Final post: Complex research

Final post: Complex research

During this course we’ve talked and read about the different steps and tools you need to answer complex research questions. The six different themes can be split into two parts where the first half was about theory and the second half was about methods. The first part was more abstract than the second and thereby harder for me to grasp fully.

We started with what can be seen as the most basic part of why you want to answer research questions. It is because we want to find new knowledge about something and to really be able to answer this questions we need to define what knowledge actually is and also how one obtains new knowledge. That follow-up questions makes all the difference because that is a very hard question to answer once you start to think about it and this hard and rather abstract definition was what we were trying to find during the start of the course.

What is knowledge? This question seems like a very harmless one but it is a question that will lead you to question all of reality. We read both Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Plato’s Theaetetus during this theme and to start off with Kant he argues that we can’t obtain true knowledge. This is because we all perceive the world differently and it is through our perception that we interpret the world and gain an understanding of it. But since the perception of everyone is different we can’t see something with true objectiveness and thereby we can’t obtain true knowledge. Socrates argues in Plato’s Theaetetus that you don’t need perception to gain true knowledge but rather rely on the power of the mind and use pure reasoning to gain new knowledge. To answer what knowledge is it is easier to answer what knowledge is not and a clear definition of knowledge is more or less impossible to make.

During the first half of the course we also talked about theory and like knowledge it is easier to explain theory by explaining what it is not. One of the texts we read was written by Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M. (1995) and was called “What theory is Not”. Theory is not data, graphs, diagrams or hypotheses but rather how, why and when something occurs and it’s what binds your research together. We use existing theory to help us answering research questions and in a way we use theory to help us gain knowledge.

After discussing and reading about why we do research and why we want answers to our questions for the first half of the course we switched focus to how we should obtain these answers. There are a lot of different methods to use exclusively or in symbiosis to answer research questions and the ones we talked about were quantitative and qualitative methods, design research and field studies. We also talked about the importance of defining the problem and do the proper preperations for your research before you start.

To describe quantitative or qualitative research methods it is easiest to compare them to each other to see the differences. Benefits of using a quantitative method is that it’s easy to make a statistical test on the data collected because the data is often represented in numbers. An example of this would be to study how many would vote for a specific party in parliament with a questionnaire. However when we want to know why people vote for that party we stumble across one of the limitations of quantitative methods. Trying to answer a question of “why” something occurs/occurred with the use of a quantitative method is extremely hard because for it to be correct the person who makes the study needs to think of all possible reasons to put a vote on that specific party. If you instead use a qualitative research method to answer this question, let’s say as a question during an interview, and you let the person in question answer freely you will get their answer as it is, nothing more, nothing less. The limitations of qualitative research methods are more or less the benefits of using a quantitative research method and the same goes with benefits of qualitative research methods and limitations of quantitative research methods. One good way to minimize limitations of your study is to use several methods and combine both qualitative and quantitative methods. This is not however a way to dodge all limitations, for example qualitative methods are often very time consuming and combining qualitative and quantitative methods also takes a lot of time.

Two excellent examples of when you often use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to try to answer the question(s) of your study is case studies and design research. Design research is an area that is a little different because the aim of that research is usually different than that of other research. The aim of design research is usually to create a product or service and it usually uses prototyping as a method. Prototyping is a qualitative method and it is a great help to pinpoint what flaws your design has.

A case study aims to examine one or several specific situations, cases, persons or similar. One example of a case study would be to study how the people in Greece react towards their government with the economic crisis that is taking place there. You can also use several layers of analysis in your case study and as I mentioned before, several research methods. Case studies can be used either to validate old theory or generate new theory and, according to me, using it to generate new theory is the most exciting one. You can use a case study to generate new theory about future research fields and an example of that would be if half the population turned into robots. Then you could do a case study on one of the robots to study what and how to further study all of the robots.

To summarize this course I feel like I’ve learned a lot about knowledge and theory that will be applicable in my future studies such as my master thesis. I didn’t think I would learn as much as I did about knowledge and theory however I also thought I would learn more about research methods than I did during this course.

