Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research // reflection

I prepared myself for the theme by reading all the material on the weekend before the pre-theme deadline. By doing so I had time to reflect and try to make sense of the thoughts that arose. In this week’s lectures we focused on qualitative and case study research. Since we did not have a lecture this week, this reflection will focus on the seminar. I think that having a lecture helped me better understand the whole topic.

In the seminar, we were urged to not focus so much on the qualitative part since this topic was discussed in the week before. Therefore, we focused on case study research and discussed the 8 steps recommended in "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research". In the seminar, we talked about what a case study is. First of all, it does not start with a hypothesis because there is not enough data about the subject. A case study does not seek out to address specific hypothesis. The main point of a case study is to build a theory and not test theory. Furthermore it helps to enter into an area where you know too little and want to find out more. Also as a methodology it does not have a clear cut structure.

During the discussion in the seminar, one person gave an example when a case study was useful: A paper about internet addiction in the year 2000 in which surveys and interviews were used. The person explained that it was a good example of trying to find out if something is there or not.

Theme 5: Design research // comments

1. http://denise-theoryandmethod.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research-22.html?showComment=1444830950501#c1831015979951260880
2. http://u1ifqcuc.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research-after.html?showComment=1444831350175#c2902868728676627864
3. http://paullinderoth.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research-after.html?showComment=1444831827039
4. http://securepathofscience.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research-reflection.html?showComment=1444832143485#c1908683703028157188
5. http://oscarlimback.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-after.html?showComment=1444832493363
6. http://tamfmtol.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post-design-research.html?showComment=1444832813332#c6522226981169583324
7. http://duckyduckyducky.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-seminar-5.html?showComment=1444833175163#c1469246651537833952
8. http://mashasthoughts123.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-reflection.html?showComment=1444833563675#c568910472296744202
9. http://meglia.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-5.html?showComment=1444833966778#c4240117862830819280
10. http://theorymethodmediatech.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme5-design-research-after.html?showComment=1444834404856#c4074182847335682443

Theme 5: Design research // reflection

I prepared myself for the theme by reading all the material on the weekend before the pre-theme deadline. By doing so I had time to reflect and try to make sense of the thoughts that arose. In this week’s lectures we focused on design research.

In the first lecture, the professor presented his approach to design research with six different steps:

1. How to come up with an idea;
2. How to solve a problem;
3. How to filter ideas;
4. How to validate an idea;
5. How to evaluate an idea;
6. How to communicate your idea.

The first step is about the problem solving. To solve a problem, you should know how to define and how to solve a problem. To underline this process, Haibo Li mentioned “the case of the hungry bear”. The outcome of this example was that you should not know how to fight a bear but be a quick runner than the person you are with. The second step is about how to solve a problem. According to Haibo Li’s theory, defining the problem takes about 90 % and solving the problem takes about 10 % of the time. Regarding the first part, Professor Li mentioned different tools to filter ideas: real world channel model, tunnel vision and high dimensional space. All in all, I understand that you should have a business mind to filter ideas. The fourth part is about the validation of ideas. To validate is to get some kind of proof of concept and even potentially get some customers and then to raise some money if at all. To evaluate ideas, Professor Li suggested to create a prototype. Regarding the sixth step, Professor Li mentioned the elevator pitch.

In the second lecture, we discussed the meaning of a prototype or why you should use a prototype during your design research.  We came up with the following points during a brain storming: Proof of concept; to evaluate; to find answers; to solve problems; to test theory. The professor in this lecture highlighted the aspect “to gain knowledge” as an important reason to use prototypes.

Since we did not have a seminar this week, you could not really discuss my findings or approaches from the “pre” blog post. With the lectures I was able to check my approaches and find some differences/mistakes, but I missed the verbal interaction with class mates in the seminar. The interactions always helped to get a different perspective on the papers and exchange opinions.

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

For this week’s theme, I choose the paper “A Qualitative Research to Classifying Comments in Online Shops Based on Contents” by Hui Chen et al published in International Conference on Management and Service Science, 2009.  The paper focuses on what online retailers and product producers should pay attention to the advices and items written in comments system of online shops, try hard to mine useful knowledge and discover shortages, so as to improve their services or products effectively.

