Final Post

The course Method and Theory for Media Technology covered a lot of key concepts of the research in this scientific field. A deeper understanding has been developed by starting at the origins of the definition of knowledge and working towards research methods and strategies. At the end all themes fitted together and build a foundation for our own research we might conduct in the future. A motive which reoccured in many themes is the theory of mathematics, the theory of logic and numbers. Math is an abstract kind of knowledge, its concepts are completely made up by human beings. Kant categorizes math as analytical a priori knowledge. This knowledge never came to us by actively observing real world objects. It came to us by thinking about abstract concepts. I agree with Kant’s opinion that it is mandatory to develop such abstract a priori knowledge in order to make progress in science. As it can be seen today, math is the basis of many scientific theories. Most if not every theory is based on another one and math is nearly always one of the foundation theories. What is the reason for this? I guess math makes it easy to argue in a logical and therefore in a verifiable way. And verifiability is the most wanted feature of a theory. I do not think that it is provocative to say that a non-verifiable theory is a useless one. Moreover, math conveys objectivity. Numbers and logic seem like untouchable concepts. Of course, logical reasoning is maybe the only way to support a theory but one should not get lost in this comfortable construction of objectivity. I think that true objectivity is a unreachable goal. The reason for this is basically what Socrates has been arguing. He says that perception happens ‘through’ the eyes. What he emphasizes is that everything we perceive has been gone through some sort of interpretation. Therefore everything is always subjective which implies that no theory can be considered as truth - at least not without a given context. But we have to consider some knowledge as proven or otherwise there would be no reason for science at all. This is why the historical context has to be viewed as a set of preconditions. We can make logical statements based on this preconditions and in the frame of that context, statements - which is to say a theory -  can be considered true. But what is a theory? It is definitely not only diagrams, figures and numbers which are often accidentally confounded with it. Their only purpose is to represent empirical data and without further evaluation the data remains nothing more than data. But if used to argue logically the empirical data can be prove for a theory. But how to gain empirical data? The tools to accomplish this task are qualitative and quantitative research methods. Quantitative methods can be defined as methods which will result into measurable data. Advantages of this methods are that data can easily be collected and evaluated. Moreover, researches which make use of quantitative methods can be repeated effortlessly and therefore the results can be verified by other researchers. But there are some drawbacks as well. These can be best illustrated with an example. It is common in psychological researches to use an EEG to gain data of the participant’s brain activity and to draw conclusions by analyzing this data. One problem which this bears is that the majority of the data is useless because a lot of brain activity is irrelevant to answer the research question. Therefore this data has to be filtered out before the left over data can be evaluated. But the filtering is not an easy task and it is very likely that mistakes are made [1]. The reason for this is that researchers are biased by their hypothesis and might filter out relevant data as well. Moreover, it could be that the chosen quantitative methods was the not the optimal one and some relevant data could not have been collected with it. Maybe an fMRT could have been a better choice in that case [1]. This means that a qualitative method put some sort of restriction on the results and therefore they represent only a narrowed view. In order to gain broader results, qualitative methods can be used. But this advantage comes not without the loss of an easy collection and evaluation. These task can become very time-consuming while using qualitative methods. But the advantages and disadvantages are not the only criteria which helps to decide on which method to use. It is very often the case that only one method can be applied due to a certain field of research. For example it is nearly impossible to use a qualitative method in physics and the contrary applies for literature studies. But in general it can be said that both methods can be used to prove a theory even though the usefulness of each method varies from research to research. Moreover, the correct method is not always the most important part. If we take one step back we come to the starting point of a research - a research question or problem definition. And it is worth to spend a sufficient part of time on that stage of the research. Because the way to view a problem decides whether its solution is a hard or an easy one. And then again it might not even be possible to define a specific problem. If the research is conducted within an unexplored area then it might not be clear which questions are interesting enough to ask. In this situation is necessary to do a case study as a first step and to gain enough knowledge to be able to formulate a theory. 

As it can be seen there are a lot of different aspects which have to be taken into account when conducting research. But the reward for paying carful attention to it is probably a verifiable, useful and profitable theory -  and this should be the goal of every researcher.

[1] Heller, J. (2012). Experimentelle Psychologie: eine Einführung. Walter de Gruyter.

All Comments

— COMMENTS ON THEME 1 —

http://dm2572byen.blogspot.se

This post points out very clearly the difference between sensation and knowledge. I guess that is exactly what Socrates meant when he said that it necessary to distinguish between the terms of seeing ‚with‘ and ‚through‘ your eyes.
But I disagree with you saying that Kant ‚doesn’t think that understanding would be a neutral field where ideas would take shape‘. I guess Kant wants to express that we can unterstand things through perception but that we can as well gain knowledge a priori. By trying to understand things a priori we are able to come to different conclusion than by just using our perception to achieve this.

http://ninopmedia.blogspot.se

You choose very helpful cites to support your understanding of Kant. I agree with you about how Kant wants to have a priori knowledge to influence scientific experiments.
I also understood Socrates as you did and I guess that you are correct in saying that he supports modern empiricism.

