Final blog post

This is a reflective blogpost about the themes from the past 6 weeks.

To summarize the course, the name represent it all. It started with theory and moved on to method. The three first themes were about theory and different philosophical ways to look on the world. I learned a lot about Kant’s “Critique of pure reason” and Adorno and Horkheimer’s “Dialectics of enlightenment” and how those arguments are challenging one another. Kant came up with categories which are based on our conception, those are very basic but they still make the structure of our world. This says that objects must conform to our cognition. Adorno and Horkheimer on the other hand talked about nominalism, which denies that universals exist and that all abstract object exists. I believe that Kant did not deny any objects, rather that all objects must conform our cognition, whether they are abstract or not and that is one way how those arguments collide.

One important term that was introduced during the first weeks was the term a priori which is knowledge independent on experience. Another term opposite to that is a posteriori, which instead is knowledge based on experience. It feels like those terms followed each theme throughout the whole course. During the third theme I learned the most about theory, even though it was easier to explain what theory is not. We separated the term theory from hypotheses and said that theory is often built on earlier knowledges and observations. To connect this with the earlier themes, a theory is not a priori. Furthermore a posteriori has to examine a hypothesis, which is a guess on how things are related. We also discussed the relation between theories and hypothesis and we said that you need to base a hypothesis on a theory. As Leif Dahlberg said during his lecture, theory is about observing and practice is about doing, theory is what practice is not. Research methods on the other hand is all about practice which separates theory from methods.

The first three weeks were for me the most difficult ones. I felt they were abstract and it took me a good while to understand what Kant, Plato, Horkheimer and Adorno, and Benjamin were saying. Even though I read all the texts and participated in the lectures, I felt like it was during the seminars that I started to understand the theme of each week. It helpt me alot to be able to ask all the questions I had and also to discuss the topics with my classmates. Reflecting on the themes out loud made everything much clearer.

I think it is important to first look at what theory is before you start look into methods. Because when you are doing a research it is important to sort out the theory part before you trying to answer the research question with different methods. As Haibo Li said during his lecture, it is all about defining a problem. I believe theory is one part of defining a research problem and finding the right method is another one. According to Haibo Li you should spend 90% of the work on that part, and only 10% of your time on actually solving the problem. The last three themes were about research methods, quantitative and qualitative ones and also case study researches.

During the lecture with Ilias Bergström week 40 about quantitative methods, Ilias said that measures are often used in combination and that there could both be independent and dependent variables in a research. Most of the time, the answer to a research question does not depend on a single test. Therefor a complex research question has no single source of answer, you must combine different research methods to answer those questions.

When combining different methods you can combine several qualitative methods together, several quantitative methods together, or you can combine quantitative methods with quantitative ones. Depending on how the methods are combined you will end up with different results. Choosing the right research method is an important step in the process, it will enhance both reliability and validity of the research. This also comes back to what Haibo Li said during his lecture, about how to come up with an idea, how to filter the idea, how to validate a good idea, how to evaluate the idea, and marketing and selling the idea. To evaluate the idea and test its usability prototyping is a good way to go. I believe a complex research method might sometimes be needing a prototype especially if the research is in the field of e.g interaction design, where the users experience is in focus. Anders Lundström said in his lecture that making a prototype is all about gaining knowledge. To draw conclusions from the earlier themes of the course, we want the knowledge to examine how a phenomenon appears, in which we do a posteriori.

To sum it all up theories and methods are way more complex than what is first sounds like. When you dig all deep into those subjects you realize there is a lot to learn. Many answers are not clear and hang in the aura of philosophical abstractness. As Benjamin was arguing about the aura might still reach you even though the subject is abstract. Something I have learned throughout the course is that there is both good and bad researches. To prevent people to make bad decisions in their studies I believe it is important to have this kind of knowledge in mind while doing research.

Theme 6: Reflection

The theme for week 42 was Qualitative and Case Study Research. We were supposed to choose one qualitative research paper and one case study research to read and evaluate. I read Coming of age with the internet: A qualitative exploration of how the internet has become an integral part of young people’s lives by McMillan and Morrison and “All over the place”: A case study of classroom multitasking and attentional performance by Hassoun. Since the lecture was canceled I only participated at the seminar last week. 

During the seminar we got extra time to discuss the topics, and it felt like it was needed. At first we discussed qualitative methods, but since we discussed that last seminar we quickly moved on to case study. We had a hard time describing what a case study actually is, it was easier to agree on what a case study in not. It does not start with a hypothesis, from there we agreed that a case study tend to be more specific in details such as context, age etc.

Our final description was that it is a research method where you get a deeper understanding of a subject. Often a combination of several methods are used, and they could both be quantitative or qualitative. You make a research about a subject you don’t know much about.

We had a long discussion if a case study research can be done on historical scenarios or events or if they need to be done on current cases. We based this discussion on the fact that a case study needs to have a specific time and place. Our conclusion to this is that there are nothing against why a case study could not be done on a historical case, but we could not come up with a good example. 

