Summary

How can social scientists design and focus their research to ensure they can answer questions using existing data? How do researchers find relevant data for a specific project? In this webinar, three research fellows working on the Infra4NextGen project will share their experience in navigating the wealth of publicly available survey data.

Description

Yuliya Kazakova (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute), David Consolazio (University of Milan) and Ruxandra Comănaru (City St George’s, University of London) will draw on their hands-on experience with this project to discuss how to refine research questions and where to find answers.

The webinar will cover strategies to design a social research question and focus on how to answer it. This will consider both a bottoms up approach (what data is available in this field to study the concepts of interest?) and a top-down one (where and how can I find relevant data for a specific topic?)

What to expect:

• A brief theoretical overview of strategies to design a good research question
• Learn where to find European survey data: European Social Survey (ESS), European Values Study (EVS), Generations and Gender Programme (GGP), International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), and Eurobarometer
• Using online tools to do preliminary analysis (e.g., the ESS Data Portal, GGP teaching datasets and others)

By the end of the seminar, you should be able to:

• Recognise if your question is too broad or whether it is specific enough
• Distil the question into concepts
• Look for indicators to link to your concepts in existing data sources
• Undertake basic data analysis using online tools

Please note that we will not be discussing specific analysis techniques but rather direct you to existing platforms that can be a good starting point for the more complex analysis. 

About the speakers:

Dr Yuliya Kazakova is a research fellow for GGP based at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI KNAW). Her work centres on the ‘Make it Equal‘ and ‘Make it Strong‘ pillars in the Infra4NextGen project. This involves close collaboration with leading European academics, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre experts, and the Youth Board to engage young Europeans in data-driven discussion on key issues for future generations. Yuliya’s research interests lie in the field of health economics together with the evaluation of public policies with a particular focus on childhood health, childhood poverty and maternal employment.

Dr David Consolazio is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Milan. Within the Infra4NextGen project, he works mainly on the ‘Make it Digital‘ and ‘Make it Healthy‘ pillars. David’s research interests lie at the intersection of sociology, epidemiology, and urban studies, focusing on the interplay of individual and contextual-level factors in shaping health and social outcomes, with particular attention on the social determinants of health and residential segregation phenomena.

Dr Ruxandra Comănaru is a research fellow at the European Social Survey HQ based at City St George’s, University of London. She is primarily working on the ‘Make it Green‘ pillar within the Infra4NextGen project, as well as coordinating the collaboration between the other strands of the project. Ruxandra’s research interests include the design and adaptation of surveys for mixed modes of data collection, with a focus on enhancing the methodological accuracy of self-completion methods. She is also interested in questionnaire design, translation and cultural equivalence of research concepts.