http://dm2572-sabina.blogspot.se

I think your interpretation of Kant’s position is mostly correct. He believes that it is necessary to gain knowledge a priori to achieve progress in science. But I guess that you have to distinguish more between a priori knowledge and metaphysics, because as I understood Kant these concepts are not exactly the same. Metaphysics are about things in the world, which we cannot understand by investigating. We cannot answer the question ‚Does god exist?‘, we can just think about it and try to come to a conclusion which we cannot prove. Metaphysics are just a form of a priori knowledge, the synthetic a priori knowledge. There is also another kind of a priori knowledge which is called the analytical a priori knowledge and which contains all the knowledge we have never actively gained but which came to us with the knowledge about concepts. 

http://cloudsong223.blogspot.se

I really liked your example of the table to illustrate Kant’s understanding of concepts. It is a good way to describe analytical a priori knowledge.
A also think that your statement ‚knowledge is not equal to perception, it just can be said perception is necessary to help people gain knowledge‘ is an adequate summary of what Socrates is trying to say.  Even tough I would not use ‚soul‘ as a substitute for ‚mind‘, it is true that this is the one part which makes the most difference between a perception ‚with‘ or ‚through‘ your senses.

http://theandme15.blogspot.se/2015/09/49-2015.html#comment-form

Your discussion of ‚Theaetetus‘ is very detailed and you went beyond the point of just answering the question. I also like that you took quotes from the texts because they support your point of view. But I disagree with your statement that ‚Kant wants to focus on point out the importance of having an open mind‘. This is not exactly the point Kant wanted to express according to my understanding of his text. An open mind would still not change that ‚cognition must conform to object‘. What Kant means is that we are only able to gain deeper knowledge about objects by trying to form a concept of them a priori. By doing so we are able to investigate an object according to this concept and prove whether it was false or true.

http://securepathofscience.blogspot.se

I think your analysis of Kant’s view is very clearly structured. It was not that easy to clarify Kant’s thoughts and I think you made a really good attempt! I completely agree with your understanding of Kant. You also provided more information than the question was demanding by mentioning the Copernican Revolution and further explaining the posteriori knowledge.
Your answer to the second question is also neat and in my opinion correct. I liked your metaphor of the the organs as a gateway because this is a very adequate illustration of what Socrates wants to express.

http://jonathansbs.blogspot.se

I understand Kant a bit different than you did. A priori knowledge is not always correct. Therefore we have to distinguish between analytical and synthetic a priori knowledge. Because synthetic a priori knowledge can be put on the same level with metaphysics. And metaphysical knowledge covers also questions like ‚Is there something like an afterlife?‘. We cannot give a verifiable answer to this but at least we can make an educated guess and the conclusion or opinion we will come to is also considered as knowledge.
In your answer to the question about ‚Theaetetus‘ you say that ‚ we use our senses […] to interpret‘. I am not sure whether this is what Socrates meant. I guess he wants to point out that there is something else involved in the process of perception - our mind. The mind connects the senses, interprets the information gained through our senses and stores the interpretation of the information as knowledge.

http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.se

I think it was a good idea to start with an explanation of i priori an posteriori knowledge in order to discuss Kant’s view more clearly. It is good that you take math as an example science. In this field knowledge is gained the way Kant wants it to be gained: through concepts which you build a priori conform to the objects. 

I also like that you made the connection between Socrates’ point of view and posteriori knowledge. You are absolutely right in saying that the experience, from which knowledge is gained posteriori, can be seen as the connection between the senses, the extra part which the mind adds to perception to form knowledge.

http://sannanodm2572.blogspot.se

I am not sure whether you are right when you state that Kant wants to express  ‚we should try not to see objects as a thing in itself, instead we should see their appearances as representations of our mind.‘ I do not think that he goes that far as saying that objects are just representations of our mind. I rather believe that he wants people to adjust the sensation of an object according to concepts they have made up in their minds before. He still wants people to see objects as real world objects not just as representations constructed by the human mind. But he wants them to build concepts of the objects before investigating them. That is the way mathematicians try to gain knowledge and do research.

http://bjornsblogggg.blogspot.se

I agree with your thoughts about Kant. Moreover, your discussion of Kant’s point of view is very well structured and provides a good explanation of a priori knowledge and metaphysics. But as I understand you, you are saying that a priori knowledge and metaphysics are basically the same. I thought so too, but my point of view changed during our lecture. I guess that metaphysics are only one kind of a priori knowledge and that analytical a priori knowledge is another kind. This knowledge can be defined as ‚intuition‘ (as you call it) about concepts of real world objects.

