Student blogs

Teachers

The course director was Ritva Rissanen However, we had some guest lectors and Carina King was in charge of lectures and group exercise about sampling methods and calculation.

Course Themes

Aim: “The course gives theoretical and practical knowledge and skills around quantitative data collection methods, within the public health field.” (from syllabus)

The main themes of the course were:

• Survey methodology
• Data collection
• Questionnaire design
• Sampling (sampling selection, sample size calculation, and response rates)

Course Schedule

This was 5-week online course (but the final exam was in class). However, half of the course, 21st December to 5th January, was scheduled for individual assignment and e-lectures. So, we could manage our free time for Christmas and a new year. Most of the lectures were scheduled from 9:00 to 16:00 including groups works and presentations with an hour of lunch break.

Assignments

The individual assignment was the main task during the holidays. This assignment is about designing a study including report (background, aim and methodology) and attachments (an invitation letter, a questionnaire, STATA file and a vlog about a pilot testing). This assignment was graded maximum 15 points based on a criteria and the score was included in the final grade.

In the assignment we were asked to:

• Design an invitation letter
• Design and pre-test a structured questionnaire
• Compute the sample size required
• Establish the sampling strategy for selecting individuals
• Create a computer database for entering the data

Group Work

One of the group assignment was also graded for the final score and this group work was definitely my favorite part of the course! We were randomly assigned into groups and asked to monitor either seatbelts wearing or using phone while driving at least 1 hour (and it was -5 degree outside!). Each group member monitored where they live in around Stockholm and compared the result with the national data.

Exam

Although all the lectures were taught online, the final exam was provided in class. We were assigned into 2 classrooms to keep distance between each other and were asked to wear face masks.

Grades:

• Individual assignment: fail, pass, and pass with distinction.
• Group assignment and presentation: fail and pass
• The final exam: fail (<65%) pass (65-89%), and pass with distinction (90% or more)

I hope this review helped you to get to know about our program. Feel free to contact me if you have any kind of questions! Arigato 🙂

Sakura