Theme6: Qualitative and case study research (after)

This week I chose two papers to help discussing the topics of theme6, they are The internet and the possibilities of publicity by Malin, J. B. for qualitative research and The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ by Nicole B. Ellison et al for case study research. In the first paper, the authors use a typical qualitative method to discuss the implication of two modes of publicity for traditional broadcast and online communications. The second paper is a good example of case study about examining the relationship between use of Facebook, a popular online social network site, and the formation and maintenance of social capital. In addition, I read the paper 'Building Theories from Case Study Research' and get a basic knowledge about case study.


The most impressive knowledge I gained from Ilias is case study is something when you do not know much about a particular event or building a theory like the paper mentioned. Similar as the paper I chose, case study is a case study is an in depth study of a particular situation or group.  But it reminds me that case studies tend to be highly subjective and it is difficult to generalize results to a larger population or situation.


For this week's theme. we just had a seminar to discuss the topics. Our group mainly discussed whether hypothesis exists or plays a significant role in qualitative research or not and the definition of case study. Furthermore, as case study is usually used for building a theory, the case study research design is also useful for testing whether scientific theories and models actually work in the real world.

In conclusion, studying qualitative method is one way to strength the knowledge of quantitative research and case study is a new concept in scientific method which is really useful for me.

Comments for Theme4

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Theme5: Design research (after)

Post for  lecture on Wednesday

This lecture brought me a lot of information about design research. First Haibo Li gave us an interesting concept to emphasize the importance of positioning the problem that is defining a problem valued 90 percentage of the research processing plus solving a problem valued 10 percentage equals an excellent research. The Problem is key to a research no matter what kind of study is,  humanity or science. When dealing with a research, figuring out the most appropriate and efficient problem is the best beginning of a design research. With that, researchers can work out direct prototype to solve the problem.

Another knowledge of this lecture which is very impressive for me is the elevator pitch. Before this lecture, I thought prototype is the best and intuitive patten to express the solution to initial problem. But through learning the absolute processing of a research in the lecture, I realize that elevator pitch communicate much better than prototype as it presents the most attractive part and main design method to the audiences in an easy and quick way.

Now I feel that more confidence and knowledge support me to do academic research in the future.

Post for lecture on Friday

The view in Friday is another type to introduce design research. Anders first gave a question that what role a prototype play in design research. To be concluded, gaining knowledge is the final answer. Before that my understanding of prototype is more close to the role it acts in industry. In addition, empirical data are resulted and analyzed after prototype, that is also the reason sometimes the original prototype will be shaped again.

Anders also give the concept for what is research, but is different from the version proposed in Wednesday. It includes process, analysis and artificial. His idea can be described as finding the real problem is the main purpose of design. By carrying on design, research rethink wether the problem is what we want to catch up with.

Two lectures during this week help me learn the definition of design research, the processing of design, different method toward to design research. Overall I am satisfied with this week.

Theme6: Qualitative and case study research

The paper I chose:

Malin, J. B. (2011) A very popular blog: The internet and the possibilities of publicity. New Media & Society. 13(2), 187-202

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

This paper use a typical qualitative method to discuss the implication of two modes of publicity for traditional broadcast and online communications. Referring to relative literatures and previous research, the authors trace a lot of examples and compare them to analysis explain the implication of broadcast, cable television and internet.

Benefit: Qualitative methods used in the paper make a good combination between statistics from research institutions or media companies and relative theoretical literatures. As the discussion is based on a large amount of examples from previous research, they analysis by comparing the examples to get most reliable conclusion. In addition, without the processing of collecting data, the method is less complex because it concentrates on a representative sample(US).

Limitation：The main content is using previous study to analysis and give explanation of the implication, while the general conclusion is not objective enough and probably influenced by researcher and method from reference. A research without data supported lack of accuracy.

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

Compared with quantitative method, qualitative method describes and explain the object based on general theories and a great amount of history and examples. Comparison and logical analyzing are the main ways to do qualitative research and the opinions from author significantly influenced the conclusion. It aims to explain social phenomenon.

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

Although the topics of the paper is implication of publicity of traditional medium(broadcast and television) and internet, the reflection is in terms of humans. While the research do not apply an quantitative method that means no data collection and statistics verify the conclusion. Taking a survey of a large number of participants to focus on their opinions about two modes of publicity, then the study can result from the collected data to verify the reliability of previous conclusion.

