My comments

Felicia Joneby
I feel I got the same understanding as you when reading your blogpost. Maybe you could add something about the knowledge by definite description being a way to construct an understanding of something you haven't experience through sense data. I like the examples you provide since I get the feeling you as well as me got tired of only reading examples that only included men :)

Oscar Friberg

I believe you might be correct that movies with "open endings" also might be produced to fit a specific demography of people, but I think those movies still allow more artistic freedom and creativity to stay in the movie. They usually leave room for interpretation, which allows the audience to think for themselves and maybe affect them emotionally days after watching the movie instead of getting everything served on a silver platter at the theater. From the top of my head "2001: A space odyssey" comes to mind. It was a multimillion-dollar movie that kept its originality and leaves the audience not certain of what really happened and room for interpretation.

Ingrid Larsson
It's great to be forced to think outside "the box" (sorry for the lack of better words) here at KTH. Most courses usually tech hard topics like Felicia mention above, so from my point of view this text made me use think outside the so called box. Even though I believe it's important trying to think in a different way. Can't we just agree that the know the sun will rise tomorrow just like it did today without spending to much time arguing whether we really know it will :)

Carl Ahrsjö

Interesting read Calle! Do you think it was possible for the researchers to make any generalizations on other fields then online gaming?

Amanda Glass

Hi Amanda, during this course we have read quite a few research papers. From my experience most of the papers I have read has had problems with their sample group. Most of the time the majority of the participants are young. The researchers often point this out in their discussion but almost every time says it can be a something for future research. It feels like they’re offloading it on someone else but no one ever repeats their research on a more representable sample group.  

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research - Reflection

I haven't had the possibility to attend any of this weeks seminars. I think the seminars so far has been valuable to getter a better understanding of each weeks theme so I feel bad about missing them.
However, I've spent more time reading other student blogs this week pick up what I've missed.

In the article I chose where a qualitative research method had been conducted consisted of 21 semi-structured interviews that took approximately 30 minutes each to conduct. From reading other blogs this week it seems like conducting interviews is a popular qualitative research method, especially in social science. My girlfriends is currently doing her bachelor thesis in behavioral science and she's conducting eight interviews and I've learned how time-consuming it is when they have to be transcribed. I think Olle Bälter mentioned that for a professional it takes six hours to transcribe an one hour interview.
I think the researchers purposes would have been benefited if pre-quantitative questionnaire was conducted as well. 21 participants is a bit to few in my opinion to be able make any real generalizations. They also wanted to see if there where any cultural differences by comparing the Americans (n=11) to the Germans (n=10). Each sample group then became even smaller and in my opinion less generalizable. It wasn't the same people conducting the study in both countries which I don't think is a factor for error since they had a script to follow, but some words might have been mistranslated or some words has a different meaning in Germany. But I guess its still better to talk to the students in Germany in real life then having the interviews over the phone.

Next semester I will do my bachelor thesis since I didn't do it last semester. I think this course is a great way to prepare for it since I've learned about different research methods. I've also become better at finding relevant papers and processing its information. So this course has given me new valuable tools to add to my toolbox and a head-start into next semester.

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

I chose “Evolving Mobile Media: Uses and Conceptualizations of the Mobile Internet” by Humphreys. L, Von Pape. T and Karnowski,  V, as my paper using qualitative methods. They have conducted 30 minute semi-structured interviews with 21 students, 11 from USA (6 female & 5 male) and 10 from Germany (5 female & 5 male) whom all used smartphones. The researchers wanted to find out the students conceptualize the mobile Internet as expressed through metacommunication, when where and how they use it and what cultural differences there might be between the Americans and the Germans.

Since they could get more information from each participant they didn’t need as many participants as they would have had if they used a quantitative method. Their method allowed them to stray a bit of script, which allowed them to ask follow-up questions and get deeper understanding.
The sample in this study was quite small and contained only university students and because of this might not be generalizable to a broader population of Americans or Germans. Their questions were not formulated to get to know the participants’ frequency or length of time using the mobile Internet. Maybe they could’ve reached out to the same students and asked those questions if they noticed this error early. I don’t think just asking these new questions to the same students after a certain amount of time is a good idea since the students mobile internet habits might have changed since they answered the questions the first time.
People also tend to misjudge certain details in their media use. If the participants had kept a logbook for a week or two to record their use, this error might have been eliminated to a certain degree.

A qualitative research method is often used when the researcher wishes to seek deeper understanding of something. They might have performed a quantitative study and now they want to understand their results better.
There are different types of qualitative research methods. One of them is the case study strategy (case studies can be quantitative also). A case study is explanatory, exploratory, descriptive, collective or instrumental and it focuses on understanding the dynamic settings within single settings. One or multiple cases can be used. In the article I read “The Interaction Between Mass Media and the Internet in Non-Democratic States: The Case of China” by Tang.L & Sampson.H they looked into how people on the Internet can influence traditional media by comparing three different cases. After comparing these three cases from 2009 they conclude that netizens (citizens of the Internet) in China has a role in creating public opinion and influence the traditional media and political elite.
So by comparing these existing cases with each other they could see a pattern between them and therefor strengthen their hypothesis.