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

The authors collected raw data from nine real online shops. Comments were collected from marking system, product reviews system, and business communication system, ranging from January, 2006 to December, 2008. The method mainly used in this research is Grounded Theory, which belongs to Qualitative Research. The basic idea of the grounded theory approach is to read a textual and "discover" or label variables and their interrelationships. An integrated Grounded Theory process includes three parts, and they are: Open Coding, Axial Coding, and Selective Coding. A limitation of this method is very time consuming. A benefit is that you get an in depth analysis of the online shops.

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

To me the grounded theory was a new aspect in qualitative research. The paper gives a short definition of this method and even mentions different parts of it. Nevertheless, I needed to research more detailed information about this method to fully understand it.

Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?

The use of the qualitative research can be improved in several ways, especially in sample selection and research method. First, the chosen amount of online shops could have been increased. Nine online shops and 904 comments are a little deficient when compared to thousands of online shops and millions of comments all over the world. Furthermore, the paper is limited by its locality which makes it not quite clear if the findings would apply on other countries. All in all, this research would have benefited from a quantitative aspect.

________________________________________________________________________________________

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

Business management case studies allow the reader to capture individual business functions (eg purchasing, production, sales, finance, human resources, etc.) on the basis of realistic depictions (usually to a fictitious company) in an overall context.

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 “Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry” by Wu He et al published 2012. It is divided into 8 steps.

1. Getting started: the analysis starts with the definition of a research question. The research question is clearly stated in chapter 3.1: e.g. What patterns can be found from their Facebook sites respectively” 
2. Selecting cases: the selection of cases is neither theory nor hypothesis. The paper selects social media sites from three pizza chains.
3. Crafting instruments and protocols: Step 3 is about multiple data collection methods to strengthen grounding of theory by triangulation of evidence. The paper shows quite detailed information about data collecting and which methods are used. 
4. Entering the field: In this step, you should overlap data collection and analysis including field notes to speed analyses and reveal helpful adjustments to data collection. Field notes are described under “Findings” in the paper and it is multiplexed data. 
5. Analysing data: This is the within-case analysis to gain familiarity with data and preliminary theory generation. The analysis is done in the discussion part of the paper. It could have been more analysing and it is merged with the discussion. 
6. Shaping hypothesis: you search evidence for "why" behind relationships to build internal validity. In the results, the authors try to explain why the findings occur and how they connect to each other. 
7. Enfolding literature: This part is about comparison with conflicting or similar literature to build internal validity, or to sharpen generalizability. Comparison with other books, both conflicting and similar books is done throughout the whole paper. 
8. Reaching closure: The last step is the theoretical saturation when it is possible so it ends process when marginal improvement becomes small. No theoretical saturation is made in the paper, but there are some answers and contributions to the research questions asked in the beginning of the paper.

 To summarize, the choosen case study is written shortly and concisely but fulfils all the different steps along the process.

Theme 4: Quantitative research // comments

Please find below the comments on other blogs:

1. http://theorymethodmediatech.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme4-quantitative-research-after.html?showComment=1444221741693#c5206106873215786730
2. http://paullinderoth.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-after.html?showComment=1444222549976#c8108721121136330204
3. http://meglia.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-4.html?showComment=1444221108675#c6644631331396429089
4. http://denise-theoryandmethod.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-22.html#comment-form
5. http://securepathofscience.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-methods-reflection.html?showComment=1444221389186#c5619591221101179247
6. http://dm2572fan.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-4.html?showComment=1444221952296
7. http://oscarlimback.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-after.html?showComment=1444222236038#c7697519465437407927
8. http://tamfmtol.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-post-quantitative-research.html?showComment=1444222849305#c1778957273189803061
9. http://duckyduckyducky.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-seminar-4.html?showComment=1444223159748#c4053008419372313806
10. http://mashasthoughts123.blogspot.se/2015/10/seminar-4-refection.html?showComment=1444223398709#c291965054836280954

Theme 4: Quantitative research // Reflection

I prepared myself for the theme by reading all the material on the weekend before the pre-theme deadline. By doing so I had time to reflect and try to make sense of the thoughts that arose. To be able to answer all questions, I googled for additional background information. From IEEE MultiMedia volume 22, I choose the paper “A Survey of Current YouTube Video Characteristics” published by Xianhui Che in 2015. The paper studies YouTube videos to better understand their characteristics and to demonstrate consistency with previous research. In addition to this, the paper also presents new categories of features emerging. Due to Google's acquisition of YouTube in 2007, there has been some changes in user policy and service infrastructure. The choosen paper has an impact factor of 1.694. Furthermore, we should read “Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality: The Body Shapes he Way We Play” written by Konstantina Kilteni, Ilias Bergstrom, and Mel Slater which focuses on body ownership illusion.

