On Friday, 8th February 2019, the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training (DRGT) in collaboration with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS) brought to a close the 2-week long PhD Integrative Training in Advanced Qualitative Data Analysis at the School of Women and Gender Studies.

This is a cross-cutting course that involves a range of processes and procedures used on qualitative data and research designs e.g. Ethnography, Critical ethnography, Case study, Action Research, Historical/ life histories, and Grounded theory. DRGT shall continue to invest in such trainings because they enable our PhD students to explore and appreciate the qualitative methodology as an approach to a research problem. We trust that qualitative data analysis gives the students an understanding of their own research objective by revealing patterns and themes in their data.

Over the years, Qualitative Data Management has become increasingly popular in the basic science disciplines (e.g. medicine). Judging from the feedback, it is evident that both the humanities and science students are now more knowledgeable in the philosophical underpinnings of qualitative research; they acquired skills of literature search, critical analysis and writing. They are now also able to identify would-be qualitative research problems; appreciate analysis of qualitative data (manually and by use of computer software);  but most importantly are able to explore various ways of writing a qualitative research report.

We extend our sincere appreciation to the competent team of resource persons including Prof. Neema Stella; Dr. Archilles Sewaya and Dr. Fred Bateganya. Their contribution to the vision and mission of DRGT is priceless!

We are indebted to the Swedish Government through the bilateral research cooperation programme for funding this and other research capacity development endeavors at Makerere University.

Article by Professor Buyinza Mukadasi, Director DRGT