Continuing Education

April 2012

Understanding Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is about exploring issues and answering questions. This 3 ½ day course is designed to provide the consumer research professional with the skills to uncover consumer insights that lead to actionable results thru hands on experience in designing, executing and interpreting qualitative research. The course will review different techniques for leading qualitative sessions with consumers and how to uncover and report meaningful conclusions. Through interactive workshops, the participants will develop discussion guides and conduct interviews with consumers in a focus group setting. Further understanding how to navigate thru a session and when and where to focus for a-ha moments will be explored. A key component of learning to communicate the results in a meaningful way to clients is included.

Location: Spectrum Discovery Center, 222 Oak Avenue, Kannapolis, NC, United States
From: April 17, 2012 to April 20, 2012
Offered by: Sensory Spectrum
Target audience: Beginner
Cost: $2,350 USD

Further information: See page 9 in the 2012 Course Booklet; http://www.sensoryspectrum.com/docs/SensorySpectrum2012CourseBooklet.pdf

Hands on Preference Mapping and Consumer/Sensory Statistics

This course forms a hands-on introduction to those statistical methods needed by a sensory and consumer scientist. Mainly based around the use of XLSTAT, attendees will gain practical experience using real-life examples and will be able to save their work to take away with a free copy of XLSTAT and XLSTAT-MX so they will be competent to start using their expertise from day 1 after the course. Attendees will also receive a 6 month license for Design Express – the powerful QI Statistics consumer trial design software and their Turf Calculator program together with a number of specialised Excel spreadsheets. NEW! We will teach our new version of Preference mapping called Crossover Preference mapping that allows ideal point mapping using only PCA and regression

Location: Microtek Labs, 230 W. Monroe, Suite 550, Chicago, Illinois, United States
From: April 22, 2012 to April 24, 2012
Offered by: Dr. Hal MacFie Consulting
Target audience: Beginner
Cost: $2665; 25% discount for members of academia

Further information: http://www.halmacfie.com/pages/chicagoapr2012.html

Hands on Sensory and Consumer Shelf-life Measurement Course

The course objective is for participants to acquire the necessary tools to estimate sensory shelf life of foods, focusing on the consumer’s decision to accept or reject a stored product. The course will cover experimental design, the work of trained and consumer panels, and on how to perform statistical calculations. Shelf-life estimations based on survival analysis statistics and the cut-off point method will be performed hands-on with the freely distributed R Statistical Package in combination with Excel. Attendees will receive clear instructions and R-functions to start using their expertise from day 1 after the course. The course is orientated to the needs of R&D and quality control. Throughout the course real case studies will be seen of shelf lives of yogurt, UHT milk, lettuce, sunflower oil, mayonnaise, French-type bread and minced meat.

Location: Microtek Labs, 230 W. Monroe, Suite 550, Chicago, Illinois, United States
From: April 24, 2012 to April 26, 2012
Offered by: Dr. Hal MacFie Consulting
Target audience: Beginner
Cost: $2000; 25% discount for members of academia

Further information: http://www.halmacfie.com/pages/chicago24apr2012.html

May 2012

Flavor Spectrum Descriptive Analysis

This course is a “how to taste” course and will cover, in depth, the components of descriptive flavor analysis; the characteristics (qualitative), the intensity (quantitative), the timing (temporal), and overall impressions, etc. Attention will be given to the physiology of taste and olfaction, and application of descriptive analysis to the evaluation of specific products. Upon completion of this course, participants will have gained an understanding of the physiology and the process of learning the flavors for a specific product category. Participants will have had an opportunity to practice tasting several types of products and thus understand how, with a common lexicon and a common intensity scale, individuals can communicate clearly and similarly about flavors.

Location: Sensory Spectrum, 554 Central Avenue, New Providence, New Jersey, United States
From: May 15, 2012 to May 18, 2012
Offered by: Sensory Spectrum
Target audience: Beginner
Cost: $ 2,450 USD

Further information: See page 10 in the 2012 Course Booklet; http://www.sensoryspectrum.com/docs/SensorySpectrum2012CourseBooklet.pdf

A Powerful Framework for Sensory Product Testing

In this 2-day course, you will achieve a deeper understanding of traditional discrimination and rating methods by learning a common framework in which to interpret results across methodologies. In particular, you will learn how to select the most suitable and powerful discrimination methodology based on project objectives, how to develop standards to detect when sensory differences and ratings exceed a consumer-relevant acceptability threshold, how to assess and manage risks in product testing decisions, and effectively use the “no preference/difference” option. Invited speaker, Frank Rossi, Associate Director of Applied Quantitative Sciences at Kraft Foods, will talk about issues in risk management in product testing.

Location: The Radisson BLU EU, Brussels, Belgium
From: May 21, 2012 to May 22, 2012
Offered by: The Institute for Perception
Target audience: Intermediate
Cost: €750; 50% discount applied to each additional registrant from the same company, Academic discount available

Further information: http://ifpress.com/short-courses/