Behavioural Modelling Course 2025
Porto Cristo, Mallorca, Spain
May 7th – May 9th
Optional Consulting Sessions May 10th
This three day course will provide an in-depth introduction to choice modelling and experimental design.
The course will consist of lectures, computer practicals using Ngene and the Apollo package in R and detailed case studies. Bringing together expertise from fields as diverse as transport, health, marketing and environmental economics, the course will cover all the steps required for successful choice modelling analyses, from inception via survey design and data collection to modelling, analysis, interpretation and implementation.
After taking this course, the participant will be able to design a stated choice survey, analyse stated or revealed choice data by estimating widely used discrete choice models, and interpret behavioural results. By letting participants do hands-on exercises with popular software, they will become familiar with the theories and models, which adds greatly to the learning experience. This makes the course suitable for practitioners who would like to get a good introduction and are interested in applications, as well as experienced academics who are interested in learning more advanced methods in design and analysis.
At a Glance
- Optional Saturday morning consulting workshop with tech and management experts
- 3 day Expert Instruction by world experts
- Practical Exercises in Ngene & Apollo
- 6 Month SurveyEngine License worth 500 euros
- Lunch and Refreshments
- Dinner/event on the Thursday
- Group booking discounts at THB Felip hotel
- On location admin and support
Your Speakers
Professor Michiel Bliemer is an external affiliate of the Choice Modelling Centre at the University of Leeds and the Erasmus Choice Modelling Centre in Rotterdam. He works at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney and is also active as a consultant and joint Director of ChoiceMetrics, the company that develops the Ngene software for generating efficient experimental designs. Michiel is an expert in the design of stated choice experiments and has made many methodological contributions in this area. Further, he is an associate editor of the Journal of Choice Modelling.
Professor Stephane Hess is a recognised expert in the specification and estimation of advanced choice models. He holds various academic positions, including as the director of the Choice Modelling Centre at the University of Leeds. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Choice Modelling, and a joint developer of Apollo.
Dr. Marco Boeri, Ph.D is Director of Preference Research and scientific lead for the patient centered outcomes group at Open Health and Honorary Professor of Practice in Health Economics at Queen’s University Belfast. Dr. Boeri has over 15 years of experience in preference assessment in environmental and health economics and two years of experience in the private financial sector in Marketing and extensive knowledge and expertise in experimental design, survey development, and modeling data from preference studies in health, food, and environmental economics.
Course outline
Wednesday, 7th May
PLANNING YOUR RESEARCH
& EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
| 9:00 – 10:30 | Introduction to choice modelling 🞄 Key concepts 🞄 Planning a choice study 🞄 Including qualitative research 🞄 Results, application and reweighting 🞄 Decision rules 🞄 Random utility maximisation |
| 10:30 – 11:30 | ~MORNING TEA~ |
| 11:00 – 12:30 | Choice model basics 🞄 The multinomial logit model 🞄 Measurement of variables 🞄 Coding categorical attributes 🞄 Formulating utility functions |
| 12:30 – 1:30 | ~LUNCH BREAK~ |
| 1:30 – 3:00 | Designing choice experiments 🞄 A guide to Experimental design 🞄 Orthogonal and efficient designs 🞄 Design generation in Ngene |
| 3:00 – 3:30 | ~AFTERNOON TEA~ |
| 3:30 – 4:00 | Ngene 🞄 Design scripting 🞄 Design generation |
| 4:00 – 4:30 | Open floor for questions |
| 4:30 (ish) | ~BAR OPEN~ |