All my comments

Here are all the comments I've made on other blogs during this course:

Theme 1:

1. I feel like your experience with this theme and the first week of the course has been pretty much alike. I also feel that the seminar was the best part and it was there I learned the most. I had a hard time understanding and reading the texts and my first blogpost was very uncertain from my part. However after the seminar I felt that alot of that uncertainty was removed and what I had suspected to be correct about the texts were confirmed.
I also agree that the biggest change and thing I learned this week was the changed way of thinking. No longer in a fact-based way where there are absolutes but rather arguing for an answer no one really knows if it is true or false.


2. I haven't really given philosophy a chance before this course either and I found it hard to actually grasp alot of the terms used in these texts. I also found it hard to read and understand the texts as it took me alot longer to read these texts than it usually takes for me to read something. It sounds like both you and maybe your seminargroup put alot of emphasis on the posterori and a priori concepts. I found these hard to understand and I do not know if I still know what they mean to a full but I think it is good that you focused on these as they are a part of the main subject of weeks 1 subject.


3. I agree with the above and I also think that the texts were challenging in themselves but it was almost more challenging to learn to interpret and understand philosophical texts in general. I believe, especially Kant's text, is a hard one to understand but since we aren't used to philosophical terms, texts and thinking that just adds to the difficulty of the first week in this course.
I, like you, also used summaries and study guides about these texts to fully grasp what they were trying to say. I think it helped a great deal but I think that after the first week we will all get more used to reading texts like these and have a easier time reading, understanding and reflecting about the texts and questions that are given to us.

Theme 2:

1. I, like you, also thought this weeks texts and concepts were a lot easier than those of week one. I feel like you understood Adorno & Horkheimer's text better than Benjamin's but I still think you summarized the week in a good way that is easy to understand. Good work!


2. I feel like we had a similar experience with this weeks theme but you put it to words better than I did. I also felt that nominalism was the hardest part to fully grasp and that the seminar helped me as well as you to understand the concept. I think your example with the different shades of red was on point and that you overall summarized this week very well.


3. I think, as you say, that most of us had the biggest problem of grasping nominalism and realism this week. I don’t quite understand your example when you talk about the chair but if it works for you then great! If you do mean it as Marcus describes it above I understand it. I’ve also heard of the third person experience with the drone and headset and I think it sounds extremely cool but also wierd. It is not hard to realize that the perception of yourself that you have would change when seeing yourself in third person. I agree that perception was a lot easier to understand than the concepts of nominalism and realism and it feels like we had a similar learning curve during this week.

Theme 3:

1. Waddup!

I also felt that this weeks theme was a lot easier to grasp than previous weeks! I also realized that I've been confusing theory and hypothesis and I think that a lot of others have been/are doing this as well. I like your explanation of weak and strong theory and I, like you, also hadn't thought about that theory can be weak or strong so that is something I've also learned during this week!


2. Hello there,
I liked that you and your seminar group saw the connection between this theme and the previous themes and actually discussed the theme with that in mind. It sounds like an interesting discussion and I also feel like discussion theory and truth together can be very hard and dangerous since a theory isn't always true. It is a interesting thing to consider since it is often, when it comes to theory, about observations. Because it is about observations it is also about perception and we all know where that discussion leads, (often nowhere) but it is very interesting nonetheless.


3. Hi there,
I think a lot of people don't know the difference between theory and a hypothesis (except for the people taking this course now and I don't think everyone knew before this week, at least I didn't) so it is a good way to start of your reflection. I also like that you end your reflection with your understanding of theory, might be because I agree with you and I have the same understanding. That theory is a process I find is very true and the importance of balancing the findings with actually understanding the answer and the significance of the question is not to be forgotten!

Theme 4:

1. Hi!
I enjoyed reading your reflections and found it interesting to read the reflections of someone that didn't know exactly what quantitative and qualitative methods are beforehand. I feel that I haven't learned that much during this week since I've actually used these methods myself so it is good to see that you've learned a lot. I think your understanding of qualitative and quantitative research methods are good and I agree that using them together or converting one to the other can improve the results.