— COMMENTS ON THEME 2 —


http://elindm2572.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflection.html?showComment=1443383810547

I believe that you were able to get a clearer view about nominalism. Describing it as a 'negative to abstraction' really helps to understand the essential idea of the concept. Nevertheless, I guess nominalism is not completely the same as saying that 'happy people are always happy and poor people are always poor' - that is a fascistic idea. But Adorno argues that fascism can emerge from nominalism. So you might say that nominalism can lead to such a point of view.

http://meglia.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-2.html?showComment=1443384613971

Reading more about the historical context in which Benjamin Walter wrote his essay enhanced my understanding of his view! Moreover, I especially like your statement that mass media was not able to give people truth. We also talked a lot about this aspect in the seminar. In addition to that we came to the conclusion that mass media often mirrors the current state of the world. This can be dangerous because people could believe that the world should be like this and loose the ambition for change.

http://theandme15.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-part-2.html?showComment=1443385436744

I find your thoughts about myth very helpful and it expanded my thoughts on that aspect. But I like to add something to your thoughts about Adorno and Horkheimer and their view of mass media. I guess that the portray of a certain character is not always intended in a movie. In most of the times a movie mirrors the real world and by this it automatically confronts the receiver with this world view. And again this makes people believe that the world should be exactly like the way it is and prevents a change of it.

http://securepathofscience.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443386042254

Your clearly structured reflection about theme 2 could improve my understanding of Benjamin's and Adorno's and Horkheimer's perspective on mass media I had so far. Unfortunately, we have not discussed the political context's of both positions in such detail. But I guess since knowledge or opinion always depends on the context it is very important to do some research on it. Thanks to your reflection I have the feeling that I did not only understand what Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer meant, but also why the came to their respective conclusions.

http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-2-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443386645942

As you I had difficulties understanding the concept of nominalism. I agree with most of your thoughts about this topic. But I am not sure whether you are completely correct in saying that 'when nominalism sees a man it only sees a man and not all its qualities and distinctions from other persons'. Because I understood it to be the exact contrary of this. Since nominalism negotiates abstract terms it says that we should not get stuck in abstract or universal concepts and do not take for granted that e.g. all people are same.

https://agrik.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/theme-2-post-seminar/#comment-30

I like your detailed description of Plato’s cave analogy. It adds some interesting points to the positions of Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer. But since you are struggling with the term nominalism I would like to enhance your thoughts about it. You can understand nominalism in a way that it wants to get people to observe the world. Just like the people in the cave we cannot gain a different understanding of objects if we get stuck in abstract concepts and take them for granted. In order to get an idea about the nature of an object we have to view it as an individual.

http://thewind-egg.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflection-for-this-week-we.html?showComment=1443387945426

I also enjoyed your example of aura the most. We slightly neglected this topic in our seminar discussion and therefore it was nice to get some additional thoughts about it. Moreover, I like your explanation of how Adorno and Horkheimer view nominalism. I would just like to add the important aspect that they came close to placing nominalism on the same level as fascism. In my opinion it is an interesting point of view and I can understand why they argue that it could prevent people from striving for change.

http://remarkableathenianyouth.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-critical-media-studies-or-how-to.html?showComment=1443388707698

I believe that you were able to gain a good insight into the topic. You made a good point about the difference between nominalism and realism. I guess it is important to see both concepts in contrast to each other to be able to understand one single concept. Furthermore, I really liked the following statement you made: 'If you take their argument to the extreme that would mean that it is only possible to act on what already is.' It is a great way to put the dangers of nominalism. Important abstract concepts like human rights or democracy could not have been established by just observing the world as it is. It is important that people try to see beyond this current state. Otherwise it is not possible to change into another state.

http://pargman420.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-reflection-2.html?showComment=1443389283449

Your explanation about Plato's cave analogy was really helpful in terms of understanding the difference between nominalism and realism. I also like your description about the historical and natural influences on perception. Nevertheless, I would say that it is not really correct to say that Adorno and Horkheimer believe that mass media degenerates to nothing more than entertainment. I guess this is not the aspect which they viewed as dangerous for society. It is rather the fact that people tend to get so used to the picture the media paints of the real world that they cannot see any potential for change. Since e.g. movies are mostly mirroring the real world's current state, people might think that this is the way everything should be.

— COMMENTS ON THEME 3 —

http://reb2572.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-3.html?m=1

You have pointed out well the difficulty of theory: that we cannot call a theory the truth. At least we cannot to this if we want to suggest objective truth by saying so. And I agree with you: saying so is quite provocative. But I guess we should not forget that we can at least declare something as a kind of subjective truth if we take the present context into account. You can view the context as a bunch of preconditions we have and which we use to make logical deductions. And statements we can deduce to truth under this preconditions are as good as we can come to truth. And that is no longer provocative, but reasonable.

http://theoandmeth.blogspot.se/2015/09/reflectioin-theme-3.html?m=1

You pointed out that a theory can be true or false. I generally agree with you on this aspect but only under some preconditions which you haven't specified. Therefore I would like to add that it is important to consider that theory can only ever be considered true when evaluating it according to its present context. 

Moreover, you say that most theories are "often built on other theories" - I'd rather they there is hardly any theory which is not built upon another one.

http://fromplatotocasestudies.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-reflections.html?m=1

Like already mentioned in some other comments you could have focused more in depth on this week's questions. I also miss the discussion of the used theory of your chosen paper and your reflection on it. Moreover, you do not focus at all on the definition of truth in terms of theory. But I believe that it is a very important aspect of the definition of theory. Can a theory be true? And are there different definitions of truth, like an objective and a subjective truth? And which role does the context play in the definition of truth? I guess these might be some interesting causes for thought.

http://cscmediatechnologyassignment.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-reflection.html?m=1

