visual content. Naturally occurring speech in the footage can be analyzed thematically, as can movements, interactions, facial expressions, and other observable events. Still images from video allow researchers to measure and more accurately observe subtleties in body language and facial expressions that may not be detected during full-speed play back. Participants learn how to produce still images from video footage and how to use those stills to understand proxemics and as a means for eliciting informants’ descriptions and interpretations of a scene.