Qualitative Bayesian Reasoning for Case Studies
Instructor: Tasha Fairfield, LSE
June 17, 2024 – June 21, 2024, 7:00 AM-12:00 PM, ET
Now Hybrid! (Online or in-person at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland)
The workshop "Qualitative Bayesian Reasoning for Case Studies" is offered by the Global School in Empirical Research Methods (GSERM), with co-sponsorship by the ICPSR Summer Program. This hybrid workshop will be offered online and in-person at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. To register, you must go to gserm.org. Please note that registration closes April 30; applications received after this date will be processed at the discretion of the organizers. For more information, contact gserm@unisg.ch.
Course Overview: Bayesianism provides a rigorous and intuitive framework for revising our confidence in a hypothesis given our prior knowledge and new evidence that we find during our research. Bayesianism is enjoying a revival across many fields, and it offers a powerful tool for improving inference and analytic transparency in qualitative research. We will examine concrete applications to single case studies, comparative case studies, and multi-methods research. Participants will learn how to construct rival hypotheses, assess the inferential weight of qualitative evidence, and evaluate which hypothesis provides the best explanation through Bayesian updating. The short course will also overview key aspects of research design, including case selection and iteration between theory development and data analysis. Throughout, we will conduct a wide range of exercises and group work to give participants hands-on practice at applying Bayesian techniques. Upon completing the course, participants will be able to read qualitative case studies more critically and apply Bayesian principles to their own research. The course will cover all of the major topics in Social Inquiry and Bayesian Inference: Rethinking Qualitative Research (Fairfield & Charman, CUP 2022).