I agree with the other comments that you got a clear overview of the topic. I guess you summarised the lecture and the seminar and combined it with your own thoughts very well! I like how you refer back to nominalism and create a red line between the topics. I also agree with the definition of theory as a explanatory framework for observation. You struggle with the difference between hypothesis and theory. This is why I like to add that a hypothesis is only a statement which is unproven. A theory on the other hand side is seen as a thing which is proven in the frames of its given context.

http://dm2572elvira.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-research-and-theory-post-seminar.html?m=1

You give a great inside into your learning process and I like that you talk a lot about your own thoughts on the topic. It is interesting that you focused on distinguishing between the types of theory since we hardly scratched this topic in our seminar. I think that it is not only difficult to find the difference but in some aspects it is just not possible to distinguish them clearly. And in my opinion you have to keep in mind that these categories are only a theory about how to categorise theory. It is made up by human beings and maybe it is not optimal. So it is legitimate to struggle with this definitions because I also was not completely convinced by this categorisation.

http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-3-research-and-theory.html?m=1

I also have the feeling that you have a good understanding of this week's topic. I think you got an interesting point when you were discussing whether the papers about theory contradicts each other. In my opinion they are not having opposite opinions about theory. Of course, Sutton and Staw are right in saying that diagrams and figures do not make a theory. But I guess Gregor is not negating this. I'd rather say that he is talking about the analysis of figures, about trying to find a meaning in the data which has been collected. And it is legitimate to call this a theory. Because there is a difference in just providing data and making a hypothesis based on this data and proving it.

http://u1ifqcuc.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-research-and-theory-after.html?m=1

I like the analysis of the paper you chose, it was detailed and informative. You say that you already have covered this topic and the definition of theory. Despite or even because of this I would have liked you to take position to the definitions about theory we had in our lecture. I would have find it interesting if you might agree with the definition of theory as an explanatory framework. Furthermore, I would like to mention the importance of research in order to gain data to built a theory upon.

http://gamlagreker.blogspot.se/?m=1

It was interesting to read how your definition of theory changed during the lecture. Maybe you could take the definition of theory as an explanatory framework for observations from our lecture. I think it is a really good definition since it worked for all theories I came along. I would also have liked if you had mentioned the term of research when you talked about empirical data. Since we talked about it in the lecture it would be great to have it in a summary.

http://theoryandmethodmediatechnology.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-research-and-theory-after.html?m=1

I agree with most of the points you mentioned about the definition of theory. Nevertheless, I think it is critical to come up with the categories of philosophical and scientific theory. How can you distinguish both? And how do they differ from each other? Maybe different methods are used in philosophical and scientific research. But I do not think that you can argue like this in general. Furthermore, scientific theories have their roots in philosophy, so are they not also philosophical theories?

http://cloudsong223.blogspot.se/?m=1

You clearly spend some time thinking about what theory is. But I disagree with your distinction between theory in different research fields. I think that theory always tries to explain phenomena. For example when you described the Ringelmann effect you say that this is not based on an hypothesis. But I argue it is. Because there has first been the hypothesis that the amount of people who could help influences the helpfulness of one person. And then this hypothesis has been proved by research. Of course this hypothesis is based on the observed phenomena of people's behaviour in such situations but a theory could not directly arise from this.

— COMMENTS ON THEME 4 —

http://remarkableathenianyouth.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-quantitative-research-or-there-is.html?m=1

You really did a good job describing the difficulties and advantages of quantitative and qualitative method. I especially like your example which helps to distinguish between these two types. Moreover, I guess you are correct in saying that many scientists are sceptical towards qualitative methods. I have to admit that I myself were too critical with these methods. And it is also not given - even if it appears to be so - that quantitative data is objective. A simple questionnaire can easily influence people's answers and therefore the collected data if not designed carefully. 

Furthermore, I agree with you that it is not easy to understand most of the statistical methods used in papers if you lack the necessary knowledge. But as a scientist it is really important to be able to use statistics as a tool to analyse the data you gathered in research. How else could you try to verify or falsify a theory?

http://reb2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-4.html?m=1

I agree with you on nearly everything you have said. You explained the difference between quantitative and qualitative methods really well and you also gave examples for their uses in your pre-post about this theme. The only thing I like to add to your thoughts is that quantitative methods are not only easier to evaluate but also easier to verify. It is nearly impossible to reproduce exactly similar results you gathered in a quantitative study. Moreover I guess it is also possible to get some difficulties evaluating quantitative method results since sometimes you can get a huge amount of data and it is not obvious how to quantify them best.

http://alexisdm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-post-seminar.html?m=1

You did a good job explaining the difference between qualitative and quantitative methods and their advantages and disadvantages. An example use case for both methods (or at least for the qualitative one since we had some practical examples in the papers we had to read this week ) would have been nice, though. If one would want for example to make a research about the change of Scandinavian literature in the last century that could only be properly analysed by using a qualitative methods.  This would include asking questions like "What we're the main subjects? What stylistic devices have been mainly used in which time period?". Therefore I agree with you that humanistic studies mostly use qualitative methods. But I disagree that it is the same in psychology. I would even say that most of their theories are based on quantitative data. 

