From August 22-28, 2022 I taught at the 26th Summer School in Social Science Methods, organized by the Swiss Foundation for Social Science (FORS) and the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI). The summer school is hosted at USI in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland. This was the fourth time I offered a one-week intensive course on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) at the Summer School in Lugano (after 2016, 2019, and 2021). This year, the course was offered as full-day in-presence workshop, with 18 participants hailing from 11 countries. The course was based on my QCA textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application, published with Georgetown University Press (2021, Publisher’s Website). Many thanks to all course participants for an intensive and fun week with QCA! And thanks to School Coordinator Janice Casarella and the School Directors Benedetto Lepori, Eugène Horber, and Patrick Gagliardini for the excellent and smooth organization!

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Registration opened for the 26th Summer School in Social Science Methods, organized by the Swiss Foundation for Social Science Research (FORS) and the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI). The school takes place at USI in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland.

For the 4th time, I am offering a one-week course on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) at the Swiss Summer School. The course takes place in presence during the week of August 22-26, 2022. The intensive full-day format in a small group settings allows for plenty of opportunities to practice empirical application with the R software, to discuss research design, and give feedback on participants’ research projects.

The course is based on my recent QCA textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application (Georgetown University Press, 2021).

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From August 23-27, 2021 I taught at the 25th Summer School in Social Science Methods, organized by the Swiss Foundation for Social Science (FORS) and the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI). The summer school is hosted at USI in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland. This was the third time that I offered a one-week intensive course on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) at the Swiss Summer School in Lugano (after 2016 and 2019, respectively). The course was offered in hybrid format, with in-presence and online participants attending the course. The course was based on my QCA textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application, published with Georgetown University Press (2021, Publisher’s Website). Many thanks to all course participants for an intensive and fun week with QCA! And thanks to School Coordinator Janice Casarella and the School Directors Eugène Horber, Patrick Gagliardini, and Benedetto Lepori for the excellent and smooth organization!

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The workshop program was announced for the 25th Summer School in Social Science Methods, organized by the Swiss Foundation for Social Science Research (FORS) and the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI). The school is hosted at USI in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland. For the third time, I am offering a one-week intensive course on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) at the Swiss Summer School. The course runs from August 23-27, 2021. The course is based on my QCA textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application (Georgetown University Press). Course registration will open at the end of January/early February 2021. The opening will be announced through the summer school’s newsletter (sign-up on the registration page).

Workshop contents

This workshop gives a thorough introduction to the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), with an emphasis on research design and practical application. Since its inception (Ragin 1987), QCA has gained recognition among social scientists as a case-based research method that is ideally suited to capture causal complexity. This essentially describes a situation where an outcome results from multiple pathways and different combinations of conditions. Moreover, QCA entails a rigorous and systematic comparison of selected cases and their configurations through Boolean logic and a software-based analytical protocol.

Throughout this workshop, participants will be introduced to the building blocks of QCA, while the course structure follows an ideal-typical research process. The introduction opens with empirical illustrations to show how and for what purposes QCA is being used, before summarizing the method’s key characteristics. This is followed by sessions on causation, causal complexity, and research design, to provide a foundation for thinking about empirical applications. The ensuing sessions engage with the use of QCA as an analytical approach, starting with set theory and concepts like necessary and sufficient conditions, Boolean algebra, truth tables, and fuzzy sets. In calibrating sets, we look into approaches to transform empirical raw data into crisp and fuzzy sets. Next, the course examines various measures of fit that help in evaluating QCA results. The session on set-theoretic analysis puts all of the elements together and shows how empirical data is analyzed and interpreted with QCA. Finally, the workshop closes with sessions on advanced topics, which can be tailored based on participants’ background and research interests. Potential topics include multi-method research design, QCA variants, addressing critiques, and recent developments. The workshop sessions are complemented by illustrations and exercises, using the R Software environment and relevant R Packages.

