Secure path of science.

söndag 18 oktober 2015

Theme 5, Comments

måndag 12 oktober 2015

Theme 5: Design Research (Reflection)

This week I prepared for the lecture through reading more about design research and prototyping besides the given material and through looking for relevant research that can explain this method a little more.

In the first lecture, Haibo discussed the topic of an idea. He structured the lecture by asking the following questions:
- How to come up with an idea?
- How to filter the idea?
- How to validate the idea?
- How to evaluate the idea?
- How to communicate the idea?

He talked about the difficulty of choosing between defining and solving a problem. Which is more important? Most people probably would say the latter, but Haibo states that the definition of a problem exceeds the solution. With that he introduced the "bear case". A professor and a student meet a bear in a forest. Whilst the professor says, there's no way the can outrun the bear, the student has a different approach to the problem and states, he only had to outrun the professor, since the bear would be satisfied in eating one of them anyway.

Besides the lecture, I also read in a different article on imagination and ideas, that "refocusing the question changes our lense" (Tina Seeling, Interview in Fast Company, 2015) and reframing the questions provokes new ideas (Tina Seeling has been teaching classes on creativity and innovation at Stanford University School of Engineering). This is coherent with Haibo's statement.

In summary about 90 % of the given time should be spent on defining the right problem, so that then 10% are left to spend on solving the problem.

Ideas can be filtered through technical evaluation or personal area network.
After discussing humans being somewhat limited and how everyone is blind, as well as what is important to start business (validate idea, prove concept, get customers) and what is important in evaluating media systems we came to the following conclusion:

- How to come up with an idea? - Re-state the problem
- How to filter the idea? - Business mind
- How to validate the idea? - Proof of concept
- How to evaluate the idea? - Prototype
- How to communicate the idea? - Elevator pitch

In the second lecture with Lundström we discussed what the purpose of research really is and what role the prototype plays in this. First and foremost gaining knowledge is the most important factor. To gain this knowledge, prototypes can be used.
Design can be used to shape these prototypes that look for answers and maybe provoke new knowledge. Designs are good for creating future scenarios.

Lundström also discussed that interviews, which often are said to be a method, are not a method. Without further analysis and articulation, these interviews are simply put- just interviews and nothing more.

Sources

Fast Company. (2015). Three ways to reframe a problem to find an innovative solution. Fernaeus, Y., Tholander, J. (2008). Finding Design Qualities in aTangible Programming Space.
Lundström, A. (2014). Differentiated Driving Range: Exploring aSolution to the Problems with the “Guess-O-Meter” in Electric Cars
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

fredag 9 oktober 2015

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research (Pre-blog)

PART I - Qualitative study

I chose 'The psychological functions of avatars and alt(s): A qualitative study' by Gilbert, Thadani, Handy, Andrews, Sguigna, Sasso & Payne (2014). It deals with the 3D virtual world Second Life and the functions of avatars and alts.

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

The chosen study used a semi-structured interview, where the interviews had a protocol with open-end questions. This made it possible to add additional information if needed. Since users often have more than one avatar, the primary avatars were described by the participants first, including gender, body type and race. Furthermore the Big 5 Personality Inventory was defined. An average interview took 129 minutes.

The interviews were then coded by coders who worked in pairs; Disagreements were discussed and clarified for every transcript. The benefits of these in-depth interviews are, that you get a clear view on what psychological functions avatars actually have and what value they have for gamers. Since the sample size only consisted of N=24, the generalizability is limited.

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

I learned more about how interviews are coded and transcribed. I learned that the researchers developed the coding schemes rather "top-down", which means by using theory, than "bottom-up", which means by using data. They used 8 codes (e.g. Reverse Enhancement) to account for a function. The researchers took 4 interviews and discussed what statements could be identified, which were illustrative of each element in the model.

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

The study had a small sample size (N=24), which makes it difficult to generalize the results. To get broader results it might be an option to conduct a follow-up study with a quantitative method, using all the insights gained during the first study. Secondly, the interpretation of the transcripts is difficult, and might be prone to subjectiveness.

PART II - Case Study Research

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

A case study is a qualitative method to examine in depth real-life situations, rather than using statistical surveys. First, research questions need to be determined. Then, cases are collected and data is gathered. After the evaluation of the data, a report is written.

2. 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 selected "How Might Schools Influence Young People's Drug Use? Development of Theory From Qualitative Case-Study Research" by Fletcher, Bonell, Sorhaindo, & Strange (2006).

Getting started: The aim of the study is mentioned, and the research question is also being discussed thoroughly.

Selecting cases: The study is based on qualitative case-study data. But it wasn't explained as much as I would have hoped for. It was carried out in two schools in London.