http://ninopmedia.blogspot.se/?m=1

You have made a really detailed analysis of this week's topic. I like that you focused on the scientific facts. Moreover, you really made a deep analysis of both papers we had to read and I find your overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the qualitative and quantitative research very helpful. Nevertheless, it might have been useful if you had given some illustrated use cases for qualitative and quantitative methods. This would have underlined your argumentation. For example qualitative methods are often used in literature studies to analyse the influence of historical influence on literature. Whereas in scientific research fields like physics it is nearly impossible to make use of such methods. It is more likely that data is collected in laboratory experiments and quantified in order to verify or falsify a hypothesis. 

http://pargman420.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-seminar-reflection-4.html?m=1

I especially enjoyed reading your pre post about quantitative methods. You gave a good inside into your chosen paper and analysed it critically. And I totally agree with you: I also think that questionnaires are used too exhaustively - mainly at online research. A lot of researchers seem to use them because they are quickly designed (if not done carefully), even more quickly evaluated and you do not have to observe participants while they are doing the study. Moreover, too many questionnaires are badly designed and the intension of the research is obvious. I do not want to deny their usefulness in some cases and they can be definitely useful as a second data source in order to enhance the findings of another quantitative methods. But it general I would say that in many cases where questionnaires are used a different research methods would have been a better choice. 

http://elindm2572.blogspot.se/?m=1

You did a good job explaining the strengths and weaknesses of both quantitative and qualitative methods. I agree with you, that quantitative methods can in general be evaluated with less effort than qualitative methods. And I like the fact that you mention that it might be good to use both method so they can support the results of the other one. We also evaluated the methods due to their field of application. For example we said that in physics it is rarely possible to use qualitative methods whereas this is very common in  humanistic research. 

http://dm2572rberggre.blogspot.se/?m=1

It is valid to argue that a lot of people might have already used quantitative methods in their bachelor thesis. But since I used only performance measurements for my developed program, I learned some more about questionnaires this week. In our seminar we also focused on the difference between quantitative and qualitative methods and therefore also talked about when to apply which of both methods. We came to the conclusion that it depends mainly on the research field. 

Nevertheless, i agree with you that it would have been interesting to read more about different quantitative methods. 

http://ixxzw.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-3-after.html?showComment=1444565181060

I completely agree with you on the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative and quantitative methods. You have worked out well the strengths and drawbacks of both in comparison to each other. Unfortunately, Ilias did not talk about the research with homeless people in our seminar. I think it is a great example to understand when it is really suitable to use qualitative methods. Everyone can imagine that maybe a researcher who has never been homeless would not even be able to develop a questionnaire which would ask the right questions about live as a homeless persons. There might be so many aspects of their live that can only be covered by an open structured interview.

http://mediatechnologyatkth.blogspot.se/2015/10/reflection-what-i-learnt-during-week-40.html?showComment=1444565133612

You did a really good job in summarizing the week’s topic. It is a good distinction to say that the results of a quantitative method are more based on measured data and that the ones from a qualitative method consists mainly of a content analysis. I guess it really depends on the area of research your study belongs to. Especially in humanistic studies it is difficult to do for example an analysis of a piece of literature. And thanks for sharing the information about the program which can be used to calculate the number of participants. I did not know that something like this exists. But I have to admit that I am skeptical whether it really works well. Maybe it can help you but I doubt that it will always give you an accurate answer.

http://theandme15.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-part-2.html?showComment=1444565080079

I agree with you that it was interesting to hear about different quantitative methods. Moreover, I believe that it was also instructive to talk about an iterative design process. We have not come across this topic in our seminar and I would have liked to hear more about that approach. It sounds reasonable what you say about the background of quantitative and qualitative methods. It seems nearly impossible the other way around since it would be difficult to use qualitative methods in physics or quantitative methods in literature studies.

— COMMENTS ON THEME 5

http://reb2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research_12.html?showComment=1445168146868

I guess you were able to gain some more inside into the topic event though you could only use the notes from the lecture. I agree with you that it is very important to define the problem correctly before doing research. But I also think that the distribution of spending 90% of your time defining the problem and 10% for solving it, is not a scientifically proven theory. Which means it us more like an unproven hypothesis. And in my opinion it is critical to mention specific numbers if they are not proven. Moreover, I think that the numbers are slightly exaggerated.

http://theoandmeth.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-5.html?showComment=1445169079651

I like your summary of this week’s themes a lot. Apparently you put some effort in gaining a good understanding of this theme. I totally agree with you that the numbers that Haibo used to emphasize the distribution of time you should spend on the definition and the solution of a problem were too extreme. I guess that he only used them to illustrate the importance of the way of viewing a problem. Nevertheless, I would have preferred if he would not have used concrete numbers if they are not a proven scientific theory.

Moreover, I also like that you pointed out the difference between a prototype in research and in the industry. I agree that a business prototype is rather used as a general solution model to a problem and not so much as tool to provoke solutions like in research.

http://alexisdm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/for-this-weeks-theme-i-have.html?showComment=1445169861598

You did a good job on preparing and understanding theme 5. I guess you are correct in saying that it is not the most important point to find out where Haibo got the numbers from which he used to illustrate the importance of finding a good definition for your problem. For me it seemed like he estimated them from his experience. Nevertheless, I think that he could have emphasized the importance of this problem definition-problem solution balance without made up numbers. I would have preferred it that way. Moreover, you mention the prototype in research. I agree with you that in this field a prototype has the purpose to gain knowledge. But I would like to add that you could put that into contrast to a business prototype which already acts as a possible solution.

http://ninopmedia.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-reflections-0-false-18-pt-18-pt.html?showComment=1445170679820

I really enjoyed reading your post! I agree wholeheartedly with your opinion about what Haibo said about the value of an idea! I find it very critical to use money as a measurement for the greatness of an idea. In my opinion especially academic research should not be money-driven. We scientific researchers should definitely not focus on these fields of research for which the industry would pay the hugest amount of money. 