2. Hi Lisa,
I think you did a very good job of summarizing this weeks theme in a good way and it is easy to understand your explanations and reflections. I liked the part with the dependent and independent variables, I was there at the lecture but I must've spaced out when it was said. I also like the part at the end when you explain that you should let the question of the study determine the research method. I think this is very true and a good way to go about doing research!


3. Hi there,I couldn’t agree more that this theme was a lot easier to understand and more tangible. I also find it confusing with all the overlapping themes but soon it will start to be less and less! I had the same experience as you had in my group during the seminar, there wasn’t that much to talk about. I don’t know about your group but in my group at least all of us had done our bachelor thesis so we all had experience with both qualitative and quantitative methods. Good to see you felt that you’ve learned things this week, interviews being qualitative being one of them.

Theme 5:

1. Hi,
I also think that the fact that there were two lectures rather than one lecture and one seminar, sadly, didn't really make this weeks theme justice. I also think it got really confusing and there was so much information without any real discussion and that made at least me feel like I didn't learn as much as I could have. However I think your summarize is good and the five points Haibo brought up is maybe the most important part of this weeks theme to grasp in my opinion so the fact that you've understood those is great. The role of prototyping in design research is also very important and it looks to me like you've grasped that concept fully as well.


2. Hello there!
I also found it interesting to think about great and innovative ideas not needing to be a technological innovative idea. The example with Facebook is great and it really makes you think about innovation and I think that most people when they hear innovation they think about new technology only and don't consider new ways of using existing technology. I also liked that you show the main stages of design research before you dive in and further describes the different steps, it really makes it easy to understand.


3. Hi there,
great that you feel that you've learned a lot during this week! The five Cisco criteria to define "the next big idea" really sums up the things you need to think about when working with design research. It would've been interesting to read more about prototyping and its role in design research and the strengths/weaknesses of prototyping.

Theme 6:

1. Hi Anton,
very nice and thorough reflection! I felt the same way during the discussions in my group that it was much more interesting to discuss case studies rather than qualitative research since we talked about it during theme 4. Comparing your different papers within the group seems like a good way to go about this theme and I, like you, also missed the lecture this week. I like that you bring up what Illias said about case studies, that they are often more interesting when they generate new knowledge and theory instead of confirming old one.

2. Hi there Isabella.
I enjoyed reading your reflection and I agree with you on basically all of your points. I also feel that not having a lecture was a unfortunate thing to happen since I felt like my learning didn't go as smooth as previous weeks and you and me are probably not alone in this aspect. I also agree that there should be just one theme covering both quantitative and qualitative research methods since it is much easier to talk about both, rather than just one of them. One of your most important points, according to me, is the fact that you can use a case study to see if the area is worth researching further and also how to do that research.

3. Hi,
interesting reflection and good job on using the first theme in this one as well. I do however also disagree that a case study is a qualitative research method. A case study can contain both quantitative and qualitative research methods or only one of them but when I think of case studies I actually think of it as a qualitative method. This might be because most of the case studies I've seen have been mostly qualitative but defining a case study as a qualitative method is the part I find hard to agree with. Other than that it was a nice reflection!

Comments theme 6

Here are my comments on theme 6:

1. http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.dk/2015/10/post-theme-6-qualitative-and-case-study.html?showComment=1445790558523#c7424738864291843218

2. http://meglia.blogspot.dk/2015/10/post-theme-6.html?showComment=1445791218810#c2653635787501132373

3. http://duckyduckyducky.blogspot.dk/2015/10/post-seminar-6.html?showComment=1445796305051#c7132973069796120359

Theme 5 comments

Here are my comments on theme 5:

http://dm2572byen.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research_10.html?showComment=1444999543577#c6724672661125510038

http://theoryandmethodmediatechnology.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research-after-two.html?showComment=1445000374439#c2429024037815470096

http://blog4course99.blogspot.se/2015/10/reflection-on-theme5.html?showComment=1445001056090#c8752627320261406216

Theme 6 (post)

During this week we focused on qualitative research and case studies. I read three texts, one paper that used qualitative research methods, one case study and Eisenhardt’s “Process of building theory from case study research”.

