The CPI is pleased to offer an exciting course that introduces students to qualitative methods by involving them in real-time interviews of people across the country. If you’re interested in conducting applied research on the health and economic crisis, this course may be for you. The course is distinctive in three ways:

Research-Based: It's part of an ongoing research project – the American Voices Project (AVP) – a multi-method study that uses immersive interviewing to understand how people across the country are faring during this critical moment in history. 

“Learning by Doing”: This is a learning-by-doing course. We will introduce you to current research on topics relevant to the crisis, train you in research methods and immersive interviewing, ask you to complete telephone interviews with people from across the country, teach techniques for analyzing field notes, and then ask you to help write “crisis reports” describing what’s happening across the country.

Difficult: It’s a challenging class because it’s hard to interview well, hard to code well, and hard to analyze qualitative data well. During your conversations with people around the country, you’ll also often be hearing about the serious problems they’re facing or hear ideas expressed that don’t align with your values.

If you’re interested, you must apply for admission, as we’re keeping the class small and want to make sure that students are committed to this type of research experience. Applications are open now until the course is full. Please apply here.