| 7:00 | Informal Meetups |
Thursday, 8th May
MODEL BUILDING
& ESTIMATION
| 9:00 – 10:30 | Model building & estimation 🞄 A guide to Model building 🞄 Model estimation 🞄 Understanding model outputs 🞄 Model comparison |
| 10:30 – 11:30 | ~MORNING TEA~ |
| 11:00 – 12:30 | Model estimation in Apollo 🞄 Vanilla Apollo in R 🞄 Integrated Apollo in SurveyEngine |
| 12:30 – 1:30 | ~LUNCH BREAK~ |
| 1:30 – 3:00 | Random preference heterogeneity 🞄 Latent class models 🞄 Mixed logit |
| 3:00 – 3:30 | ~AFTERNOON TEA~ |
| 3:30 – 4:30 | Guest Speaker 🞄 Willingness to pay space 🞄 Joint Stated and Revealed Preference |
| 4:30 – 5:00 | Open Floor for Questions |
| 5:00 (ish) | ~BAR OPEN~ |
| 7:00 | Dinner Event |
Friday, 9th May
PRACTICALITIES
& INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
| 9:00 – 10:30 | Data collection 🞄 Stated preference data 🞄 Revealed preference data 🞄 A guide to Data collection 🞄 Creating questionnaires |
| 10:30 – 11:30 | ~MORNING TEA~ |
| 11:00 – 12:30 | Surveys 🞄 Beyond simple discrete choices: best-worst scaling and ranking 🞄 How commercial agencies collect data: Panels, RWE, PAGs 🞄 Toolsets: Ngene, Apollo & SurveyEngine |
| 12:30 – 1:30 | ~LUNCH BREAK~ |
| 1:30 – 3:00 | Interpretation of results 🞄 Attribute importance 🞄 Willingness-to-pay and other MRS including QALYS 🞄 Predictions (market shares) and elasticities, Delta method |
| 3:00 – 3:30 | ~AFTERNOON TEA~ |
| 3:30 – 4:30 | Guest Speaker Marco Boeri, Open Health 🞄 Minimum Acceptable Risk (MAR) 🞄 Execution of clinical trials |
| 4:30 – 5:00 | Open Floor for Questions |
| 5:00 (ish) | ~BAR OPEN~ |
| 7:30 | DJ Maik on the harbour |
Optional Activity
Saturday Morning Consulting-over-Coffee
Saturday, 10th May, 9am to 1pm
The Saturday morning following the formal part of course will be a time to discuss your particular project challenges. Technical, management and method experts from SurveyEngine along with the presenters and guest speakers will make themselves available to talk one-on-one or, if appropriate, in a group.
Bring along your difficult problems, challenges or even opportunities for the group to tackle. Your participation and talking points should be made before the end of the Friday session to ensure you can get to speak to the person you need to.
The Venue
The course will be held at Club Nautic, part of the marina in Porto Cristo, a traditional Mallorcean fishing village on the eastern side of the island.
Most Hotels are in the town which is within 5 minutes walking distance.
Porto Cristo is known for its caves of Drach and Ham, Roman and pirate history and it’s famous resident, Rafa Nadal.
Club Nautic
Carrer de la Vela, 29
Porto Cristo, Mallorca
https://g.co/kgs/3ti5fj2
Fees and Charges
All fees include
- Access to software and data for the course.
- A 6 month Ngene/Apollo enabled SurveyEngine license
- Lunch and refreshments
- Airport transfers for groups of 5 or more
Click here for FAQs and course terms.
| Before March 16th | After March 16th | |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Registration fee | €1,700 | €2,500 |
| Full Time Academics† | €1,300 | €1,800 |
| Research Students† | €900 | €1,500 |
| Friday only | €800 | €1,200 |
† Students and Academics need to be full-time and to register using their institution email address to receive their respective discounts.
Why Mallorca?
Since COVID-19, SurveyEngine has maintained an informal regional office in Mallorca.
Mallorca is easily reachable from most European airports and is an ideal central location for bringing people together, with flights typically being a 2 hour domestic hop.
We’ve found it to be a positive place when learning or focus is required, whether for training, technical development or simply a place for our staff to think differently when tackling novel problems. We think you’ll agree, it is a great location to hold this course.
If you have any questions about the course – please contact us on info@surveyengine.com or call us on +49 30 201 692 320.