Theme: 5 Reflection

The theme during week 41 was “Design Research”, a very interesting topic in my opinion. I found all the paper interesting, especially the one by Haibo Li. The following were the paper I read:

• Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration by Réhman, Sun, Li and Liu.
• Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space by Fernaeus & Tholander
• Differentiated Driving Range by Lundström.

Unfortunately I was not able to participate in the lectures, because I had other mandatory lectures in Future of Media that I had to prioritize. Since there was no seminar last week I felt like it was hard to reflect on this theme. Therefor I asked some of my classmates if they could share their notes from the lectures with me, and I also discussed the theme with some of them.

The lecture on Wednesday with Haibo Li was about how to go from an idea to selling it. He described the process in five steps: How to come up with an idea, how to filter the idea, how to validate a good idea, how to evaluate the idea, and marketing and selling the idea. From what I have heard and what I have discussed, the lecture on Wednesday was really good and it feels like I could have learned a lot from it. But during the circumstances it feels like I have learned at least something-

It all comes down to defining a problem, that step is almost more important than solving the problem. Li said that you will much likely get a better solution if you spend 90% of your effort in defining the problem and only 10 % to actually solve it, than the other way around. When you have your problem you can ask yourself the questions, does it address a real pain point? And Is it possible to do with existing technology?  Li was also bringing up the importance of evaluate the idea and test its usability. Three main things to look at is effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction. A good way to do this is by designing a prototype.

The lecture on Friday with Anders Lundström was about prototypes, what they are and how to design one. I am currently taking the course Interaction design 2 that is held by Lundström. In his course we have discussed the same topic and also been doing some prototyping. One of the main purposes with making prototypes is to gain knowledge. You want your prototype to bee a tool to get answers to your research problems. I believe that last week I have not learned anything new about prototypes, in addition to the blog post “ Theme 5: Design Research”.

Theme 6: Qualitative and Case Study Research

Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

I have chosen the paper Coming of age with the internet: A qualitative exploration of how the internet has become an integral part of young people’s lives by McMillan and Morrison. The qualitative method they used was narrative accounts in form of autobiographical essays. 72 college students who were studying communication where asked to write about their personal histories of interactive media use.

What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?

I’ve learned that documents can be an important data source which can provide you with information that has historical insight. Interviews might give you the same information as documents but the difference is that narrative account in written form gives the user more time to reflect on their experiences.  I also learned that this type of method has been used since 1933 to study human interaction with media. 

Which are the main methodological problems of the study?

I couldn’t figure out what the main methodological problem were, but one thing I reflected on was that they only asked communication students. They might have more interest and also more experience in communication technologies than other students. I believe the result might have been slightly different if there were a broder span of students in the target group. 

Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.

A case study is a research method where you get deeper understanding of a subject. Often a combination of several methods for collecting data is used, such as through archive, interviews, questionnaires, and observations. The methods can both be quantitative or qualitative.

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.

The case study paper I have chosen is “All over the place”: A case study of classroom multitasking and attentional performance by Hassoun. His observations suggest that multitasking has become a  deeply ordinary practice. The method used in the research is that he acts as an undercover participant to a class where he observed as many as possible of the 200 students who were attending. Everyday he sat at different places in the classroom and tried to observe different persons, if someone payed a lot attention to their phone several days in a row he asked them after class to get an interview about their thoughts and responses toward multitasking.

I consider both of the methods to be qualitative, since he do not get any numbers. The weakness of this research is that only one person are doing the observations in the classroom. Not all of the students are acting similar, and the way Hassoun describe the behaviors does not fit all the 200 students. I believe the target group is too big for one person to observe, maybe it would have been better to use a quantitative method on those 200 students and then followed up with a smaller observation and interviews.  

McMillan, S., Morrison, M. 2006. Coming of age with the internet: A qualitative exploration of how the internet has become an integral part of young people’s lives. New Media & Society. Vol 8(1): 73–95. DOI: 10.1177/1461444806059871 

Hassoun, D. 2015. ”All over the place”: A case study of classroom multitasking and attentional prformance. New Media & Society. Vol. 17(10): 1680–1695. DOI: 10.1177/1461444814531756

Theme 4: Reflection

The theme for week 40 was ”Quantitative research”. I found this theme a bit easier to understand compared to the previous ones. Maybe it is because I have encountered the terms Quantitative and Qualitative research during my bachelor thesis. My contribution the past week was equal to the other weeks. I have read Ilias Bergströms papper ”Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality" and I also read the paper ”Internet and social media use as a Resource Among Homeless youth” by Rice and Barman-Adhikari, which was my own choice.  I participated in both the lecture and the seminar as well. Like all the other weeks I feel like it is the seminars I learn from and that helps me understand the theme. Last week during the seminar we discussed the mening and also the benefits and limitations of the two terms ”qualitative” and ”quantitative” research. Also terms as "objective data" and "subjective data" was something we discussed.