They start of with introducing what they want to find out. They look into earlier studies to gain knowledge of what has been done earlier. Then they explain the current status of mass media in China. The Communist Party dictates the rules and journalists has to risk their jobs and sometimes freedom if they print stories that might upset the Communist Party. After a short summary of the status of mass media they turn to the online resistance movement that dare to oppose the Party.
They select their cases from an another article “2009 Report on the Analysis of Public Opinions on the Internet” by Zhu et al (2009) that listed the top 20 Internet incidents in 2009 that provoked strongest public opinions. They chose three of the case and collected data from news stories on web portals, encyclopedias, bulletin boards and three major Chinese websites about these cases.
Each case was presented and described the course of action in each case.
They sharpen their hypothesis with the data collected and with prior studies and ends with the conclusion that not all cases are as clear as the three chosen ones, but the others still represent the testing of a potential erosion of state control and in long-term make some socio-political changes.

Theme 5: Design research - Reflection

This week we haven't had any seminars, we have instead had two lectures. One with Ylva Fernaeus and one with Haibo Lee. There hasn't been as much room for discussion like the other weeks. This was partly mine and the rest of the students fault since the questions asked was only answered by a few. This might be because everyone doesn't feel as comfortable speaking in a big lecture room or that the lecture room sets us in a mindset where we don't have to contribute like we would at a seminar.

At Ylvas lecture, she spoke of the paper we read last week. She explained what their thought were during the study and throughout the process.
We discussed what a qualitative research method can be, but like I stated above the discussion was a bit unidirectional.
When I read her paper I couldn't find any user study of any kind which she explained wasn't needed since the design concept in itself was seen by the scientific community as empirical data. A user study might not be beneficial when researching a design concept since the users might not realize the potential benefits of the concept.
Ylva also shared her own research philosophy and a description of a typical research process. First you come up with something that hasn't been thought of before or something everyone else has missed. Then explore the subject through literature, design and reality. After that you need to convince others of your idea and last get it accepted. She made it easy to understand and it gave me a better understanding of what design research is.

The second lecture by Haibo was a bit different. He didn't talk about the article we had read which was nice, even though Ylvas briefing gave better understanding, another hour of hearing what I had already read can be a bit repetitive.
Haibos' lecture was entertaining and interesting and the main focus was "ideas" and what we as engineers are supposed to do with them. He gave an example of a two people that was going to be chased by a bear. They couldn't outrun the bear. The first person said "How do we outrun the bear?", the other person said "How do I outrun you?". By outrunning the other person the bear would likely stop when it caught the first person. Haibos reason for sharing this example was that you can always look at a problem from different perspectives and therefor come up with different solutions.
He gave examples on the different magnitude ideas can have e.g. a great idea was worth a billion dollars and a big idea was worth a million dollars.
He presented a 5-step model that instructed how to nurture your ideas. First of all you need to come up with an idea. You can do so by re-stating problems (bear example), but then you need to filter your ideas since with a business mind. The idea can be validated through proof of concept and evaluated with a prototype. Last step is to communicate your idea. If no one know of it, it will never be successful.

Theme 5: Design research

Software is usually written on a pc with different programming languages e.g. JavaScript, C++ and Python. To be able to master any of these languages, many hours of practice has to be spent by the computer. The appearance of the finished software usually has little to do with how the end consumer will interact with the product and the consumers usually doesnt understand how it works.

In Fernaeus. Y, & Jacobsson. M paper “Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses” they approach this problem. They introduce a programming language called actDresses, which is a form of physical programming. Instead of sitting by a computer mashing code, you “code” with physical languages. In an example in the text they are controlling the behavior of a stuffed dinosaur by putting different garments on the dinosaur. If you applied a collar to its neck it became a watchdog and if you put on a pajama it became “sleepy”.

This kind of “coding” allows children and other people without programming knowledge to be able to engage and understand the technology in a new way. I also might open the door to learn “real” programming for that group.

The article by Lee.H et al. “Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration” is about exploring a new way to experience a game of football. The device they designed gave feedback to the user about what was happening on the pitch such as what team controlled the ball, position of the ball, shots and goals through vibrations.

Creating a prototype is a great way to get a feeling for what the finished product will look like. The inventor of the Palm Pilot carried a block of wood in the same size of the potential Palm Pilot for a week for this reason. Just to see how it felt to have in his pockets or his hands.
If you’re looking for financial backing, a prototype might catch the investors interest more then what just a concept would.

A prototype can take your product in new directions when you realize what you considered good on paper doesn’t work or should be done differently in reality.
In a development process it’s easy to become attached to your own product. You might not see the flaws and weaknesses that seem great to you but would only confuse the majority of the end-consumers. Since the technology will be used many other persons, it’s important that everyone understands it. Therefore media technologies need to be evaluated by bringing in an expert on the area, focus groups or feedback sessions in-house to test your prototype. A fresh pair of eyes can point out what need to be removed, clarified or added. This is usually done continuously during the process to save time and money.