Even though I generally agree with Haibo that the way of defining a problem should be emphasized, I would not only keep the 9:1 balance in mind, but also that these numbers are Haibo’s own opinion and it is perfectly fine to find another balance for yourself.

http://fromplatotocasestudies.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-reflections.html?showComment=1445171731935

In my opinion you made a good summary of the first lecture. I agree with you that Haibo’s main focus was probably to make us keep in mind that it is very important to define a problem properly. Moreover, I think your description of a proof-of-concept as something that you need to validate an idea is accurate.
Since you have not attended the second lecture I want to add the most important concept the lecturer introduced. For me it was the definition of a research prototype as something that you use to find solutions and nothing which is already a solution in itself.

http://dm2572elvira.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research-post-seminar.html?showComment=1445172438419

It is good to hear that you enjoyed Haibo’s lecture. Even though I guess that someone could find some critical aspect. In my opinion the content of Haibo’s lecture was a highly subjective one. Most of what he talked about represented his own opinion rather than proven scientific theories. I mainly question his way of estimating the value of an academic research idea. I disagree with his opinion that money is an adequate measurement in that case. But this again is a very personal view. 

However, I also think that it was interesting to get an inside into studies at KTH which are related to our master program.

http://jonathansbs.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post.html?showComment=1445176448123

I think it is legitimate to think about the lectures the way you do. Like you I was not very satisfied with the content of the first lecture. It was not really an enlightening idea for me to focus on the problem definition. Nevertheless, I guess that this was useful take-away-knowledge from the first lecture. But I struggled with the remaining content of the lecture in terms of what I have learned. Since I think that there were some critical points in Haibo’s lecture I am not willing to accept the lecture’s content as given knowledge.

http://rickardsdm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post-seminar-reflections.html?showComment=1445180113416

I enjoyed reading your reflection! It helped me to structure my own perception of this theme. You still focused on what you learned even though you took a critical point of view towards the lectures. I agree completely with your description of the difference between industrial prototyping and the one within design research. However, I am struggling with your formulation that “the problem is often more important than the solution“. I would rather put it as follows: spending a lot of time on the problem definition is often more important than working on the solution for a long time. I am pretty sure that this is what you meant and therefore I am only nit-picking here because the rest of your post is very good.

http://platotheplatypus.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post-reflection.html?showComment=1445182253081

You seem to share most of the people’s view that the lectures about this theme haven’t been as helpful as previous ones. However, you were still able to provide a good overview about design research and prototyping. I agree that the most relevant information from the first lecture was to focus on the problem definition and that the point of view on a problem has a great impact on the difficulty of the problem solving. Apart from that I also thought that the part about prototyping was the most useful knowledge. Especially the distinction between industrial and research prototypes was new to me.

http://bjornsblogggg.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post-reflection.html?showComment=1445182982410

It was very nice to read a post which refers back to the early themes of the course. I agree that math is a very important research tool and that it helps you to define a theory in a verifiable and reconstructable way. And these are one of the most desirable features for theories. It is really interesting to think about how it is a priori knowledge and at the same time something most theories are built upon. 

I like that you picked up on that a prototype can be considered as empirical data within research design. Since it acts as a tool to gain knowledge in this context it makes sense to use that description.

— COMMENTS ON THEME 6 —

http://reb2572.blogspot.de/2015/10/post-theme-6.html?showComment=1445714336612

The paper I read also used an interview as a qualitative method. I like that you point out the disadvantage that an interview can easily be done wrong. You are correct in saying that the interviewer has an important task and that he or she has to be skilled in asking the correct questions without interrupting the person, not leaving out important details and he or she has to still follow the general interview structure. 

But I want to add something to your definition of a case study. I don’t think that it is a research method as quantitative and qualitative methods. Because a case study rather makes us of these methods. Therefore I would call it a research strategy. 

http://theoandmeth.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflection-qualitative-research.html?showComment=1445715184324

You wrote a very good review and you put some effort into understanding this week’s theme. This is why I only want to add something to one point on that I do not completely agree with you. I do not think that a case study always „investigates a specific case“. If I understand you correctly, by a specific case you mean for example a person with a very rare disease. Indeed, this can be one scenario where it is advisable to use a case study. But a case study is applied in general when the motivation for the study is to explore an yet unknown area of research. If not enough knowledge about this area is gained to ask a specific research question, then the only strategy of choice is a case study. 

http://alexisdm2572.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-post-seminar.html?showComment=1445716902163

It was very interesting to read about your learning process. Because for me it was quite the opposite. After we talked about the case studies we were even more confused than before. The reason for this was that the more we talked about case studies the more difficult it became to define what exactly a case study is and how it could be distinguished from other research strategies. But in the end we came to the same conclusion as you did: a case study is used to gain knowledge about an unknown research field. 