Crafting instruments and protocols: The description of the data collection is very clear.

Entering the field: I couldn't really find anything related to field notes multiple data collection.

Analyzing data: Thematic content analysis and grounded theory are used to compare the data to other cases, to challenge the analysis and the develop further theoretical insights.

Shaping hypothesis: They found three pathways that could explain the role of the school in the drug use. It could have been made clearer, though.

Enfolding literature: The paper compares it's aims to other literature in the beginning and mentions some resources at the end as well.

Reaching closure: The research questions is answered for some parts, but there is no theoretical saturation made.

Sources

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories From Case Study Research. The Qualitative Researcher's Companion, 14(4), 4-35.

Fletcher, A., Bonell, C., Sorhaindo, A., & Strange, V. (2006). How Might Schools Influence Young People's Drug Use? Development of Theory From Qualitative Case-Study Research. Journal of Adolescent Health, 45(2), 126-132. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.12.021

Gilbert, R., Thadani, V., Handy, C., Andrews, H., Sguigna, T., Sasso, A., & Payne, S. (2014). The psychological functions of avatars and alt(s): A qualitative study. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 1-8.

tisdag 6 oktober 2015

Comments, Theme 4

1// http://denise-theoryandmethod.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-22.html?showComment=1444032953973#c7544772508243146536

2// http://u1x5o721.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflections.html?showComment=1444124554761#c9040746747205415594

3// http://oscarlimback.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-after.html?showComment=1444125299406

4// http://butlikewhyisit.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflection.html?showComment=1444125921136#c4008787424814734615

5// http://elindm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflection.html?showComment=1444127563401

6// http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-4-quantitative-research.html?showComment=1444131769826#c8720955118185458999

7// http://paullinderoth.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-after.html?showComment=1444132250559

8// http://sannanodm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflection.html?showComment=1444132891765#c1500845272750400629

9// http://amlinden.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflections.html?showComment=1444133344488

10// http://capitalmyboy.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-post-theme-post.html?showComment=1444134355521#c5913337936139548451

måndag 5 oktober 2015

Theme 4: Quantitative Methods (Reflection)

For this week's topic I read the paper "Social networking site or social surveillance site? Understanding the use of interpersonal electronic surveillance in romantic relationships." by Robert Tokunaga (2011) from the journal Computers in Human Behavior. I also reviewed again "Methods in empirical research of communication" (in German: Methoden der empirischen Kommunikationsforschung) by Brosius, Koschel & Haas (2007), which I read for my bachelor studies. This book sums up all important key concepts of quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as possible methods like interviews, empirical observation and experiments.

I contributed to the seminar by actively discussing the pro's and con's of quantitative/ qualitative methods, when it's the smartest to use what, about the possibility to use both and through discussing examples from my personal friends, who have researched for example WhatsApp communication with a qualitative method, whereas I researched it through a quantitative approach.

In the lecture we discussed different approaches, as in surveys, experiments etc. In my bachelor thesis I had to formulate a questionnaire myself, so this was nothing new, but still interesting. As Ilias said, I also had to validate my questionnaire. I tested and piloted it through asking participants if there needs to be any clarification, if the layout was okay and how long it took to answer the questions.

After that we talked more about the body ownership illusion experiment done by Ilias Bergström and fellow researchers. It's always interesting to hear about the process from the researcher himself, rather than only reading the journal article.

In the seminar we talked about pro's and con's of qualitative and quantitative methods. It's important to note, that quantitative research is not better than qualitative research, only because it involves statistics. It's also not true, that qualitative research is more subjective than quantitative research.

Whatever method used, researches try to keep their objectiveness. One example is conversation analysis, where conversations are transcribed and then interpreted. Here it is very common to hire people to transcribe the conversations independently from each other, so one can compare the transcriptions and ensure that there will be no subjectiveness.

Since I already have worked within empirical research during my bachelor thesis, I have some insights on what quantitative methods are about and what's important. Still, it was nice to hear from other students, who possibly have studied something else, what they have done so far in research and what they find interesting within this. Someone pointed out, that they were interested in the perceived use vs. the actual use of media. Of course here we have again the problem of subjectiveness vs. objectiveness. If you ask a person how often they check their phone they might say 3 x an hour. If you then measure how often they really check their phone per hour, you might find out, that the actual amount of checking is 25 x an hour.

This week was overall very interesting, especially because we are all from different disciplines and have different knowledge that we could bring together.

Sources

Brosius, H., Koschel, F., Haas, A. (2007). Methoden der empirischen Kommunikationsforschung. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Soziawissenschaften.