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Methods Course at the 23rd Swiss Summer School in Social Science Methods

From August 19-23, 2019 I taught a one-week intensive course on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), organized by FORS, the Swiss Foundation for Social Science Research and the Università della Svizzera Italiana in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland. The course drew on my textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Research Design and Application, under contract with Georgetown University Press. From the course description: “The course provides participants with a thorough introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), both as a research approach and as a data analysis technique. In recent years, this set-theoretic method has gained recognition among social scientists as a methodological approach that holds specific benefits for comparative studies. The course begins by familiarizing participants with the foundations of set theory and the basic concepts of the methodological approach of QCA, including necessary and sufficient conditions, Boolean algebra, and fuzzy logic. The next step is devoted to the calibration of empirical data into crisp and fuzzy sets. Once these essentials are in place, the course moves on to the construction and analysis of truth tables as the core of the QCA procedure. Here, we will also spend time to discuss typical challenges that arise during a truth table analysis, and techniques to overcome such problems. Finally, the course will introduce consistency and coverage as parameters of fit, as well as additional measures to assess the robustness of QCA results.”

Besides the technical introduction of QCA and its variants, the course will provide opportunities to discuss general aspects of comparative research design, including criteria for concept building and case selection, and data-related issues. Participants will be given the opportunity to present their own work and to receive individual feedback on their projects. Throughout the course, participants will conduct set-theoretic analyses within the R software environment (packages “QCA” and “SetMethods”). The software will be introduced on the first day and used for exercises and examples throughout the course, so that participants gain a level of proficiency that enables them to conduct their own QCA analyses upon the completion of the course. Participants are encouraged to bring their own qualitative and/or quantitative data for course exercises (if available, preliminary data is fine). In addition, datasets from published studies will be made available and used for in-course exercises.”

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Methods Course at the 23rd Swiss Summer School in Social Science Methods

From August 19-23, 2019 I will be offering a one-week intensive course on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), organized by FORS, the Swiss Foundation for Social Science Research and the Università della Svizzera Italiana in beautiful Lugano, Switzerland. The course will draw on my textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Research Design and Application, under contract with Georgetown University Press. From the course description: “The course provides participants with a thorough introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), both as a research approach and as a data analysis technique. In recent years, this set-theoretic method has gained recognition among social scientists as a methodological approach that holds specific benefits for comparative studies. The course begins by familiarizing participants with the foundations of set theory and the basic concepts of the methodological approach of QCA, including necessary and sufficient conditions, Boolean algebra, and fuzzy logic. The next step is devoted to the calibration of empirical data into crisp and fuzzy sets. Once these essentials are in place, the course moves on to the construction and analysis of truth tables as the core of the QCA procedure. Here, we will also spend time to discuss typical challenges that arise during a truth table analysis, and techniques to overcome such problems. Finally, the course will introduce consistency and coverage as parameters of fit, as well as additional measures to assess the robustness of QCA results.”

Besides the technical introduction of QCA and its variants, the course will provide opportunities to discuss general aspects of comparative research design, including criteria for concept building and case selection, and data-related issues. Participants will be given the opportunity to present their own work and to receive individual feedback on their projects. Throughout the course, participants will conduct set-theoretic analyses within the R software environment (packages “QCA” and “SetMethods“). The software will be introduced on the first day and used for exercises and examples throughout the course, so that participants gain a level of proficiency that enables them to conduct their own QCA analyses upon the completion of the course. Participants are encouraged to bring their own qualitative and/or quantitative data for course exercises (if available, preliminary data is fine). In addition, datasets from published studies will be made available and used for in-course exercises.” Please note that the course is limited to 10-12 participants and will fill on a first come, first served basis. More information & the course registration can be found here. Do not hesitate to contact me, should you have any questions about the course!

