Consumption - a workshop to
highlight the data available from government surveys
Wednesday 7
November 2007
Lecture room
G13/Cathcart Room, Graduate
School of Education (letter D on the campus map), Queen's
University Belfast, 69/71 University Street, Belfast, BT7
1HL
Our roles as consumers
and our patterns of consumption are central to who we are, what
we do and our consumer society. ESDS surveys allow researchers
to look at many different areas of consumption, for example, health
and consumption (lifestyle factors such as eating, drinking, smoking,
exercise) and environmental consumption (the products we consume
and our choices of transportation).
This introductory seminar
is aimed at those with little or no experience of microdata from
government surveys, or those with some experience of these surveys
who require an introduction to the consumption content of the
datasets.
The morning will comprise
a presentation from ESDS Government staff to introduce the government
surveys available for research and teaching, with time built in
for questions and discussion. The afternoon session will introduce
the concepts of consumption as used in sociology, health research,
and economics and will examine the wealth of data available from
the government surveys on a range of different consumption issues.
The research value of the consumption data will be highlighted
through research exemplars.
Programme
10.30 Registration and
coffee
The Government surveys
11:00 An
introduction to the cross-sectional government surveys
Vanessa Higgins & Anthony Rafferty, ESDS Government
- The government surveys available for research
- How you can use the data
- Choosing the right data
- Considerations when using the data
- Accessing the data
- Support services and resources available for users
12:00 Northern
Ireland Expenditure and Food Survey
Dermot Donnelly, NISRA
12:10 Accessing
data and user support
Anthony Rafferty, ESDS Government
12: 40 ESDS outreach discussion
Vanessa Higgins and Anthony Rafferty
12:45 Lunch
Consumption
1:45 What
is consumption?
Concepts of consumption as used in sociology, health research,
and economics will be introduced
Anthony Rafferty, ESDS Government
2:00 Consumption
data available from the government surveys
Vanessa Higgins, ESDS Government
This session will examine the data available for the different
elements of consumption (food, environmental etc)
2:30 Research
exemplars on consumption
Anthony Rafferty, ESDS Government
This session will highlight the research value of the consumption
data, giving exemplars of high-quality research carried out using
the government surveys
3: 00 Practical
session
Vanessa Higgins and Anthony Rafferty, ESDS Government
A practical computing session to introduce Nesstar and SPSS
Practical
1 - Using Nesstar
Practical
2 - Using the survey documentation at ESDS
Practical
3 - Exploring data in SPSS
4:30 End
