Comments on Theme 6

Here is a list of all the comments made on Theme 6:

1. http://pargman420.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-seminar-reflection-6.html?showComment=1445332462074#c2910398614119139851
2. http://literaturestuffm.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-reflections-after-lecture-and.html?showComment=1445335938683#c833435761622984979
3. http://ninopmedia.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-reflection-this-theme-is-more.html?showComment=1445336599536#c8009319902447693389
4. http://fromplatotocasestudies.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-reflections.html?showComment=1445337024102#c3213036348633766649
5. http://alexisdm2572.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-post-seminar.html?showComment=1445338823209#c5908285711645635402
6. http://stinazwahlen.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-seminar-theme-6-qualitative-and.html?showComment=1445341052457#c9080495190540656940
7. http://dm2572elvira.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-qualitative-and-case-study_19.html?showComment=1445345486463#c6237429365760581957
8. http://bjornsblogggg.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-post-reflection.html?showComment=1445426864225#c688466621195865185
9. http://u1ifqcuc.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-qualitative-and-case-study.html?showComment=1445427189998#c3054963818458686913
10. http://u1x5o721.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-6-reflections.html?showComment=1445427617201#c7778482409883184438

Comments on Theme 5

Here is a list of all the comments made on Theme 5:

1. http://remarkableathenianyouth.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-design-research-or-how-to-define.html?showComment=1445252530072#c8946635960380867433
2. http://reb2572.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-5-design-research_12.html?showComment=1445252842852#c654348983875463839
3. http://theoandmeth.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-theme-5.html?showComment=1445255277344#c8240969604927275972
4. http://duckyduckyducky.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-seminar-5.html?showComment=1445255583723#c6432450408336652711
5. http://theoatmeth.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-5-post-seminar.html?showComment=1445255845714#c8952465057358077485
6. http://suchapriori.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-theme-5.html?showComment=1445256765116#c4636637014676980941
7. http://thetheoryandmethodofeverything.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-5-friday-reflection.html?showComment=1445258334449#c8174486324404662984
8. http://capitalmyboy.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-5-post-theme-post.html?showComment=1445258541481#c7101836440525340784
9. http://amlinden.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-5-reflections.html?showComment=1445258777934#c3843212857451345642
10. http://mediafluttery.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-5-reflection.html?showComment=1445259058462#c8552665788540594782

Reflections post Theme 6

This week I'd say was mostly about case studies, and for a good reason, there was quite a bit to talk about regarding case-studies and what it means.

The texts did not give me that much to work with, and I looked up a definition on case study online that did not quite fit the same description as we had in this course.

In the seminar we began to talk about the meaning of  a case study in the smaller group. We agreed on that a case study is about looking into quite rare, and different cases of either occurrences or perhaps people/groups that are different to the masses. It is its uniqueness that defines it, and what's interesting is what knowledge that can be acquired from it. This also means that a case study shouldn't be to confirm already existing theories, bur rather to help you construct your own. You do not predetermine a method to go with when investigating the case, but choose methods as you go on, and backtrack when it's needed.

In the bigger group this view on case studies was shared, and one student brought up a question as to whether or not documentaries are case studies? One could think so since it's about capturing the essence of one usually different thing, but what to remember is that the film is from the directors point of view, and thus it's more of a synthetic production. A funny thing that Ilias mentioned was that documentary filming has been used as a research method.

Going back to case studies, the fact that you do backtracking makes it cyclic, and so does paradigm shifts. Probably not-at-all-useful information, but oh well.

To wrap things up and say why this was a good way of wrapping up this course is that case studies tell you that there are no recipes for how things are to be done, and what methods are to be used. Of course you need to be careful of what theories you choose, but there is no recipe for knowledge production.

Comments on Theme 4

Here is a list of all the comments made on Theme 4:

1. http://stinazwahlen.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-seminar-theme-4.html?showComment=1444640853143#c4694912771022999242
2. http://dm2572elvira.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-post.html?showComment=1444641349387#c4739448252350550915
3. http://elindm2572.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-4-reflection.html?showComment=1444641760763#c186096203401739717
4. http://dm2572lisa.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-4-reflection-post.html?showComment=1444642083782#c567967036102952398
5. http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-theme-4-quantitative-research.html?showComment=1444642364560#c2190593068672569905
6. http://remarkableathenianyouth.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-quantitative-research-or-there-is.html?showComment=1444642597953#c1627796839282305733
7. http://reb2572.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-theme-4.html?showComment=1444642937526#c2473080166785193354
8. http://theoandmeth.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-blog-theme-4.html?showComment=1444643282369#c6996481707849095942
9. http://duckyduckyducky.blogspot.com/2015/10/post-seminar-4.html?showComment=1444643649533#c6547058670492398276
10. http://theoatmeth.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-4-post-seminar.html?showComment=1444643866446#c7905584159718899787

Reflections post Theme 5

This week there were no seminar, and only two lectures. I went to one of the lectures since I had to prioritize something else on friday.