Furthermore, I think that it is a nice conclusion to give a cause for thought by mentioning your discussion about recent insights that could lead to a change of paradigm. 

http://butlikewhyisit.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflection.html?showComment=1445717953977

I also think that objectivity is an important motive which could have been discussed within all of the themes. I agree with you that objectivity can hardly be reached with qualitative methods or that it is at least one of its major difficulties. But then again you are also right when you say that objectivity is an utopian goal anyway. Nevertheless, it is something worth to strive for.

Thank you for sharing Ilias’ funny example! It is a rememberable description to illustrate when someone should use case studies. If you do not have a clue which questions to ask - do a case study to find out!

http://ninopmedia.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflection-this-theme-is-more.html?showComment=1445719524972

I enjoyed reading about your learning process! It was interesting to see how your opinion about case studies evolved from your reflection about the papers and after seminar. And funny enough I had very similar opinions as you before and after the seminar. I also thought that a case study was a research method and that it was used to prove or falsify a theory. But I changed my mind and now I think that a case study is a very specific kind of research strategy. It should always be applied when it is unclear which research question can be asked about a certain area. I like that you characterize the result of a case study as something that “points to new research fields“ or questions. I think it is a good way to define a case study in terms of describing the nature of its results.

http://fromplatotocasestudies.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflections.html?showComment=1445854610160#c8489877003725998743

I also think that the case study part was the more interesting part of the seminar. When I read your post I started to wonder whether you are correct in saying that case studies "can be used to develop a new theory" - but can they be used or are they always used to do this? After thinking about it I came to the conclusion that a case study might always be conducted with the aim to develop new theories. Whether that aim can be fulfilled is another aspect and that varies from study to study, I guess. 

Another aspect you mentioned is that a case study should stand out. But is this always the case? Because when a case study is used to gain more knowledge about a research field I wonder how a case is supposed to stand out in that context. 

http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.de/2015/10/post-theme-6-qualitative-and-case-study.html?showComment=1445854787512#c1772519512271673348

You wrote a very nice reflection on this week's theme. I agree with you that it is easier to grasp the nature of qualitative methods by defining what makes them to be different from quantitative methods. Moreover, I  completely agree with you when you say that case studies are used to gain more knowledge or to a starting point for finding new theories. I like the example with the robots you used to illustrate that point. It is easy to remember and it makes it clear that case studies can be used when you do not know where to start your research otherwise.

http://jonathansbs.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-post.html?showComment=1445854857547#c7937731762838010941

Your post was a very interesting read. We also talked about the example of a man with a rare disease. But we did this in the context of case studies and not within qualitative studies. That made me think about whether a qualitative study with only one person is always a case study. But by going back to the definition of case studies I think that this is not true. Because you can use a qualitative method not only to gain new knowledge but also to try to prove a certain hypothesis. And that would not be a case study. And why would it not be possible to come up with a hypothesis about a rare illness?! So I would say that it is not implied that a study, which has only one participant and uses quantitative methods, is automatically a case study. 

http://rickardsdm2572.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-post-seminar-reflections.html?showComment=1445854982238

It appears to me that many people had problems to grasp the nature of a case study by reading the paper. Just like you I had to adjust - or better: enhance - my previous definition of a case study. But I did it in a different way than you did. It was interesting to read that in your seminar you defined a case study mainly as a way to look at "one particular case because it is different". It seemed like on our seminar the outstanding character trait a case should show got neglected in favour of the emphasis on the aim of a case study to gain new knowledge. I did not noticed the need of an outstanding case. And I am still not completely convinced that this is always the case. If I want to gain general knowledge about a new research field, how can I make the case stand out? So it seems like there are still some aspects I have to rethink in the context of case studies. 

http://dm2572rberggre.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-after.html?showComment=1445855046468

I agree with you that in our field of study quantitative methods might be the more obvious choice for most researches. But I do not understand what you mean with "social aspect" when you talk about qualitative studies. Do you mean in terms of communication with human beings? Maybe you just focus to much on very common qualitative methods like interviews or observations. It is true: in this cases the social factor plays an important role. But for example in a context analysis which is often applied in the area of literature study no social communication is involved. Maybe you were talking about the human factor, with which I mean that a human being has to conduct the qualitative study and to evaluate its results. But this applies for quantitative studies as well. 

