A two-day capacity building workshop on the mixed-method approach and the importance of qualitative research under the IOE project titled “Health care needs and practices in Indian men and women with reproductive system cancer”, UoH/IoE/RC1-20-030 on 19/05/2022 and 20/05/2022. The objectives of the workshop were to enhance the knowledge of the participants regarding the significance of the mixed-method approach, the relevance of qualitative research methods, sampling procedure, and data collection methods. It also aimed to familiarise the participants with thematic analysis, content analysis, grounded theory, discourse analysis, interpretive phenomenological analysis, Natural language processing and framework analysis. The participants included about 55 participants who consistently participated on both days of the workshop. They included research scholars from behavioral, health, and social sciences across the country as well as faculty members. The inaugural session was enriched by the presence of the Dean school of medical sciences and the Dean of, the School of Management Studies with their valuable messages to the scholars. Dean, School of medical sciences stressed on the importance systematic inquiry which ends in communicable knowledge in the form of publications. She lauded the efforts of the project team is organising such a useful workshop. Dean, School of Management Studies introduced the activities of the school and pointed to the courses as well especially work being done in the field of health care management. She appreciated the team for bringing forth the importance of qualitative research which provides deep insights into the practical deliverables regarding the area of research. She said that such a workshop is much needed for students across the departments.
The inaugural session was followed by a keynote address by Prof. Mathew George, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. In his session Prof. Mathew highlighted with the help of illustrative examples many aspects of the application of qualitative research in health and behavioural sciences. This was followed by the interactive session by Dr. Alok Pandey from University of Hyderabad on ‘Application of Ethnography and Grounded theory in qualitative research. Post lunch sessions started with the session by Prof. Srinivasan from Madras University. He enlightened participants by covering the importance of ‘Categorical Data and its Application’ in behavioral research. The final session of the day was the lucid presentation by Dr. Mahati Chittem from Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad on Interpretive phenomenological analysis. All the sessions were interactive and during the conclusion of each session, students asked relevant questions which were addressed by the experts respectively.
The Day 2 sessions started with an overview provided by Prof. B. Raja Shekhar, University of Hyderabad on the ‘Application of qualitative research in social science: Issues and Concerns. He discussed in detail the issues and concerns with the help of relevant examples. This was followed by the session on the Mixed-method approach by Dr. Ranjit Kumar Dehury, University of Hyderabad. He gave several research examples and explained mixed-method approach and how it is insightful. Post-lunch sessions started with Dr. Shachi Yadav, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, session on ‘Case study and qualitative data interpretation’. She illustrated the above with the help of relevant examples in the research. The final session was on ‘Natural Language Processing in qualitative research’ by Dr. Hima Bindu from National Institute of Technology, Andhra Pradesh. She used several illustrations to explain the process. All the experts addressed the queries posed by participants elaborately and to the satisfaction of the participants. The workshop ended with a discussion of organizers with the participants on future directions and feedback.