Announcing a New Course in the University of Cape Town (UCT)’s School of Public Health and Family Medicine Qualitative Research Methods (PPH 7071F) First Semester, 2007 Course convener: Christopher J. Colvin, PhD, UCT School of Public Health The nature and role of qualitative research in public health—and the health sciences more broadly—has been, and continues to be, the subject of intense debate. This course engages with this debate by asking: • How is qualitative data and analysis different from quantitative data and analysis? • How can these different research traditions productively interact? • How can we evaluate the reliability and validity of qualitative research? • Can health researchers grounded in quantitative techniques and positivist epistemologies do qualitative research? Can they do it well? • What value does qualitative research add to large-scale epidemiological studies, randomised control trials or other forms of biomedical research? This course provides a practical introduction to qualitative research and addresses these questions both through the development in groups of a detailed qualitative research protocol and through the close examination of published qualitative research in public health. At the end of the course, you will be able to understand how to read and evaluate qualitative research reports, design an effective qualitative research question, develop a comprehensive research protocol (including sampling and population selection, data collection and analysis, ethics, logistics and dissemination), and understand how qualitative and quantitative research traditions can usefully work together in public health, and in the health sciences more broadly. The course will be useful both for quantitative researchers who want a systematic but accessible introduction to qualitative research and to students who will be pursuing further training or research experience in specific methods for qualitative data collection and analysis. It is being offered as part of UCT’s Masters in Public Health programme, but is open to students from other departments, schools, universities, and institutions as well as to non-degree students. If you are interested, please free to contact the convener, Christopher Colvin, for more information about the course, costs, credits, etc. Please note that the class schedule follows the schedule for other MPH courses: a two and a half day block in late January (8 class sessions) and then one class session approximately every other Thursday until the middle of May. The exam is in the middle of June. Contact information for Chris Colvin: chris@capetorichmond.com or 083-453-9438