Selected paper:

Nicole B. Ellison et al (2007) The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Volume 12, Issue 4, July 2007, Pages: 1143–1168

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

Case study is one solution to build theory. The case study is a research strategy which focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings. case studies can be used to accomplish various aims: to provide description, test theory and generate theory. Case study is a typical combination of qualitative research and quantitative research such as interviews, questionnaires and observations.

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.

According to the structure of building theory from case study research, selected paper definitely match  the whole system. In terms of cross-case search for patterns, the paper used all the tactics recommended to sort and analysis the data, multiples lenses about result for social capital items are showed. The conclusion based on empirical data analysis is a excellent ends regarded as reaching closure.

On the other hand, the sample participants of the investigation are completely undergraduate students and even from the same university, it seems do not correspond to multiple investigators. In addition, less comparison with other literature , no matter similarity or conflict appears in the discussion.

Comments for Theme 3

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http://thetheoryandmethodofeverything.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-reflections.html?showComment=1443991276204

http://dm2572byen.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-research-and-theory_27.html?showComment=1443992042795

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Theme4: Quantitative Research (after)

The main topics of this week are more directly relative to scientific research. After the lecture, what I understand is that the quantitative research is based on a hypothesis. The whole processing can be described as beginning with a hypothesis, the research try to recruit a large number of participants to get involved in the test by questionnaire or observation to collect data. Then according to statistics, they conduct the experiment and analysis to verify whether the hypothesis is authentic. The most impressive part I learned in the lecture is how to create an appropriate questionnaire in quantitative research. Data collection plays an important role in quantitative research, as a result of that, we should try to concentrate on the feasibility, expression, interviewing procedure of questionnaire method. First formulating questions to interviewee is essential to make sure the most reliable data, then testing the questionnaire is also necessary which means validating it is helpful to check the problems which may happen during the procedure. In addition, piloting the test rightly cannot be ignored.

During the seminar, our group shared the methods of the research paper we read before this week respectively and mainly discussed the benefits and limitation of quantitative research and compared quantitative research and qualitative. After our discussion, I realized that quantitative research is  a proving or extension to the existed theory, while qualitative research is a process for organizing a theory which emphasize social phenomenas. As the two research method has their own benefits and also exist limitation, practical research usually combine them to solve problems. In terms of limitation of quantitative research, the experiment object generally are just a sample strategy,data, analyses and  even the result are based on the sample, but it is worth to mention that the reflection of  sample object cannot be regarded as the whole.

The lecture and seminar deal with a lot of confusion when I try to understand the quantitative research, and I got informative knowledge about scientific research. As an engineering student, quantitative research is extremely useful to solve problems for media technology.

Theme5: Design research

Question for lecture on Wednesday:

1.How can media technologies be evaluated?

The evaluation is organized into experimental platform, usability evaluation which includes effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction and trainability.

2.What role will prototypes play in research?

The prototypes is used for building an experimental system and carrying out user tests to collect experimental data for analyzing the feasibility of the research method. It appears when the desired system needs to have a lot of interaction with the end users.

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

 A proof of concept prototype is a realization of the research method to demonstrate its feasibility in principle, whose purpose is to verify the concept prototype has the potential of being adopted.

Developing a proof of concept prototype indicates concept prototype can be designed to obtain significant data for further research.

3.What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

The prototype is designed according to the original method and key ideas based on the currently known requirements. The type of prototype is global which means an entire system is included covering almost considered features.

While Incomplete application of prototype may cause application not to be used as the full system was designed.

4.How can design research be communicated/presented?

Successfully presenting the design research can focus on the evaluation to the prototype of participants and usability which means effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. The design research in “Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration” written by Shafiq ur Réhman, Jiong Sun, Li Liu, and Haibo Li is really a excellent sample to learn a feasible communication of design research.

Question for lecture on Friday:

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

The empirical data means knowledge gaining by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. In my opinion, it is contrasted with a prior knowledge.

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

Yes, I agree with this idea. Practical design work which means testing the design and collect the reflection of user is a significant way to gain knowledge. According to the concept of “knowledge is perception”, it corresponds to the view in philosophy.

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

What I understand is that design within a research project is used to collect specific data for further study or evaluate the feasibility of the method in the research project. While common design concentrate on different aspect, less evaluation.

3.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, it is impossible that research in tech domains such as these papers can be replicable. As the three aspects mentioned, changes happened in any one factor of time/historical setting, skills of the designers and available tools could affect the research.

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

Actually I am confused with this question. My understanding is that design driven research pay more attention to how to present the design to participant. For this type of research, the study is based on the design such as experimental data and the reflection of users. While other research practices usually appears in the pattern of that design is used to test and verify the method of researchs.