This project involves a summer institute in research design in cultural anthropology. Experts in research design and in the link between data and theory will teach a set of 12 graduate students chosen competitively from Ph.D. programs throughout the US during a period of 3 weeks. Course content will cover a broad spectrum of issues focusing on the link between theory and the development of research objectives, concepts, definitions, variables, measures and hypotheses; the relationship between quantitative and qualitative approaches in the ethnographic context; systematic data collection procedures; probability and non-probability sampling; statistical distributions and elementary data analysis with an emphasis on concepts (e.g., sampling distribution theory); and an introduction to data structures and management in both a qualitative and quantitative context; and strategies of hypothesis testing. This project is important because it will provide an introduction to research issues in scientific anthropology for graduate students who may not be receiving an adequate exposure to their issues in their respective departments. The results of the 3 year workshop should be to increase the level of competence among students to do significant research projects for their dissertation research, and to become more proficient social scientists in general.
