onsdag 18 december 2013
Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research - Reflection
This week we read two different research papers, one paper that is using qualitative methods and one that is using the case study research method. The paper I read about qualitative methods thought me that it is very hard to get perfect results on your research, because when you test/investigate different things people will always react/behave differently, because we are all unique. This is something that is very hard to work around so to speak, and it is good to have it in mind when using a qualitative method. The other paper using case study research actually gave me a better picture of what a case study is. It was a typical example, in my paper they sent out a survey to students at a university (limits the area) and they did research in different social media websites such as Twitter. During this weeks seminar (the last one) we talked about the case study papers we had read, and looked at the description the groups before us had written on KTH social. We all thought it was well written and we agreed to everything it said. It was a great description on what a case study is. This course have been interesting to follow, and I believe I have a broader perspective about different methods now, and it will be fun to see how I use this new knowledge in the future.
fredag 13 december 2013
Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research
Journal: Computers in Human Behavior. Impact factor: 2.067. Paper: Searching the Web for conflicting topics: Page and user factorsLadislao Salmeróna, Yvonne Kammerer b, Pilar García-Carriónc. (2013)
Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
The paper is a study about how people use search engines and the results they get from it. Even though it could be irrelevant to the topic at hand people read the first “hits” they get, and if it’s a conflicting topic it could be wise to look further than just these top results. They did a qualitative study where they made 67 students with an average of 10 years computer-experience (and internet usage of 7 years) bookmark two pages that best could give someone that didn’t know how to reduce greenhouse gas emission this information. When they bookmarked the pages they asked the students if they had considered the following three criteria: (1) the link position in the list, (2) whether the page provided topically relevant information, and (3) whether the page provided trustworthy information.
What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?I’m gona start with the quote I used during theme 4: “Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior.” The benefits is that you get the: “why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often used than large samples.” And in the paper they wanted to explore why and how we use a search engine and the top “hits” we get. What I learned from this paper is that you always have to consider the variation of many things, not just computer-experience. People have knowledge since before about a subject, if they are interested, if they believe the information that is given, and the list goes on, because everyone is different, in many ways. Many ways.
Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?They actually mention this themself, the limitations of their study and what should be considerd for future research: “Finally, it should be acknowledged that the present study comes with certain limitations, which must be considered when interpreting the results. First, in the bookmarking task we explicitly instructed participants to select the two pages that best covered the topic and to indicate whether or not they had considered a given set of criteria for their bookmarking. These self-reports might be prone to social desirability biases, and so might differ from their normal bookmarking and evaluation behavior (cf. Flanagin & Metzger, 2007). Second, for the sake of experimental control, we introduced some constraints in our study. That is, the participants conducted their Web search in a laboratory setting for a single predefined search topic with a finite set of only 10 Web pages. Moreover, the setting did not allow the participants to enter their own search terms in the search engine. Therefore, further research is required to extend the findings of the present study to other search topics and to more natural search situations. Finally, the present study did not examine what the participants had learned from their Web search, or to which information and sources they would refer when writing an essay about the searched topic. This should be addressed in future studies”
Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.
Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.
I choose the paper: The tweets that killed a university: A case study investigating the use of traditional and social media in the closure of a state university. Nicholas J. Kelling, Angela S. Kelling, John F. Lennon. (2013). And they investigated how various forms of media were used during this event, foremost twitter. A campus wide survey was combined with social and online media monitoring to assess the topics, authors, and methods used during prominent discussions during and preceding the closure of the University of South Florida Polytechnic (USFP).So, in the article “Building Theories from Case Study Research” Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). we are given a table that we should use to analyze a case study research, so lets do that. The step “Getting started” and the activity “definition of research question” is something they did in my paper and it’s quite clear what they are looking for. The second step “Selecting cases” and the activity “specified population” is something they in the paper also make use of, they have a specified group of people namely students at the USFP. The step “Crafting instruments and protocols” have the activity “multiple data collection methods” and in my paper they did this as well, they sent out a survey (which itself is not so good at getting more information that you might have needed, so I would say that that was a weakness for this paper. But nonetheless they used this quantitative method) and they collected data from different media sources.
Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
The paper is a study about how people use search engines and the results they get from it. Even though it could be irrelevant to the topic at hand people read the first “hits” they get, and if it’s a conflicting topic it could be wise to look further than just these top results. They did a qualitative study where they made 67 students with an average of 10 years computer-experience (and internet usage of 7 years) bookmark two pages that best could give someone that didn’t know how to reduce greenhouse gas emission this information. When they bookmarked the pages they asked the students if they had considered the following three criteria: (1) the link position in the list, (2) whether the page provided topically relevant information, and (3) whether the page provided trustworthy information.