Quantitative research is often use when you have or need a bigger focus group, the result is often numbers or data that is easy to keep statics on.  The limitation is that you need to know exactly what you want to focus on and what question you want to answer. One example we talked about during the seminar is big data. At first we discussed that quantitative methods was objective, until we realized that when using big data, you have to make an active choice of which data you want to focus on. The numbers and data becomes subjective since they are chosen from your aspects.

When it comes to qualitative research we all agreed that the data was subjective since you often need to interpret the data that comes from interviews. We said that qualitative data is often more complex but also gives a broader image. The limitations might be that the focus group is often smaller than a quantitative one, sometimes almost to small to represent the conclusion in the result. On the other hand if you have a bigger focus group it will also take much longer time. 

Science there are both advantages and disadvantages with quantitative as well as qualitative researches we said that if you are doing a research you have to start with a question and then find the best method. Sometimes it is better to use both, as long as you plan your analyze. 

Theme 5: Design Research (in 2 parts)

For the lecture on Wednesday 
Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration - Réhman, Sun, Liu, Li

How can media technologies be evaluated?

I believe there is many different way to evaluate media technologies, since the term ”media Technologies” are a broad concept. Réhman, Sun, Liu, Li  evaluate the mobile phone by creating a prototype and tried it with different experiments, both looking in to the technical aspects and also into the users experience. 

What role will prototypes play in research?

There are two different types of prototypes, low-fidelity and high-fidelity. A low-fidelity prototype is a non working, often drawings of the planned concept that helps the researcher in the very early step in concept building. A high-fidelity prototype is a working model of the concept that can be tested on the users. This kind of prototypes can help the researchers to try out concepts in an earlier step in the process, without having to develop a finished product. It can help the researcher to understand the users experience and need of the future product.

Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?

By using a well developed and well designed prototype it is possible that user might look at the graphical deign rather than the functionalities, and in many cases this might be an issue. A proof of concept prototype is a prototype that shows the functionality or the concept, which could be a handy tool in the early stage of the research.   

What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

The characteristics of prototype is that they are not the finished design or product. Therefor are prototypes limited in material and cost. The best material might be too expensive, and then a cheaper substitution is often used. 

How can design research be communicated/presented?

One way of presenting design research is how Réhman, Sun, Liu, Li presented their research. They focused on the method, where they explained everything about the prototype and all the aspects of the usage very well. The result of their research were presented as numbers where they compared the users technical skill but they also used the answers they got from the interview questions. As a reader you got a clear image of the concept, and when reading the result you got a better understanding because you are aware of the method.

For the lecture on Friday 

Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space - Fernaeus & Tholander

Differentiated Driving Range - Lundström

What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

Emirical data is in the article by Fernaeus and Tholander the result of the qualitative analyses of design prototypes, which was the method they used.  Same in the article by Lundström, the empirical data is collected from the different methods that were used, meaning that the empirical data is the results of the pre-study, state of the art analysis and the interviews.    

Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution'?

I believe the term ’knowledge contribution’ means knowledge from a research that is based up on already existing knowledge will be added to that knowledge. This would mean if practical design work is considered as a research that will have new findings, the resulting knowledge could be contributed to the already existing knowledge in the subject.  

Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?

I do not think so. The design intentions within a research project is to create something new, whether is trying new technologies or new concept. In designing in general, the aim is perhaps more aesthetic but I do think that the intention is still to create something new, something unique.   

Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?

I think that design driven research is often qualitative, they are using several methods which gives a lot of data that is up to the researcher to interpret and analyze. I also believe that those types of researches are more likely to involve the construction and the usage of a prototype.

Theme 3: Reflection

During week 39 the theme was ”Research and Theory”. I read three articles ”What theory is not” by Sutton, ”The nature of Theory in Information System” by Gregor, and “Internet, children and space: Revisiting generational attributes and boundaries” by Nunes de Almeida et al. The last article was my own choice, and was the article I practiced doing a critical examination on. In addition to those articles I participated in both the lecture and the seminar this week. 

At the seminar we discussed a lot about what the difference there are between theory and hypotesis and how to separate them. We discussed what Dahlberg showed and talked about on the lecture, when he dropped a pen to the floor. Gravity is the theory of why the pen falls to the ground and hypotesis is our guess that the pen will fall this specific time. Our conclusion is that hypothesis is a guess of how things are related, meanwhile a theory is a model of explanation, which is often build on earlier knowledge and observations and tried on plenty of persons. Theory is what practice is not or as Dahlberg said on the lecture, ”Theory is about observing and practice is about doing”.

Another thing we discussed which I also learned during the seminar is that theories cannot be definitely proven right, they just are until another better theory comes along or until they are proven wrong. When we prove a theory wrong, we cannot build that upon one try. Back to the dropped pen, what happen if next time we release the pen form our grip and the pen flys away. If that happens we cannot just throw away the theory of gravity, we have to allow some error in our experiments.