The workshop aimed at achieving multiple goals:

	It involved rigorous discussions on the importance of empirical research, training in the framing of research questions and of hypotheses that can be tested.
	It provided an introduction to the basics of survey research including sampling techniques, questionnaire design and fieldwork techniques.
	It provided training for political scientists in quantitative research methods, including training in basic statistics and advanced quantitative data analysis.
	It encouraged intensive practice and training in quantitative methods using a popular statistical program, SPSS.
	It also provided a guided practice in the use of real datasets to study particular research questions and hypotheses, in particular by using national-level election study datasets from the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies’ vast archive.

Selection of the participants
We invited the following categories of candidates to apply for this workshop by 31st March, 2010:

	Teachers of Political Science in colleges and Universities working on empirical subjects and who would benefit from further training.
	Research students of Political Science working on empirical themes for their M. Phil. or Ph. D. dissertations and who may benefit from further training.
	Any other person (including those from outside Political Science and outside academia) who were interested in making sense of politics by analyzing quantitative data.

As expected, we received an overwhelming response. Lokniti, received ninety application from candidates across the country for the limited seats available for this course. This made the selection process highly competitive. Finally twenty candidates were chosen by were chosen by a committee of Lokniti members for this Summer School. An equal number of female and male candidates were selected.

Resource Persons
The resource persons were drawn from a pool of prominent political scientists. They included :

	Professor Pradeep Chhibber, University of California at Berkeley
	Professor Irfan Nooruddin, Ohio State University.
	Professor Suhas Palshikar, University of Pune
	Mr. Sanjay Kumar, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
	Professor Sandeep Shastri, Pro- Vice Chancellor, Jain University, Bangalore
	Dr. Divya Vaid, Lokniti, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
	Mr. Rahul Verma, Lokniti, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
	Ms. Reetika Sayal, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

Schedule of the Workshop
The various topics covered in the workshop included formulation of research questions, research design, statistical data analysis techniques and writing research papers. The participants were also introduced to various sampling techniques used for surveys. The workshop was one of its kind in the sense that each participant was given an opportunity to work on a research question. It concluded with the presentations made by the participants on the basis of their findings.

Table 1: Schedule of the Workshop

Participants largely examined questions relating to factors influencing political and democratic attitudes; electoral (and more generally political) participation and voting behaviour; and opinions on the economy. All participants were asked to submit a short research paper within two month in order to successfully complete the course, after which certificates will be awarded. We have received short research papers from eleven participants and expect some more submission within next two weeks.