What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?I’m gona start with the quote I used during theme 4: “Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior.” The benefits is that you get the: “why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often used than large samples.” And in the paper they wanted to explore why and how we use a search engine and the top “hits” we get. What I learned from this paper is that you always have to consider the variation of many things, not just computer-experience. People have knowledge since before about a subject, if they are interested, if they believe the information that is given, and the list goes on, because everyone is different, in many ways. Many ways.
Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?They actually mention this themself, the limitations of their study and what should be considerd for future research: “Finally, it should be acknowledged that the present study comes with certain limitations, which must be considered when interpreting the results. First, in the bookmarking task we explicitly instructed participants to select the two pages that best covered the topic and to indicate whether or not they had considered a given set of criteria for their bookmarking. These self-reports might be prone to social desirability biases, and so might differ from their normal bookmarking and evaluation behavior (cf. Flanagin & Metzger, 2007). Second, for the sake of experimental control, we introduced some constraints in our study. That is, the participants conducted their Web search in a laboratory setting for a single predefined search topic with a finite set of only 10 Web pages. Moreover, the setting did not allow the participants to enter their own search terms in the search engine. Therefore, further research is required to extend the findings of the present study to other search topics and to more natural search situations. Finally, the present study did not examine what the participants had learned from their Web search, or to which information and sources they would refer when writing an essay about the searched topic. This should be addressed in future studies”
Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.
A case study is a way of using a single or several examples of “real-life” phenomena, events or persons to analyze and consequently derive conclusions. Methodologies used in case study research usually include combinations of qualitative and/or quantitative methods as well as empirical and theoretical studies. It can involve different cases and multiple levels of analysis.
Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.
I choose the paper: The tweets that killed a university: A case study investigating the use of traditional and social media in the closure of a state university. Nicholas J. Kelling, Angela S. Kelling, John F. Lennon. (2013). And they investigated how various forms of media were used during this event, foremost twitter. A campus wide survey was combined with social and online media monitoring to assess the topics, authors, and methods used during prominent discussions during and preceding the closure of the University of South Florida Polytechnic (USFP).So, in the article “Building Theories from Case Study Research” Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). we are given a table that we should use to analyze a case study research, so lets do that. The step “Getting started” and the activity “definition of research question” is something they did in my paper and it’s quite clear what they are looking for. The second step “Selecting cases” and the activity “specified population” is something they in the paper also make use of, they have a specified group of people namely students at the USFP. The step “Crafting instruments and protocols” have the activity “multiple data collection methods” and in my paper they did this as well, they sent out a survey (which itself is not so good at getting more information that you might have needed, so I would say that that was a weakness for this paper. But nonetheless they used this quantitative method) and they collected data from different media sources.
onsdag 11 december 2013
Theme 5: Design research - Reflection
So this week we had two lectures today wednesday, one before lunch and one after, and I couldn't attend the first one which was unfortunate because that was Ylvas lecture which we all had prepared a question for, and I wanted to hear the answer to mine. Anyways, I attended the second one which was held by Heibo and it was basically about problems, the definition and solving them, ideas and the technology that lies behind all this. It was interesting but somewhat hard to follow the train of thought sometimes during the lecture.
The texts we read before these two lectures was interesting but not that "giving". I don't really think I learned anything special, except that design research is good to use in certain cases. Maybe it's because I missed the lecture (had a seminar in another course) about this, if I would have been able to attend this blogpost might have been more reflective on what I learnt.
The next week has no course-crash (kurskrock, hehe) so I will be able to attend both on monday and wednesday so stay tuned for a hopefully better reflection next week.
The texts we read before these two lectures was interesting but not that "giving". I don't really think I learned anything special, except that design research is good to use in certain cases. Maybe it's because I missed the lecture (had a seminar in another course) about this, if I would have been able to attend this blogpost might have been more reflective on what I learnt.
The next week has no course-crash (kurskrock, hehe) so I will be able to attend both on monday and wednesday so stay tuned for a hopefully better reflection next week.
fredag 6 december 2013
Theme 5: Design research
Fernaeus, Y. & Jacobsson, M. (2009). Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction. New York: ACM.
Personalizing things that you own is very common. For example almost everybody with a MacBook has their favorite case to carry this in. Every smartphone user has their own background picture that makes the phone theirs. You can put patches on your backpack to make it your own, if you like manga you will put manga characters on it.
In the paper they talk about something called "actDresses" and this is just that: a way to make something (technological) more personalized. They put a collar and a blanket on a pet robot-dinosaur and it also responds to this, and it makes it more "dog" like. They put patches of comics on a vacuum-cleaner to make it more personalized. This way of doing a study, that they test how it looks and feels for you, they create the scenario, I think is great to evaluate the responses in this case. I think that it was interesting and the topic was fun to read about.
Question: Design research is not something you read about everyday. When especially is this useful and/or should be done?
