theme 6 after blog

This week we have learned about case studies and qualitative research. I feel that I knew a little bit about qualitative research before I started reading since I used this method in my bachelor thesis. Qualitative methods are good when you want to get deeper knowledge on a subject. But since it is so time consuming you really have to weigh the pros and cons of using a method like for example; interviews.  What I have learned is that qualitative research and quantitative research often complement each other and is the best way of reaching valid conclusions.

I did not know a lot about case studies before hand, and I don't feel that the paper I read helped me that much in getting a better understanding, even though I found the paper interesting. I read some more about case studies through the other students blogs and browsing through the internet and learnt that Case studies is based on deep-focused data collection and examines something specific such as an event, a behavior or an individual. And by studying the event, behavior or the individual it is easier to understand and analyze results.

I had a hard time analyzing what the authors could have done better in my paper. When we talk about quantitative research it is easy to say that the target group could have been larger or reached a better part of the population. But with qualitative research I find it harder to say that they should have used an other method, but they could probably have complemented it with more quantitative data.

Theme 2 enlightenment

1.     What is Enlightenment?

The purpose of enlightenment was to reform society using reason and advance knowledge by scientific methods. Enlightenment can be described as a set of mind, and is meant to describe the world with knowledge and facts instead of myths and religion. However, Adorno and Horkheimer says that the enlightenment itself is a myth since science cannot describe the whole world to us.

2. What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument?

A myth is according to Adorna and Horkheimer the knowledge that existed before enlightenment. Myths are a way of describing the world with beliefs and superstition, instead of knowledge and facts.

2.     What are the “old” and “new” media that are discussed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment?

Old media is something with focus on art and creativity, without having money and business in mind. An example of old media is the phone. New media is an industry that only focuses on making money and business and nothing on art. Example of this is the TV.

3.     What is meant by “culture industry”? What is the relationship between mass media and “mass deception”, according to Adorno and Horkheimer?

Culture industry is what mass production has done to culture. It describes the trend that makes a majority people consume the same types of media such as movies, magazines and television shows without critical evaluation. Since there are a few people controlling what reaches the audience, they can easily control what kind of culture people get exposed to and what is set as a standard; mass deception. Choosing what people get exposed to leads to people creating false needs and more consumption. Adorno and Horkheimer criticize the culture industry, saying that the industry controls humanity in the same way as a dictator would do

Theme 5: Design Research

We started out by reading the research paper Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses by Farnaeus, Y & Jacobsson, M. The paper is about how semiotics in comics and fashion can be used to develop a new physical language. So the writers introduce a design concept called actDresses. The concept is that different kinds of physical markings such as physical clothing, labels, and accessories, which after being attached to digital objects, indicates some behavior, action or property of the object. Today stickers and cases are common accessories that we use to make our technology more personalized and I think that one of the key points that the writers mention in the paper is that we nowadays want technology to be customized to our individual preferences.

Protoypes

A prototype is an early test version of a product, design or function that usually do not have all the features that the final product will have. The word prototype derives from Greek and means primitive form, which means that a prototype is often created with less quality, less expensive materials and is nowhere near as advanced as the final product will be.

Using a prototype is an easy way to test a prduct at an early stage to see what improvements need to be done. The best way to test and refine the prototypes in the design process is with the help of users evaluating usability. The three factors that play into how useful a prototype are effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.

Making use of prototypes is a relatively inexpensive way to test advanced ideas and see what is possible to achieve and not. If we would not use prototypes we would probably throw away a lot of money on unsuccessful advanced research. But developing a prototype and adjusting it can be expensive and take a lot of time. And the prototype is also a primitive form of the final product, which makes it hard to evaluate what the product will actually be like.

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

Qualitative research

I read the paper From Moodle to Facebook: Exploring students’ motivation and experiences in online communities. The paper examines the motivating and inhibiting factors that influenced students’ engagement in online discussions via Moodle and Facebook. The paper uses an exploratory qualitative orientation with interviews as the main instrument for data collection. A benefit of qualitative research is that you can get a deeper understanding for an issue, but it is usually very time consuming. 

