Class / Instruction:Noncredit short courses presented by the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques
2026-07-16 09:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-17 09:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-20 09:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-21 09:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-22 09:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-23 09:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-24 09:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-27 09:00 - 16:00 (America/Detroit) and 3 more dates | Off Campus Location
Founded in 1948, the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques is designed specifically to meet the needs of professionals and graduate students seeking to deepen their expertise in survey methodology and data collection. Offered through the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the program provides a rigorous and flexible curriculum that blends theoretical foundations with practical application — entirely online.

Classes are open for registration.
You do not have to be affiliated with the University to attend.
Registration and payment are required a minimum of two weeks prior to the start of the class.

July 7 and 9, 2026 (T/Th)
9:00am-1:00pm
Interventions in a Responsive Survey Design Framework
Presented by Brady T. West
Course Fee: $600

July 13-17, 2026 (M-F)
1:00pm-4:00pm
Designing and Writing Questions for Surveys: Guidelines and Recommendations
Presented by Jennifer (Jen) Dykema
Course Fee: $1,200

July 13-17, 2026 (M-F)
10:30am-12:00pm
Integrating Qualitative Methods into Survey Research
Presented by Darby Steiger
Course Fee: $500

July 20-23, 2026 (M-Th)
12:00pm-4:00pm
Going Deeper into Questionnaire Design with Alternative Methods and Tools
Presented by Pamela Campanelli
Course Fee: $1,200

July 20-30, 2026 (M T TH: Live instruction; W: Video instruction)
10:00am-11:30am
Natural Language Processing with R
Presented by Robyn Ferg
Course Fee: $1,200

Class / Instruction:Integrating Qualitative Methods into Survey Research
2026-07-16 10:30 - 12:00, 2026-07-17 10:30 - 12:00 | Off Campus Location
Founded in 1948, the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques is designed specifically to meet the needs of professionals and graduate students seeking to deepen their expertise in survey methodology and data collection. Offered through the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the program provides a rigorous and flexible curriculum that blends theoretical foundations with practical application — entirely online.

Classes are open for registration.
You do not have to be affiliated with the University to attend.
Registration and payment are required a minimum of two weeks prior to the start of the class.

July 13-17, 2026 (M-F)
10:30am-12:00pm
Integrating Qualitative Methods into Survey Research
Presented by Darby Steiger
Course Fee: $500

This intensive course is designed to introduce novice and intermediate survey researchers to the integration of qualitative methods into survey research. Guided by the literature on mixed methods research, the course will present various motivations and strategies for blending qualitative components into a quantitative study. Students will be introduced to a variety of qualitative methods and the ways each approach can complement a survey, including focus groups, in-depth interviews, asynchronous research, cognitive testing, open-ended survey questions, and multiple methods used across a single study. Through case studies and collaborative exercises, students will explore the potential contribution of each method, as well as the benefits of combined methods to advance and understand specific research questions. Practical considerations will be covered, including study design, sampling, recruitment, data collection, analysis, and integration of qualitative findings into survey reporting. This course is designed for those with a specific research question in mind, as participants will be asked to design multi-method approaches to a research question of their choice. By the end of this course, participants will understand the role qualitative research can play in survey research and how to design and implement a qualitative phase in a multimethod study.

Darby Steiger is Vice President of Innovation & Solutions and Director of Qualitative Research at SSRS. Darby is responsible for spearheading the advancement of the core SSRS research products while driving cutting-edge approaches to the firm’s qualitative and quantitative research divisions. With over 30 years as a qualitative researcher and survey methodologist, Darby has extensive experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research for a wide range of organizations and topics. A national leader in research methods, Darby regularly presents at leading industry conferences and recently served on the Executive Council of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Darby has three degrees from the University of Michigan.

Class / Instruction:June 2 - July 30, 2026 T/TH Course - Sampling in Practice
2026-07-16 13:00 - 15:00, 2026-07-17 13:00 - 15:00, 2026-07-18 13:00 - 15:00, 2026-07-19 13:00 - 15:00, 2026-07-20 13:00 - 15:00, 2026-07-21 13:00 - 15:00, 2026-07-22 13:00 - 15:00, 2026-07-23 13:00 - 15:00 and 7 more dates | Off Campus Location
June 2-July 30, 2026, T/TH
1:00pm - 3:00pm
A live course via Zoom. Registration and payment are required a minimum of two weeks prior to the start of the course.

Founded in 1948, the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques is designed specifically to meet the needs of professionals and graduate students seeking to deepen their expertise in survey methodology and data collection. Offered through the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the program provides a rigorous and flexible curriculum that blends theoretical foundations with practical application — entirely online.