Réhman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L., & Li, H. (2008). Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 10(6), 1022-1033.
How can media technologies be evaluated?
When I read the course "evaluation methods" we wanted to test how fast people types SMS on diffrent kind of mobiles. Mobiles with touchscreens, a physical keyboard and old phones using T-9. We did this buy using user testing and also asking questions like how much they use SMS in their everyday life. This is one way of evaluate media technologies, and I believe user testing is the most comon and effective on, because most of media technologies are something people will use and we need to test how it works, how people use it and why they would use it and in what way. The method used during the user test will of course variate depending on what kind of media technologies we are talking about.
What role will prototypes play in research?
Well prototypes has and always will be a great way of testing your product, so they will continue to be used. This is because the prototype is made in the early stages of the project and this will give you a great understanding, even tough it is just a prototype and will not of course be as great as the finalized one, of what needs to be done, or if it is a failure right there and then.
3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?
I figure that this depends of what kind of prototype we are talking about. If it's something high-tech and you don't know if the technologies will work/have to prove that it works, or if it's something that you think people will use = buy, but you don't know for sure, then a proof that the market want's this would be a good idea. So depending on what perspective we look at this can differ want kind of proof of concept prototype needs to be made.
Personalizing things that you own is very common. For example almost everybody with a MacBook has their favorite case to carry this in. Every smartphone user has their own background picture that makes the phone theirs. You can put patches on your backpack to make it your own, if you like manga you will put manga characters on it.
In the paper they talk about something called "actDresses" and this is just that: a way to make something (technological) more personalized. They put a collar and a blanket on a pet robot-dinosaur and it also responds to this, and it makes it more "dog" like. They put patches of comics on a vacuum-cleaner to make it more personalized. This way of doing a study, that they test how it looks and feels for you, they create the scenario, I think is great to evaluate the responses in this case. I think that it was interesting and the topic was fun to read about.
Question: Design research is not something you read about everyday. When especially is this useful and/or should be done?
Réhman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L., & Li, H. (2008). Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 10(6), 1022-1033.
How can media technologies be evaluated?
When I read the course "evaluation methods" we wanted to test how fast people types SMS on diffrent kind of mobiles. Mobiles with touchscreens, a physical keyboard and old phones using T-9. We did this buy using user testing and also asking questions like how much they use SMS in their everyday life. This is one way of evaluate media technologies, and I believe user testing is the most comon and effective on, because most of media technologies are something people will use and we need to test how it works, how people use it and why they would use it and in what way. The method used during the user test will of course variate depending on what kind of media technologies we are talking about.
What role will prototypes play in research?
Well prototypes has and always will be a great way of testing your product, so they will continue to be used. This is because the prototype is made in the early stages of the project and this will give you a great understanding, even tough it is just a prototype and will not of course be as great as the finalized one, of what needs to be done, or if it is a failure right there and then.
3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?
I figure that this depends of what kind of prototype we are talking about. If it's something high-tech and you don't know if the technologies will work/have to prove that it works, or if it's something that you think people will use = buy, but you don't know for sure, then a proof that the market want's this would be a good idea. So depending on what perspective we look at this can differ want kind of proof of concept prototype needs to be made.
onsdag 4 december 2013
Theme 4: Quantitative research - Reflection
The seminar/lecture we had today (wednesday 4/12) was really inspiring and well planed and executed. I thought we as a group of 5 really got down to the benefits and weaknesses of using both quantitative and qualitative methods. I liked the setup that the lecture had and I hope for more of this in the future.
In the seminar/lecture we often got into discussions with the other groups when we presented our ideas, and this for me was very fulfilling and I thought that this was a good way to see how we as students think and feel about these different kind of methods.
Before all this we all had read yet another paper and got instructions to determine the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods, so when we got to talking about qualitative methods in the group it felt like we didn't know that much about it. We all had read about it and know what it is, but since we read a paper and got a more deeper understanding on qualitative methods we had better arguments there. This being said, I now believe I know more about qualitative methods than before the seminar/lecture, and perhaps this was the point all along, or according to the course plan I should say.
Before all this we all had read yet another paper and got instructions to determine the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods, so when we got to talking about qualitative methods in the group it felt like we didn't know that much about it. We all had read about it and know what it is, but since we read a paper and got a more deeper understanding on qualitative methods we had better arguments there. This being said, I now believe I know more about qualitative methods than before the seminar/lecture, and perhaps this was the point all along, or according to the course plan I should say.
There are always different methods of collecting data, and which kind is the best is of course depending on what you are looking into and/or the situation (and even more complex questions than that). If I today would start a research project I believe I would know what is the best method to use, and how to use it, and this is something very useful in the future I think. So I would say that this week has been the most interesting and educational week for me so far. Let's see how the next themes will turn up to be.
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