Introduction to time diary data

A practical short course about time use research & analysis using R.

Time use research is a rich, multidisciplinary field that has shaped the social sciences for over 50 years. This free online short course offers an accessible introduction to time diary data, combining essential foundations with hands-on practical experience. You will work directly with data from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) and recent UK Time Use Surveys, and explore real-world research applications.

Event format 

The course consists of two sessions, the first will be held on 4 June and the second on 11 June. Attendance at both is not mandatory but is strongly encouraged if you are new to time diaries. Each afternoon includes two to three online sessions, combining presentations, live coding demonstrations and Q&A. Participants will be encouraged to follow along and reproduce the code on their own computers in real time. All slides and R syntax files will be shared after the course.

Prerequisites 

Participants should have a basic familiarity with statistics and survey data, and some experience using statistical syntax or programming, for example in Stata, R, or Python. No prior experience with time diary data is assumed.

What you will gain

• Familiarity working with time diary datasets.
• Practical R skills for analysing time use data. 
• Understanding of weighting, clustering, and activity classifications time diary data.
• Exposure to real-world research illustrations and applications. 

Provisional course content
Day 1

• A brief history of time use research.
• Activity classifications, survey designs, and dataset structure.
• Exploring the Multinational Time Use Study (Juana de Lamote Grignon, Centre for Time Use Research, UCL).
• Estimating duration and participation in activities.

Day 2

• Recap from day 1.
• Data quality and weighting.
• Tempograms and work schedules.
• A real world research illustration (Killian Mullan, Aston University).

Target audience: The course is aimed at academics, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, Policy and social analysts, Government, business  and third-sector researchers  (who are interested in studying how people spend their time in their daily life in areas such as housework, leisure, consumption, travel, physical exercise etc.)

Presenter: Pierre Walthéry, UK Data Service. Pierre is part of the Training and User Support team at the UK Data Service and is the organiser of this course. He holds a PhD in Social Statistics and his work focuses on skills at the intersection of traditional and emerging data analysis techniques.

Participants will receive copies of slides and R syntax files after the course.

Recordings of UK Data Service events are made available on our YouTube channel and, together with the slides, on our past events pages soon after the event has taken place.