On the first lecture, that Haibo held, he structured is following five questions, namely:

How to come up with ideas?

How to filter ideas?

How to validate ideas?

How to evaluate ideas?

How to communicate ideas?

I had to go after half of the lecture, and during that time he only managed to cover the first question.

He talked about problem solving, and brought up an example of the student and teacher that encounters a bear in the wild. The teacher sees the problem as the two of them running away from the bear while the student, who sees the "real" problem, says that since the bear is satisfied eating one of them the student only needs to outrun the teacher. I guess this explains the main concept of actually defining a problem, and how it can be defined differently in the same situation.

The more interesting part here would be Haibo's own theory about how much time you should spend defining- and solving a problem. Solutions should always be more straight forward. If you can define the right problem a solution will present itself more easily and you will spend less time working on the actual solution. He put it this way; 90 + 10, if you spend 90% of the total time defining the problem to make sure you got the right problem you can spend less (here, 10%) time on actually solving it.

That's all I got from this week. We've had other courses where we stumbled upon this weeks theme as well.

Reflections prior to Theme 6

So this weeks theme was about qualitative methods and case studies.

I chose "Internet and Social Media Use as a Resource Among Homeless Youth" (Rice, Barman-Adhikari, 2013)

1. Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods? 
   They are using a survey in order to get qualitative data form participants. It's easy to use and you can get more data in a more sufficient way, but limitations are that- compared to interviews- you wont perhaps get as much in-depth answers from the participants. When conducting an investigation, where the aim is qualitative research, you ask yourself not how many people feel a certain way, but rather why they feel this way. To get a deeper understanding. 
   
2. What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?
   I learnt that even though you choose an empirical way of collecting data quantitatively the end result/discussion can still be qualitative. The questions can still describe the behaviour of the participants.
   
3. Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?
   They could have conducted interviews. It's hard when there is a lot of participants, and interviews would not represent a whole group, but it would open up for a deeper discussion about why people feel like they do and so forth.
   

1. Briefly explain to a first year student what a case study is.
A case study involves going in-depth on a certain "case". It can be used to test/generate theories, A case study does not aim to reach some kind of universal/generalized truth, but rather to explore and describe either maybe a participant or a group.

2. Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" to analyze strengths and weaknesses of you selected paper.
I'll stick with the paper I chose above for this as well. From what I can tell by looking at the Table 1 the first thing that comes to mind is that they did not have that many data collecting methods. They did not combine qualitative and quantitative data. There were not much literature about this topic so I will disregard that point. These were the weaknesses, and other things mentioned in the table fits quite well with what I could find in the paper.

As I already mentioned above, the paper could probably benefit from more qualitative data in terms of interviews.

Reflections prior to Theme 5

For the first paper we were supposed to reflect upon a set of questions.

How can media technologies be evaluated?
In the paper they mention system evaluation, and for that they name three types:
Experimental Platform, which is basically presenting the platform that is going to be used in detail.
Usability evaluation, where they reference ISO recommendations for usability. The recommendations were effectiveness which is about whether or not a task can be accomplished on a specific system. Efficiency which is about how much effort that is needed to complete the task. 
Finally satisfaction that is about the attitude the participants have towards the used system, if it worked well for them and so forth.

What role will prototypes play in research?
A prototype is used to prove the functionality of the final product. It's usually more basic and less artistically appealing than the final product, but it should have the basic functionality of the intended final product. For a test like this a prototype is very good to have since in early stages of production a developer needs to have feedback from the plausible customers themselves. 

Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?
It's more important if it's developed in cooperation with the customer. Then a product is developed with the help of the customer and the proof of concept is to show how the product will function. A proof of concept prototype could decide whether or not a customer would actually buy the final product or not.

What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?
It's basic and should be easy to use/understand by the users. It's functional and should provide enough information for the user to use it efficiently. It has limited functionality since the focus is on the basics of the thought to be final product. Also, the design isn't necessarily very advanced in any sense. Functionality is key.

How can design research be communicated/presented?
Not sure how to understand this question, but through a paper like this works. 
It's hard with design since it very subjective and hard to quantify.

The second part of the reflections that is of the other two papers

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

I would say so, yes. When working with practical design we need to understand how humans interact and react to it. Knowledge about human interaction with the design that is to say.

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

Both aims to aid human interaction with certain technologies/things in general. A good design, whether it be in a research project or designing a book, wants to interest the user. I'd say that the difference between the two is that in research projects the design is very much often more basic and tries to mostly aim at being functional while design in general tries to stimulate human senses.

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? 

Yes I believe so. More advanced computation and new, better algorithms in computer science can make a today seemingly hard project, of making an application for example, much easier and more feasible. So it could be investigated more deeply in te future. That is to say that I understood the question correctly, but I guess we'll see in the post-theme reflection!

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

Design driven research aims to understand human interaction with technology more. While research in general often brings quantitative studies design research is more qualitative and wants to understand the human nature when interacting with technology/design.