Sampling in Practice

Unlocking the art and science of sampling with an applied, hands-on approach, the course Sampling in Practice is designed for applied practitioners who want to master real-world sampling techniques through active learning and practical programming. Students will learn about probability sampling methods, including simple random sampling, stratification, systematic selection, cluster sampling, probability proportional to size sampling, and multistage sampling. We will also cover sampling cost models, sampling error estimation techniques, non-sampling errors, missing data, and nonprobability samples. The course emphasizes practical implementation, featuring interactive coding exercises and in-class examples to reinforce each concept. A culminating project will give students the opportunity to integrate multiple techniques into a comprehensive sample design and demonstrate the profession in designing surveys, selecting subjects, analyzing sample data, and solving real sampling problems using modern statistical tools.

Why take this course?

The course is crafted for students and practitioners eager:

To build proficiency in modern sampling techniques through active engagement and practical coding experience
To understand the basic ideas, concepts and principles of probability sampling from an applied perspective
To be able to identify and appropriately apply sampling techniques to survey design problems
To understand and be able to assess the impact of the sample design on survey estimates
To be able to compute the sample size for a variety of sample designs
To learn how to design and select a probability sample involving complex sampling techniques in a survey project, and receive expert feedback on a sampling report.

Yajuan Si is a Research Associate Professor in the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science, located within in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. She holds a Ph.D. in statistical science from Duke and received postdoctoral training at Columbia. Yajuan’s research focuses on methodology development, from data analysis to study design, in streams of Bayesian statistics, linking design- and model-based approaches for survey inference, data integration, missing data analysis, confidentiality protection, and causal inference, with applications in the social and health sciences. More information can be found here: https://websites.umich.edu/~yajuan/.

Class / Instruction:Designing and Writing Questions for Surveys: Guidelines and Recommendations
2026-07-16 13:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-17 13:00 - 16:00 | Off Campus Location
Founded in 1948, the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques is designed specifically to meet the needs of professionals and graduate students seeking to deepen their expertise in survey methodology and data collection. Offered through the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the program provides a rigorous and flexible curriculum that blends theoretical foundations with practical application — entirely online.

Classes are open for registration.
You do not have to be affiliated with the University to attend.
Registration and payment are required a minimum of two weeks prior to the start of the class.

July 13-17, 2026 (M-F)
1:00pm-4:00pm
Designing and Writing Questions for Surveys: Guidelines and Recommendations
Presented by Jennifer (Jen) Dykema
Course Fee: $1,200

This workshop distills research about survey questions to principles that can be applied to write survey questions that are clear and obtain reliable answers. The workshop provides students with tools to use in diagnosing problems in survey questions and in writing their own survey questions. Sessions combine lectures with group exercises & discussion. The lecture provides guidelines for writing and revising survey questions and illustrates how to revise troubled questions. Sessions consider both questions about events and behaviors and questions about subjective phenomena (such as attitudes, evaluations, and internal states).

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Introduce a structural analysis of parts of a survey question. Describe guidelines for diagnosing problems in survey questions and writing new survey questions. Focus on the structure and wording of survey questions, whether for interviewer-administered or self-administered instruments. Provide an opportunity to apply the guidelines and principles during in-class exercises. Focus on improving individual questions and sets of questions. Summarize research that underlies key decisions in writing survey questions. Introduce cognitive interviewing as a method for testing survey questions.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Individuals who will be writing or reviewing survey questions or survey instruments or analyzing survey data. This course gives practical guidance to those who have written survey questions but who are not familiar with the research on question design, those who are just beginning to design survey instruments, and those who use survey data but do not themselves design survey instruments.

INSTRUCTOR

Jennifer (Jen) Dykema s an Professor of Sociology and the Faculty Director of the University of Wisconsin Survey Center (UWSC). Jen’s research focuses on survey methodology, identifying sources of errors produced in the process of gathering standardized measurements and developing and implementing methods to reduce those errors. This work examines three main areas of inquiry: questionnaire design, methods to increase response rates, and interviewer-respondent interaction. As Faculty Director, Jen oversees a program of methodological research that incorporates experiments and evaluations in ongoing projects. Her research has appeared in a number of journals including Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology, Social Science Computer Review, and Field Methods, and edited volumes including the Handbook of Survey Research and Advances in Questionnaire Design, Development, Evaluation and Testing. She recently co-edited “Interviewer Effects from a Total Survey Error Perspective (2020).” Jen served as the Conference Chair for the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) in 2017, and in 2022 she was selected as a Fellow of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research (MAPOR). Jen earned her B.A. in psychology and sociology from the University of Michigan, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Class / Instruction:Natural Language Processing with R
2026-07-20 10:00 - 23:30, 2026-07-21 10:00 - 23:30, 2026-07-22 10:00 - 23:30, 2026-07-23 10:00 - 23:30, 2026-07-24 10:00 - 23:30, 2026-07-27 10:00 - 23:30, 2026-07-28 10:00 - 23:30, 2026-07-29 10:00 - 23:30 and 1 more date | Off Campus Location
Founded in 1948, the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques is designed specifically to meet the needs of professionals and graduate students seeking to deepen their expertise in survey methodology and data collection. Offered through the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the program provides a rigorous and flexible curriculum that blends theoretical foundations with practical application — entirely online.