Sadly the lecture got canceled this week but at least the seminar was still held. We talked a lot about differences between qualitative and quantitative research methods during the discussion with the whole seminar group. Mostly because there were a few people believing that quantitative studies are quantitative because of the amount of people studied. I knew this wasn’t the case but I couldn’t think of a quantitative study with only one participant, but Illias gave us an interesting example. His example was that if you found a person with a rare disease that no one else has, then you can’t study more than one person. However you can still study this case in a quantitative way by giving this person medicine for a week, look at his/hers values. Then you stop giving the person medicine for a week, take the values and keep on doing this for a year or something. Then you still end up with 26 weeks on medicine, 26 weeks off medicine and can study this case in a quantitative matter. I found this very interesting since I’ve never thought about how to do a quantitative study without a lot of people participating and I feel like this is one of the biggest things I’ve learned during this week even though the week was actually about qualitative research methods. But since I’ve personal experience from qualitative methods like interviews, focus groups and also know a lot about observations in qualitative research I don’t find it strange that I learned more about something else than qualitative methods this week.

Qualitative methods I felt that I already knew a lot about but case studies was (and still is) something I don’t have personal experience with and therefore don’t know a lot about. I’ve learnt a lot about case studies and some of the things I didn’t know about case studies is that they can have several layers of analysis and that it is preferred to analyze and gather data at the same time (more or less) during a case study. That case studies are used to validate or generate new theory isn’t something I’ve explicitly thought about but once I read it I felt that it was pretty obvious. Although I did find it interesting that Illias said that he thought about case studies in the way that they are mainly used to create new theory rather than validate old because that is how I think case studies are best used as well. The fact that case studies can contain several methods that are used either together or separately is an example of something I already knew about case studies.

Theme 4 comments

Here are the comments on theme 4:

http://dm2572lisa.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflection-post.html?showComment=1444583130176#c5700308794592032619

https://agrik.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/qualitatively-quantitative/#comment-38

http://mediafluttery.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflection.html?showComment=1444584185191#c8656785548671666492

Theme 5 (post)

So this week we focused on Design Research and sadly I think this weeks theme wasn’t that great in terms of execution.

Like previous weeks we had a few texts to read and this week it was three different papers and I found the reading part of the theme the most engaging and interesting. I find design to be a very interesting area since you can design something in so many different ways and each of them have its weaknesses/strengths depending on what you are designing for. Design is something I could see myself working with in the future, and I’m not talking about artistic design as in use this color here, this font here etc, but rather designing functionality. So when it comes to the theme I found it very relevant and interesting and even if the texts might’ve been a little out dated I still found them interesting.

The difference between this week and previous weeks was that we didn’t have a seminar during this theme which I found very unfortunate. We instead had two lectures and usually I find the lectures ok when it comes to how much I learn, how engaged I am and how much they interest me and the seminars is the best part of the themes. I’m a person who loves discussing things and since that is exactly what you do on the seminars naturally I will find them more fun.

This week however I think the lectures were less than desirable when it comes to content and execution. The first lecture with Haibo Li was hard to follow because I felt like he tried to talk about everything there is about design research in two hours, and that is very hard. He changed the focus of the lecture so many times it just ended up being confusing. You could see that this is something Haibo thinks is fun and I believe he got a little carried away.

The second lecture also had some problems because the person who should give it ended up being sick at the time so Anders Lundström had to jump in and do the lecture with just a few hours notice. I don’t think it was that wierd that this lecture didn’t end up being great and I feel like I learned a lot even though it was very improvised. We talked about prototyping, why you use prototypes in design research, what empirical data is and proof of concept. I had some knowledge about these areas before but I feel that I now have a more detailed understanding of them. But as I said earlier, I think the fact that there were no seminar prevented me and a few others to really embrace the theme.