Module GW4100-KP08

Duration

1 Semester

Turnus of offer

each winter semester

Credit points

8

Course of studies, specific fields and terms:

• Master in Health and Healthcare Science 2019, compulsory, Research in the health and care sciences
• Master in Health and Healthcare Science 2025, compulsory, Research in the health and care sciences

Classes and lectures:

• Qualitative research (exercise, 1 SWS)
• Introduction to the statistical software R (seminar, 1 SWS)
• Research methods in clinical epidemiology (lecture, 2 SWS)
• Qualitative research (lecture, 1 SWS)
• Research methods in clinical epidemiology (exercise, 1 SWS)

Workload:

• 150 hours private studies and exercises
• 90 hours in-classroom work

Contents of teaching:

• Introduction to clinical epidemiology
• Diagnostic studies
• Frequency measures
• Study designs (randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, case-control studies, cross-sectional studies).
• Effect measures
• Coincidence, Bias and Confounding
• Causality
• Study design and evaluation
• Critical reading and evaluation of original scientific papers
• Different methodologies of qualitative research and their methodological implementation (e.g. grounded theory, ethnography, narrative research)
• Research process in qualitative research: in particular, development of research questions, case selection strategies and data collection (including various forms of interviews, group discussion, participant observation) and data analysis (including content analysis and data analysis according to the Grounded Theory Methodology)
• Theoretical-methodological justifications as well as method-specific and overarching quality criteria of qualitative research
• Programming in R
• Reading and writing data in R
• Data analysis and graphics in R

Qualification-goals/Competencies:

• Knowledge and understanding: Students will be able to explain the terms disease registry, incidence, prevalence, mortality, lethality and interpret corresponding measures.
• Use, application and generation of knowledge: They can judge which study design is considered adequate for which specific research question.
• Use, application and generation of knowledge: They will be able to assess whether the study methodology used leads to reliable or biased results.
• Use, application and generation of knowledge: They can formally analyze and critically evaluate the internal and external validity as well as the reporting quality of an original scientific paper.
• Use, application and generation of knowledge: They will be able to evaluate data, results, methods of epidemiological research and original scientific papers in the context of medicine and epidemiology.
• Knowledge and understanding: Students deepen their knowledge of different methodologies and methods of qualitative research and understand their epistemological foundations. They can explain the differences between qualitative and quantitative approaches in the social sciences and understand when and why qualitative methods are used. Students gain an overview of key qualitative methods such as interviews (narrative, focused, guided), focus groups, participatory observations and case study research. They acquire in-depth knowledge of quality criteria and methodological procedures in the qualitative research process.
• Use, application and generation of knowledge: Students will be able to classify different qualitative studies theoretically and methodologically and critically evaluate decisions and methodological procedures in the research process. Students can develop an appropriate research design for a qualitative study. They can develop research questions that are suitable for qualitative methods and plan strategies for data collection and analysis. Students learn how to conduct interviews and practice various techniques of qualitative data analysis, such as qualitative content analysis or data analysis according to the strategies of grounded theory methodology. They are able to systematically analyse qualitative data and identify categories and patterns.
• Use, application and generation of knowledge: Students develop an awareness of the challenges and limitations of qualitative research. They reflect on their own role as researchers and the relevance of their perspectives for the research process. In addition, they can critically evaluate qualitative studies by assessing the research process and the quality and trustworthiness of the results.
• Use, application, and creation of knowledge: Students will be able to read data sets into R and save and export edited data sets for other applications.
• Use, application, and creation of knowledge: Students will be able to perform simple data analysis in R and present the results in graphs.

Grading through:

• written exam

Responsible for this module:

• Prof. Dr. med. Alexander Katalinic

Teacher:

• Institute of Health Sciences
• Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology
• Laura Schumann, M.Sc.
• Prof. Dr. Katharina Röse
• Prof. Dr. phil. Matthias Bethge
• Mag. rer. nat. Stella Lemke

Literature:

• Creswell J : Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design. Choosing among five approaches 4rd. ed. Thousend Oak et al., SAGE Publication, 2018.
• Gordis L : Epidemiologie Marburg: Verlag im Kilian, 2008
• Przyborski A, Wohlrab-Sahr M : Qualitative Sozialforschung. Ein Arbeitsbuch 4. Aufl. München: Oldenburg Verlag, 2014
• Creswell J : Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design. Choosing among five approaches 4rd. ed. Thousend Oak et al., SAGE Publication, 2018.
• de Vries A, Meys J : R für Dummies Weinheim: Wiley, 2018

Language:

• German and English skills required

Notes:

Last Updated:

16.09.2025