Classes are open for registration.
You do not have to be affiliated with the University to attend.
Registration and payment are required a minimum of two weeks prior to the start of the class.

July 20-30, 2026 (M T TH: Live instruction; W: Video instruction)
10:00am-11:30am
Natural Language Processing with R
Presented by Robyn Ferg
Course Fee: $1,200

In this two-week course, students will learn a variety of natural language processing methods for analyzing and extracting meaning from text data. The course will start with an introduction to text data, including text preprocessing and exploratory methods. The topics that follow will include machine learning models used for topic modeling, clustering, classification, sentiment analysis, and word embeddings. Students will also be introduced to web scraping. Considerations to both long and short texts of various subject matter. Class examples will be demonstrated primarily in R. This course assumes a bachelors-level background in Statistics or related field and knowledge of R or Python; no prior knowledge of text analysis is assumed.

Robyn Ferg is a senior statistician at Westat. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on developing methods for extracting insights from social media data. She has taught graduate and short courses at the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (University of Maryland) and given talks on text analysis at the Census Bureau, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and several national and international conferences. She has published original research on this topic in several peer reviewed journals. She has a PhD in Statistics from the University of Michigan.

Class / Instruction:Going Deeper into Questionnaire Design with Alternative Methods and Tools
2026-07-20 12:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-21 12:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-22 12:00 - 16:00, 2026-07-23 12:00 - 16:00 | Off Campus Location
Founded in 1948, the Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques is designed specifically to meet the needs of professionals and graduate students seeking to deepen their expertise in survey methodology and data collection. Offered through the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the program provides a rigorous and flexible curriculum that blends theoretical foundations with practical application — entirely online.

Classes are open for registration.
You do not have to be affiliated with the University to attend.
Registration and payment are required a minimum of two weeks prior to the start of the class.

July 20-23, 2026 (M-Th)
12:00pm-4:00pm
Going Deeper into Questionnaire Design with Alternative Methods and Tools
Presented by Pamela Campanelli
Course Fee: $1,200

This course assumes you have some level of experience with questionnaire design. It goes beyond looking at question comprehension purely from a cognitive side. The linguistic side will be explored, including the use of online tools. Factual questions will be revisited but with the goal of exploring different types of respondent memory problems. Solutions include basic aids to improve memory and alternative methods: decomposition, calendars, event history calendars, internet enabled devices, wearables, apps and sensors, and additional tasks on mobile phones. Also covered are the effects of telescoping and quasi-facts. Subjective questions will be revisited to understand attitude inconsistency and to cover the popular topic of satisfaction and other customer experience metrics. Alternatives methods to attitude measurement will also be examined: factorial surveys and multi-item scales. The course concludes with multi-cultural issues raised by Rincón and a mini appendix on ways to translate survey questions and evaluate the translation.

The course will be interactive with the goal of making it as close to in-person training as possible. There also will be workshops throughout. Dr. Campanelli is happy to chat with participants about their own questionnaires.

Why take this course?

You will get to learn about:

The deeper issues that affect factual and subjective questions.
A broader set of resources available to solve these issues (including alternative methods and tools).
* Please note that AI is not included in the alternative tools that will be explored in this course's curriculum.

Prerequisite: An introductory course in questionnaire design or equivalent experience.

Pamela Campanelli is a survey methods specialist, chartered statistician, fellow of the academy of social sciences and an international trainer, researcher and consultant who runs her own business (http://www.thesurveycoach.com/). Her background is in social statistics, survey methodology, and psychology with a special interest in the study of survey error and data quality focusing on questionnaire design, question testing strategies, interviewing techniques, sampling and weighting, survey analysis, and mixed-mode designs. In addition to providing consultancy, conducting research, writing papers, reviewing for journals, advising committees, Dr. Campanelli’s focuses on providing training courses. She is committed to high quality learning. She believes in delivering courses that are lively and engaging, foster an informal and interactive atmosphere, communicate concepts in a straightforward and accessible way, illustrate the material through the use of ‘real life’ examples, and provide workshops to put theory into practice.

Exhibition:Piano Lab Pro: The Science of Stage Presence
2026-08-27 13:30 - 15:30 | Earl V. Moore Building - Britton Recital Hall
Join the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance for the premiere of Piano Lab Pro – a new Apple Vision Pro app that helps musicians understand and manage performance anxiety through immersive extended reality. Developed in partnership with the Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) and the Institute for Social Research (ISR), the app and its accompanying research are entering U-M's class piano curriculum.

