| Type | Invited lectures (research methodology) |
| Event | ICSSR Ten-Day Research Methodology Course |
| Organized by | Indira Gandhi National Tribal University |
| Location | Amarkantak, India |
| Date | September 12–13, 2019 |
Two invited lectures delivered at the ICSSR Ten-Day Research Methodology Course, IGNTU, Amarkantak (September 12–13, 2019).
In short: Two practical methodology lectures for research scholars — one on analysing qualitative data with statistical tools, the other on building composite indices to measure complex social phenomena.
About the lectures
Delivered as part of an ICSSR research-methodology course for M.Phil., Ph.D., and post-doctoral scholars, these two complementary lectures equipped researchers with practical analytical tools: the first on turning qualitative data into rigorous statistical analysis, the second on constructing composite indices.
From the course
“Research methodology lectures at IGNTU, Amarkantak, 2019”
What the lectures covered
Lecture 1 — Techniques of Analysing Qualitative Data in Social Sciences
- The fundamentals of qualitative data (categorical types — nominal, ordinal, dichotomous) and their role in empirical research.
- Analytical tools: frequency and cross-tabulations, graphical approaches, statistical tests (chi-square, McNemar’s), and logistic regression.
- Practical applications through economic and educational case studies, with SPSS demonstrations.
Lecture 2 — Approaches to the Construction of Composite Indices in Social Sciences
- The core method: building a theoretical framework, selecting and validating indicators, and collecting data.
- Technical approaches: removing scale bias (standardisation, ranking) and assigning weights (equal weights, PCA).
- A worked infrastructure-index example demonstrating both ranking and PCA methods, with policy implications.
Together, the two lectures offered both the theoretical foundations and the practical tools for rigorous social-science research.