Qualitative and quantitative research can often complement each other. Usually you cannot generalize conclusions with qualitative research, but can originate hypotheses whose general validity can be verified for a large number of cases with quantitative method.

Case study research

A case study is a research method that aims to provide in-depth knowledge of what they are investigating.  The method aims to give a deeper understanding through empirical data. Case studies often combine data collection methods and the evidence can be both qualitative and quantitative. A case study can be used to accomplish numerous aims such as providing description, testing or generating theory.

The case study paper I chose is called ”Structuring the discourse on social networks for learning: Case studies on blogs and microblogs”. The paper presents an investigation on the structure of messages on blogs and microblogs, two different categories of social networks. This research was conducted making use of a multiple exploratory case study based on two contexts: blog and microblog. On both case studies, questionnaires with open and closed questions were distributed, as online forms, at the end of the established activities. Also, some interviews and applications logs were used for data convergence. Blogs supported the interaction and collaboration among students. Through postings, the students showed their work and sent comments in order to contribute to their colleagues’ work. Using blogs also improved students’ participation on the learning activities. Finally, using blogs also improved learning the subject.

Theme 5: Design research after blog

After reading the papers this week and reading the other students blog posts I feel like I have a better idea on prototypes. I also attended the second lecture with Haibo Li.

Haibo Li wanted to talk to us about ideas; how to come up with ideas, how to filter them, how to validate, evaluate and communicate them.

When you come up with an idea you always have to filter. Haibo told us a few things to think about; does the idea address the real problem? Is the timing right? Is there a big enough market?  But before this stage you have to define the right problem. And this is the thing that Haibo highlighted and that I found most interesting. He talked about not starting with the solution and always going back to the real problem. He said that a lot of professors are famous for their solutions for problems in advanced reports, but the ones who get really famous are the ones who work hard on defining the problem. To make a point out of this Haibo told us a story about a professor and a student being chased by a bear. The problem was how to outrun the bear, but since one person would be good enough for the bear; the problem was no longer how to outrun the bear, but to outrun the professor. With this metaphor he wanted to show us that it is important think about the problem, not the solution.

Theme 4 after blog

This week I've learned a bit more about quantitative research. I felt I knew a lot about quantitative research since I read a lot on it when I wrote my bachelor thesis. And I got most of it confirmed before this theme. During the first seminar, we sat in small groups and discussed some of the papers that we had chosen. It was interesting to hear that we all selected papers from journals with high impact factors, but there was a lot of criticism of the papers, not too much positive. We discussed topics such as whether there were a large enough number of participants in the studies to draw conclusions. We talked about if we thought that the writers had used a broad enough target group for the kind of conclusions they wanted to make. There was also a paper that we discussed if it even had used a quantitative method or if it had used a mixed method. I believe we decided it had used a mixed method, which I learned this week, is preferable if you want to make reliable conclusions. After discussing all the papers we chose the paper we liked the most and drew a “figure” of it. We chose the paper ' Students Perceptions of E-Mail Interaction During Student - Professor Advising Sessions : The Pursuit of Interpersonal Goals ' by Taylor, M. Jowi , D. Schreier , H. & Bertelsen , D. 2011. The purpose of the paper was to find out whether students preferred contact and information via email or face-to-face communication. It was concluded that students preferred to have complex communication face-to-face with the teacher, and more specific information via email. The study was conducted on 300 students at the same college. We saw several limitations in the study due to the group of 300 people from the college. The first thing we discussed was that the survey was done in only one college, and since the experiences of email and face-to-face communication may be different in different schools it did not seem reasonable to draw general conclusions on 300 students in one school. The authors then attempted to draw conclusions regarding gender, age and race. There, we considered also that participation was a bit too low to be able to say that " 20 percent of black women prefer face to face communication with student advisors " , as the number of black women of 300 people is not likely to be enough to draw conclusions.

To sum up I think it was nice to discuss the texts within the small groups and talk about the pros and cons and how they could have done things differently in the different papers.