The afternoon features a live demonstration, a look at the biofeedback research behind it, and remarks from SMTD Dean David Gier, ISR Director Kate Cagney, and CAI Chief Technology Officer Jeremy Nelson.

Workshop / Seminar:RCGD Fall Seminar Series: Global Perspectives on Culture & Health (Miguel Arce Rentería)
2026-09-14 15:30 - 17:00 | Institute For Social Research - 1430
RCGD Fall 2026 Seminar Series: Global Perspectives on Culture & Health, meets Mondays 3:30 to 5 at ISR Thompson 1430.

Global Perspectives on Culture and Health explores fundamental aspects of human life. Culture facilitates human interaction by providing meaning to lived experience. Accounting for culture in both theories and methods potentially advances the study of health by connecting the macro and micro levels of human experience. Yet, culture should be understood as dynamic and complex. It fundamentally shapes individuals and simultaneously is shaped by individuals. The importance of systematically attending to culture includes topics of values, language, immigration, and society.

Theories and methods that incorporate culture hold great potential for advancing the understanding of health outcomes and health trajectories in various global contexts.

The speakers for this series will focus on various aspects of culture and diverse groups living in the U.S. and across the globe to address the ways in which attending to culture helps clarify and overcome challenges to good health.

The Group Dynamics Seminar series is considered one of the longest running seminar series in the social sciences. It has been running uninterruptedly since it was founded by Kurt Lewin in the 1920’s in Berlin. The seminar series runs every semester on a theme chosen by faculty organizer/s who are affiliated with the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research. A very important feature of this seminar today is its interdisciplinary nature. Recent themes have included political polarization, evolution and human behavior, and cultural psychology.

These events are held Mondays from 3:30 to 5.
In person: ISR Thompson 1430, unless otherwise specified.
Organized by Kristine Ajrouch and Sela Panapasa
Events are not recorded, but as permissions allow, interviews with speakers are later posted to our YouTube playlist.

Lecture / Discussion:ISR Insights Speaker Series
2026-09-24 12:00 - 13:00, 2026-10-15 12:00 - 13:00, 2026-11-12 12:00 - 13:00, 2027-01-28 12:00 - 13:00 | Institute For Social Research - 1430
Discover groundbreaking research on social issues at the ISR Insights Speaker Series. Join us as ISR researchers take the stage to share their insights.

Conference / Symposium:Place as Method, Theory, and Responsibility: Rethinking Scientific Inquiry for Complex Social Issues
2026-10-08 08:00 - 17:00, 2026-10-09 08:00 - 17:00 | Institute For Social Research
October 8-9, 2026 | Institute for Social Research

The challenge: New data and approaches to study complexity in the social world has often been without a concurrent focus on the foundations of scientific inquiry, including complex thinking, broad causal thinking, attention to epistemic lens, and integrating multiple disciplinary approaches. Further, the academic research model, with its resource-segregated networks, discipline-specific training, and short-term productivity metrics, contributes to a fragmented and potentially misleading understanding of the social world. In the second annual ISR Symposium on Complexity in the Social World, we will use ‘place’ as the case study to facilitate discussions on rigorous social science in the public interest.

Using research on place as the case study, discussion topics will include:
- Complex thinking about the social world
- The contribution of the humanities the study of the social world
- Epistemic lens and research transparency
- Theories, frameworks, and the limits of traditional causal inference
- The draw and danger of cool new data
- Addressing the challenges of the academic model of science

Presentations on the science of place will include:
- The relational nature of place in population social inequalities
- The role of history in shaping place
- The racialization of place; the spatialization of race
- Place as a neutral and rational driver of social inequalities
- Approaches to testing (causal) ideas around place

The Institute for Social Research will provide 35 travel awards for early career scholars who are building a career around the interdisciplinary science of place. These awards are intended to reduce financial barriers for those who are not currently affiliated with the University of Michigan. The awards are designed to broaden participation, support scholarly development, and expand the network of scholars engaged with the symposium themes. Travel awards will cover coach class airfare, symposium hotel, and ground airport transportation. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, from July 1, 2026 until September 4, 2026. Details and application at https://myumi.ch/DWGnj

Registration will be available on this site soon.

Lecture / Discussion:Perspectives on the 2026 Midterm Elections
2026-10-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Institute For Social Research - 1430
Join our experts for a panel discussion of the issues shaping the 2026 Midterm Elections.

Lecture / Discussion:A Look Back at the 2026 Midterm Elections
2026-11-19 12:00 - 13:00 | Institute For Social Research - 1430
Panelists will discuss the outcomes of the 2026 Midterm Elections, exploring key trends, voter behavior, and the implications for the future of American politics.
