ESRA International Summer School on Survey Methodology

In July, the faculty hosted the International Summer School on Survey Methodology, which this year focused on two main themes. During the first part of the event, participants from Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Moldova, Slovenia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, had the opportunity to learn more about integrating and upgrading or improving the survey process and data using other digital technologies, such as large language models and data on users’ online activity. In the second part, the lectures presented best practices in working with international, multimodal, and missing survey data.

The summer school placed particular emphasis on the importance of the informed use of artificial intelligence tools and the critical evaluation of the results generated, as innovations in survey methodology are primarily linked to large language models and artificial intelligence. This raises key questions about the advantages and, of course, the disadvantages of using this technology in the process of designing questionnaires, surveying respondents, analyzing data, and interpreting results. Since the use of artificial intelligence in the survey process is a new (and therefore still under-researched) application, it is important for researchers to have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of the tools they are working with, including the potential biases and limitations of artificial intelligence and large language models.

You can read more about the summer school at the link.

Photo: FDV