This award to PI H. Russell Bernard continues support of Short Courses on Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology to help professional anthropologists improve their skills in collecting, analyzing, and presenting data. There are four, 5-day courses in the program: Text Analysis, Methods of Behavioral Observation, Survey Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology, and Methods of Ethnoecology. Social Network Analysis will be added next year, and several new courses are being considered, including Statistics and Data Analysis in Cultural Anthropology, and Methods of Visual Anthropology. Three 5-day courses are offered each summer. Participants are recruited nationally and apply online. Applications are competitive and 12 to 14 participants are accepted into each course. Participants are screened and accepted by the instructors for each course. Those selected to attend are given access to a web site that contains the readings for each course. Participants thus come to each course prepared for intensive, hands-on training in data collection and data analysis. The SCRM program has trained 53 anthropologists in one or more methods for research. Many of them are using their training in their own research, in preparing new grant proposals for research, and in teaching students, both undergraduate and graduate, the skills of research. Over the next four years, 2007-2010, it is anticipated that between 100 to 120 more colleagues will participate in these courses and that will have a rippling effect as colleagues teach students who are moving in the research phase of their careers. Better research methods help scholars do better research on important social issues. In addition to 5-day courses in the SCRM, one-day workshops on the use of software for collecting and analyzing data are offered at national meetings of anthropologists and are open to students as well as to faculty.