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Patrick A. Mello (Week 1), Carsten Q. Schneider (Week 2), and Nena Oana (Teaching Assistant)

Methods Course taught for the European Consortium for Political Research at Central European University, Budapest, 27 July – 7 August 2017

Course Outline: “This course introduces participants to set-theoretic methods and their application in the social sciences with a focus on Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The introductory course is complemented by an advanced course that is taught at the ECPR Winter School in Bamberg. The course starts out by familiarizing students with the basic concepts of the underlying methodological perspective, among them the central notions of necessity and sufficiency, formal logic and Boolean algebra. From there, we move to the logic and analysis of truth tables and discuss the most important problems that emerge when this analytical tool is used for exploring social science data. Right from the beginning, students will be exposed to performing set-theoretic analyses with the relevant R software packages. When discussing set-theoretic methods, in-class debates will engage on broad, general comparative social research issues, such as case selection principles, concept formation, questions of data aggregation and the treatment of causally relevant notions of time. Examples are drawn from published applications in the social sciences. Participants are encouraged to bring their own raw data for in-class exercises and assignments, if available“ [Read Further]

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Methods Course at the 20th Swiss Social Science Summer School

Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, 22-26 August 2016

The workshop provides participants with a thorough introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), both as a research approach and as a data analysis technique. In recent years, this set-theoretic method has gained recognition among social scientists as a methodological approach that holds specific benefits for comparative studies. The course begins by familiarizing participants with the foundations of set theory and the basic concepts of the methodological approach of QCA, including necessary and sufficient conditions, Boolean algebra, and fuzzy logic. The next step is devoted to the calibration of empirical data into crisp and fuzzy sets. Once these essentials are in place, the course moves on to the construction and analysis of truth tables as the core of the QCA procedure. Here, we will also spend time to discuss typical challenges that arise during a truth table analysis and techniques to overcome such problems. Finally, the course will introduce consistency and coverage as parameters of fit as well as additional measures to assess the robustness of QCA results [Read Further]

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Patrick A. Mello (Week 1), Carsten Q. Schneider (Week 2), and Nena Oana (Teaching Assistant)

Methods Course taught for the European Consortium for Political Research at Central European University, Budapest, 28 July – 13 August 2016

Course Outline: “This course introduces participants to set-theoretic methods and their application in the social sciences with a focus on Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The introductory course is complemented by an advanced course that is taught at the ECPR Winter School in Bamberg. The course starts out by familiarizing students with the basic concepts of the underlying methodological perspective, among them the central notions of necessity and sufficiency, formal logic and Boolean algebra. From there, we move to the logic and analysis of truth tables and discuss the most important problems that emerge when this analytical tool is used for exploring social science data. Right from the beginning, students will be exposed to performing set-theoretic analyses with the relevant R software packages. When discussing set-theoretic methods, in-class debates will engage on broad, general comparative social research issues, such as case selection principles, concept formation, questions of data aggregation and the treatment of causally relevant notions of time. Examples are drawn from published applications in the social sciences. Participants are encouraged to bring their own raw data for in-class exercises and assignments, if available“ [Read Further]

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Patrick A. Mello (Week 1), Carsten Q. Schneider (Week 2), Adrian Dusa, and Nena Oana (Teaching Assistants)

Methods Course taught for the European Consortium for Political Research at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 23 July – 8 August 2015

Course Outline: “This course introduces participants to set-theoretic methods and their application in the social sciences with a focus on Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The introductory course is complemented by an advanced course that is taught at the ECPR Winter School in Bamberg. The course starts out by familiarizing students with the basic concepts of the underlying methodological perspective, among them the central notions of necessity and sufficiency, formal logic and Boolean algebra. From there, we move to the logic and analysis of truth tables and discuss the most important problems that emerge when this analytical tool is used for exploring social science data. Right from the beginning, students will be exposed to performing set-theoretic analyses with the relevant R software packages. When discussing set-theoretic methods, in-class debates will engage on broad, general comparative social research issues, such as case selection principles, concept formation, questions of data aggregation and the treatment of causally relevant notions of time. Examples are drawn from published applications in the social sciences. Participants are encouraged to bring their own raw data for in-class exercises and assignments, if available” [Read Further]

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