Kilteni, K., Bergström, I., Slater, M. (2012). Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 19 (4), 597-605 http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TVCG.2013.29

Tokunaga, R. S. (2011). Social networking site or social surveillance site? Understanding the use of interpersonal electronic surveillance in romantic relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 705–713. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.014

fredag 2 oktober 2015

Theme 5, Design Research (Pre-blog)

Part I

Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration

(Réhman, Sun, Liu. and Li, 2008)

How can media technologies be evaluated?

The article synchronized a mobile phone with the ball in a football game, so that the user can experience the movements of the ball. For that a usability test was conducted. This evaluation of media technologies was done from 3 point’s of views. Effectiveness, which was about the question if a task could be completed with the specified system. This was indivated by the success to failure ratio. Second, the efficiancy was evaluated by taking the reaction time if a user as an indicator of efficiency. How much effort does this require?
The third aspect is satisfaction, which refers to the comfort of the system to its users, meaning one can observe how useres interact with the system and measure through a questionaire (e.g. Is this application interesting?).

What role will prototypes play in research?

If I understand this correctly, prototypes in research are used to create ideas and to collect data for a scientific paper. Prototypes already play an important role in research, as they are the basis of future models. With these, researchers can test new alternatives to check the efficiancy and satisfaction of a model and can identify new ideas based on feedback.

In media & communication research this is done for example before a survey is distributed. The survey itself is a "prototype" which will be reviewed by several other researchers and potential participants, so that possible errors or misunderstandings can be clarified and corrected. Only after that the „finished“ survey can be distributed among the participants without any further concerns.

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

It is necessary to develop a proof of concept (POC) prototype in order to be sure, that certain theories or concepts can be applied in the real world. With that the feasability can be proven. Also, it helps to provide insights on how the prototype can be improved.

What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

Prototypes are meant to show what the final end product could look like. Since it’s only one version of it, there might be flaws. Through extensive testing they can be eliminated, which also changes the product.

How can design research be communicated/presented?

The best way might be to visualize the prototypes, concepts and results in the research paper, so it’s easier to imagine how the design research was conducted. This can be done through graphs, pictures or sketches.

Part II

Finding Design Qualities in a Tangible Programming Space (Fernaeus & Tholander, 2008)

Differentiated Driving Range: Exploring a Solution to the Problems with the “Guess-O-Meter” in Electric Cars (Lundström, A. , 2014)

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

Fernaeus and Tholander’s paper on „Finding Design Qualities in a Tangible Programming Space“ uses a qualitative analysis of design prototypes and of staged activities with children using these prototypes. In previous research it has been normal to involve children as informers, but this study chose to involce the children in productive use of technology.

In Lundström’s article about „Differentiated Driving Range: Exploring a Solution to the Problems with the “Guess-O-Meter” in Electric Cars“ he uses a variety of methods to explore problems that drivers experience with with the information that is available in electric cars. First there was a pre-study, where they performed a state-of-art-analysis of discourse in online forums and interviews. As they wanted to understand what affects the driving range, they designed and implemented a proof-of-concept to explore the feasibility of the concepts.

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

I would say yes. Every step towards knowledge is a contribution, no matter in what form it comes. As we discussed earlier, even theory is a form of practice, as you are thinking and looking at something. So just because practical design work involves the term ”design” it doesn’t mean it excludes knowledge contribution.

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

Within a research project it’s not just about the design, but also about so many other factors that have to be considered as influence factors. Here, a researcher has to conduct pre-analyses to gain more information before actually conducting anything. I figure that it’s not that complicated in design in general.

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?

I am sure they are replicable. Of course, as it’s the same with any other research, a replication of a project highly depends on the objectivity and skills of the researcher himself. There’s not to be any personal involvement or subjectiveness in the matter of replication. Everything should be copied 1:1 as it has been done before in order to ensure the same result. So for this matter, of course time has a great role, as technology evolves everyday. That means, some things might only be replicable for a short period of time before technology advances again.

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

The research process differs. In design driven research phenomenas are observed, then a design is chosen, which will be prototyped first. After that, it will get tested with a audience. After that, the process repeats itself.

Scientific research, as discussed in theme 4 has no prototypes and designs, but chooses between quantitative or qualitative method and drives from one theory. Hypotheses are formulated to narrow the research topic. Results are reported and a discussion follows.

Sources

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

Fernaeus, Y., Tholander, J. (2008). Finding Design Qualities in aTangible Programming Space.

Lundström, A. (2014). Differentiated Driving Range: Exploring aSolution to the Problems with the “Guess-O-Meter” in Electric Cars

torsdag 1 oktober 2015

Comments, Theme 3