Theme 4: Quantitative research - Reflection

At the first seminar we were divided into smaller groups and discussed each other’s papers. We choose to present mine about the effectiveness of SMS for communication with concerns to privacy protection and conflict avoidance. I realized that the method they used had some flaws. Since they went out on the streets of Hong Kong and Shanghai to let people answer their questionnaire, they automatically disqualified parts of the population from being represented in the study e.g. old and disabled people that cant leave their home.

During what time of the day they conducted the survey wasn’t specified in the paper and I think that could be a factor of error since different demographics might be out on the streets at different hours.

At the second seminar Olle Bälter gave a lecture about quantitative vs. qualitative methods and paper vs. online-based questionnaires. Olle has since 2000 researched new methods to collect data for research purposes at Karolinska Institutet. He told us about the studies they perform involving over 500’000 participants and the problems that could arise such as increased costs due to people not answering the questions correctly.

He showed us an example of an online questionnaire from Karolinska Institutet. The questionnaire continuously gave feedback on the answers the volunteer answered e.g. an interactive BMI (Body Mass Index) scale were shown after weight and height had been entered.  Olle said that this kind of feedback would substantially increase the completion rate of the questionnaire. 

On another page the volunteer entered the hours and minutes he spent during a typical day performing different levels of exercise ranging from sleeping (minimal) to road construction work (maximal). Each level of exercise was provided with examples on what kind of exercise they meant e.g. road construction work. Almost every level had one “normal” example and two more unusual such as “sweeping the sidewalk”. There was a good explanation why such examples were given. Sweeping the sidewalk is usually done the same way regardless of who does it. They avoided using examples like cycling since people will have different interpretations on what level of exercise cycling is.  Some might be Tour the France-wannabes and think that cycling is the most extreme form of exercise but some might see it as something you do in a slow pace to get from A to B. 

He showed a questionnaire sent to the staff at KTH which he thought was a bad questionnaire and he pointed out its flaws e.g. there were negations in the questions and the answering scale didn't allow a neutral answer.

What I learned from this was that you really have to be specific and very clear about what you mean and how you phrase the questions since people will interpret the questions based on their own experiences. 

However, the majority of the seminar was spent on a Boggle-like game. We were divided into four groups. Then we were to come up with: first advantages with qualitative methods, then advantages with quantitative methods, paper and online questionnaires. If your group mentioned an acceptable advantage that no other group had written down, your group got a point. There were also some points awarded for “good” argumentation even though the proposed advantage really wasn’t a general advantage at all. I don’t think the Boggle-session gave me any new knowledge but I really enjoyed the discussions we had.

Theme 4: Quantitative research

1,2,3. I have chosen an article called “The Effectiveness of Short Message Service for Communication With Concerns of Privacy Protection and Conflict Avoidance” from “Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication”. I happen to be the same journal as last week so the impact factor is still 1.778 and 5-year is 4.748.
The title of the article caught my interest since my personal communication methods have changed quite a lot with the introduction of free SMS and other messaging services.

In this paper had a cross-sectional research design where they conducted surveys out on the street face-to-face with the subjects. The survey was conducted three times. The first one was a pilot study and was conducted in April 2008 in Hong Kong (183 participants), an extensive survey in Hong Kong August 2008 (558 participants) and a third extensive survey in October 2008 in Shanghai (210 participants). In total 953 valid responses were recorded and 31 were void. Those who finished the survey received a small gift as a token of appreciation.
The strengths of conducting a survey on the street are that it has a larger potential reach who answers the questions (different ages, job nature and education level) thus making it more representative, and according to the paper this kind of study will keep the response rate higher. However the response rates were 10% in Hong Kong and 8% in Shanghai, which seems low to me but they might have been lower if he survey was conducted online.
A weakness of the study is that all measurement items were collected at the same point of time. If they conducted a longitudinal study they might have been able to make predictions about the future. 
They were able to see patterns in how people preferred using SMS in certain situations e.g. to avoid conflict. The researchers speculate upon what kind of conflict they’re avoiding when sending a SMS and their speculations seems probable to me but this is a weakness when conducting quantitative studies. It’s easy to see patterns but you might need more specific information to really understand the result.
If the study was conducted online or sent to the participants by mail it would have been possible to conduct a longitudinal study which would have improved the quality of the study.

I also read “Physical activity, stress, and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection” by Fondell et al.
In this paper they were interested in the relationship between physical activity levels, perceived stress and incidence of self-reported upper respiratory tract infection. A cohort study was conducted on 1509 participants in the age between 20-60 years during a 4-month period with five follow up questionnaires. They reached 74% of the total participants. The study was conducted online.

4. Quantitative methods are great since its possible to have a large sample size. The variables are easily measured when the participants answer quantifiable questions with numbers. Even though the method provides a lot of data, the data it provides can be used to recognize patterns but not always more then that.

5. Qualitative methods are better used when the answers to the questions cant be quantifiable. The sample sizes are usually smaller but can provide more detailed information and is therefore great to conduct after a quantitative study has been conducted to be able to understand the patterns better. Due to the answers being more extensive and needs more analyzing the sample sizes usually are smaller.