Survey Methodology: A Tool of Science Diplomacy with North Korea?

• Activity Number: 579
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Statistics Without Borders
• Author(s): Norman Neureiter*+ and Yena Lee*+ and Justin Fisher*+ and Rene Paulson*+ and Elena Zafarana*+ and Chan-Mo Park*+
• Companies: American Association for the Advancement of Science and Yale University and Government Accountability Office and Elite Research, LCC and Swiss Federal Statistical Office and Pyongyang University of Science and Technology
• Keywords: survey methodology ; statistical education ; science diplomacy ; sampling ; North Korea

Abstract

What is science diplomacy? Could survey methodology and statistics be a vehicle of science diplomacy with a highly isolated developing country like Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)? These are among the key questions to be addressed by leading survey methodologists and scholars of science diplomacy who jointly launched in 2012 the Pyongyang Summer Institute in Survey Science and Quantitative Methodology (PSI), the first-ever one of a kind higher education program in North Korean history. The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, the first and only private university in North Korea, hosted PSI. A score of PSI international faculty (Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, Qatar, and the United States) taught over 250 North Korean students who were enrolled in courses covering statistics, survey methodology, and interdisciplinary research methods. This session will demonstrate how a multilateral team of members of ASA, AAPOR, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science can evolve as a joint force to design and implement an unprecedented program that integrates survey methodology and science diplomacy with North Korea.