As an introduction to the lecture, we defined quantitative research methods. Since they are depending on numerical measurements, they may come from whether asking participants directly using questionnaires or observation under uncontrolled conditions. After collecting the numbers, we interpret the results with the help of statistics. Regarding the questionnaire, we figured out that their use varies between disciplines. In experimental psychology, before a questionnaire is considered ”valid”, it goes through numerous tests and experiments, designed to ensure that it does indeed answer the question that it was designed to answer. Therefore, researchers use established questionnaires which have been tried and tested. Nevertheless, sometimes researchers create their own questionnaires.

Furthermore, we focused on hypothesis. A hypothesis is proposed for the statistical relationship between data sets.  This is compared as an alternative to a null hypothesis, of no relationship between the data sets. The comparison is statistically significant, if the relationship would be an unlikely realization of the null hypothesis according to a threshold probability - the significance level.  Hypothesis tests are used to determine what outcomes of a study would lead to a rejection of the null hypothesis for a pre-specified level of significance.

One of the most interesting parts of the lecture to me was the part about the body ownership illusions. The hypothesis is that the avatar which is considered more appropriate culturally, will cause participants to exhibit a more complex movement pattern. According to my approach in the first blog post, full body ownership illusions can lead to substantial behavioural changes in the context of musical performativity, depending on the appearance of the body.

In the seminar, we discussed in small groups different aspects of the lecture starting with the advantages and disadvantages of quantitative research. As an advantage we mentioned that the results are representative and it is easy/cheap to collect data. Furthermore, quantitative research data is generalized and because of that reliable. I could contribute in the discussion with my findings from the first blog, e.g. the disadvantage of using quantitative methods is that the cause of a finding or an attitude such as dissatisfaction is not determined. You do not get a deeper understanding. In the discussion in class, we also mentioned that quantitative research methods allow to apply the same metric on different people. In addition to this, we discussed that an experiment is always designed and that qualitative and quantitative research methods could be objective and subjective at the same time.

To me this theme was quit helpful since I did not have any courses focusing on quantitative research methods in my bachelor’s studies.  

Theme 5: Design research

As a preparation of this week’s theme, we are supposed to read the following paper: “Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration”.

How can media technologies be evaluated?

According to the mentioned paper, vibration could be used as means of rendering live dynamic information for mobile phones. With help of the aspects effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction, media technology can be evaluated by different tests within these aspects. User satisfaction was tested in this paper by letting the participants answer a questionnaire. Satisfaction refers to the comfort and acceptability of the system to its users and other people affected by its use. The questionnaire focused on Interests, Accept, Comfort, FInterests, Willingness, Trainability and GUI.

What role will prototypes play in research?

Prototypes play an important role in research. Due to “trial and error” while creating a prototypes, the final product can be as good as possible. A prototype which is a model and not a finished product could by tests lead to new research areas and new ways to find solutions.

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

It could be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype because it will show the idea’s feasibility. This proof of concept is even one step before creating a prototype. It is to see if it is even possible to continue with the concept, even though the technical part is working. Furthermore, it would be possible to do more research before developing a prototype.

What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

A characteristic of a prototype might be that they are much easier to investigate and to understand the concept of a product. Regarding this aspect, a limitation might be that a prototype is not finished and could not show the exact functions of the final product.

How can design research be communicated/presented?

In my opinion, design research can be communicated or presented through prototypes, animations or sketches. Only with a description of the design it might be harder to imagine the final product and to work with it.

Furthermore, we were asked to read Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space by Fernaeus and Tholander, and Differentiated Driving Range by Lundström. What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

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

Design work in itself can be considered a knowledge contribution since it shows the limitation of the prototype or the design in itself.

Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?
In my opinion, there are differences in design intentions within a research project compared to design in general. Design in intention within a research project is meant to create something new, e.g. different variations of a prototype. Design in general focuses more on aesthetic purpose.

Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc?
In my opinion, research in tech domains is not always replicable. Often the used technique is almost outdated when the research is published.

Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?
There are differences with design driven research compared to other research practices. Other research practices probably focus more on the why something happens and what it does. Design driven research focuses more on how a product looks.