Comments on Theme 6

1. http://reb2572.blogspot.de/2015/10/post-theme-6.html?showComment=1445714336612
2. http://theoandmeth.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflection-qualitative-research.html?showComment=1445715184324
3. http://alexisdm2572.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-post-seminar.html?showComment=1445716902163
4. http://butlikewhyisit.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflection.html?showComment=1445717953977
5. http://ninopmedia.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflection-this-theme-is-more.html?showComment=1445719524972
6. http://fromplatotocasestudies.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-reflections.html?showComment=1445854610160#c8489877003725998743
7. http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.de/2015/10/post-theme-6-qualitative-and-case-study.html?showComment=1445854787512#c1772519512271673348
8. http://jonathansbs.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-post.html?showComment=1445854857547#c7937731762838010941
9. http://rickardsdm2572.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-post-seminar-reflections.html?showComment=1445854982238
10. http://dm2572rberggre.blogspot.de/2015/10/theme-6-after.html?showComment=1445855046468

Comments on Theme 5

1. http://reb2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research_12.html?showComment=1445168146868
2. http://theoandmeth.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-5.html?showComment=1445169079651
3. http://alexisdm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/for-this-weeks-theme-i-have.html?showComment=1445169861598
4. http://ninopmedia.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-reflections-0-false-18-pt-18-pt.html?showComment=1445170679820
5. http://fromplatotocasestudies.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-reflections.html?showComment=1445171731935
6. http://dm2572elvira.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-design-research-post-seminar.html?showComment=1445172438419
7. http://jonathansbs.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post.html?showComment=1445176448123
8. http://rickardsdm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post-seminar-reflections.html?showComment=1445180113416
9. http://platotheplatypus.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post-reflection.html?showComment=1445182253081
10. http://bjornsblogggg.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-5-post-reflection.html?showComment=1445182982410

Theme 6 - Afterthoughts

Even though we had no lecture this week the seminar was very helpful. In smaller groups we discussed the studies we picked. During our discussion we discovered that we were no longer completely sure about our previous definition of case studies we had written about. We wondered about the exact difference between case studies and experiments and it was not until Ilias joined our group discussion that we found out about it. It was the lack of a certain hypothesis that is significant for case studies. An experiment shows a specific research goal, a statement that should get verified or falsified by the study results. Whereas a case study is only conducted when the research area is not well explored yet. When a researcher does not even know which question to ask about the field, then a case study is performed to find out about the interesting questions that could be asked. Moreover, the question whether a case study is a research method came up in our discussion. In my opinion it is not - even though I wrote something different in my first blog post. I changed my mind because it cannot be put on the same level as quantitative and qualitative methods. The reason for this is that this would mean that a case study is independent of these other two methods. This is not the case since a case study can make use of qualitative and/ or quantitative methods. Therefore it is better to call it a research strategy instead. In general I would adjust my previous definition of case studies as follows: a case study is a research strategy that uses qualitative and/ or quantitative methods in order to gain new knowledge about an unknown or sparsely discovered context.
At the end of the seminar Ilias made a good example for a case study I have not thought about earlier. I only imagined case studies to be similar to the ones we all picked for this week’s seem: a research which investigates various cases in a certain field, compares the results and compiles them to new knowledge. In contrast to this Ilias mentioned a man who happens to only have a short time memory because of an unlucky accident. This rarely ever happens and therefore case studies should be conducted with this person to find out more about this specific phenomena. Similar cases are often found in psychology researches. Another specific example for case studies would be ethnical studies were researcher join another ethnical group to find out more about their way of living.
Furthermore, we spent some time discussing qualitative research. In the studies we had chosen the most commonly used qualitative method was an interview but other methods we talked about were content analysis and observation. We came to the conclusion that some of the interviews were unstructured and lacked a certain hypothesis. But this was also due to fact that some of this studies were case studies as well.
Overall this seminar gave me a different and most of all a better understanding of what case studies are and what they are used for. Before I was not even aware that it was not able to distinguish case studies from other research strategies.

Theme 5 - afterthoughts

In the lecture about design research Haibo focused on the development process from an idea to a prototype. His hypothesis was that one should spend 90% of time at the definition of a problem and only ten percent at the actual solving of the problem. He illustrated this with a story about a professor and a student who were trying to run away from a hungry bear. The professor defined the problem as to outrun the bear - which is just impossible. Whereas the student defined the problem as outrunning the professor. The conclusion of this story is, that the way of defining a problem makes all the difference between success and failure. 

If an idea has been defined, how can you measure whether it is a good one? Haibo suggested money as a measurement of the greatness of an idea. But I find this problematic since it is not always possible to define the worth of an idea in money. Who would have guessed that Facebook would turn out into such a great (in terms of value in currency) idea?

Moreover, I doubt that it is always a good strategy to define the worth in money. Human beings tend to want to have things which might not be best for them. Maybe someone would earn much more money by developing a cream which can remove wrinkles than developing a cure for lets say Alzheimer, but that would not mean that the latter one was not the greater one of these ideas.

In conclusion I can say that I am not sure whether I learned that much in this lecture. I also think that the way of viewing a problem is a very important part of the research. But most information in this lecture was a highly personal view of Haibo which is why I think that one can question his views.

In my opinion the lecture about research design was more difficult one. The definition of design was a way of reconfiguring what is already there, to take a different point of view. That somehow matches with Haibo’s opinion about the importance of how to look at a problem. The design of a study it might help you finding accurate methods to gather relevant data and eventually gain more knowledge in a certain area. Furthermore, it was said that design everything in between coming up with an idea and realizing the prototype.

Another important concept was design as empirical data. This concept is based on the assumption that design contributes to the research and therefore is also just a result of the original idea the research is founded on.

The concept of research through design has been introduced. It consists of the parts of design practice, design studies and design explanation. In this case design is used as a way to explore a concept. 

The second lesson seemed to contain more scientific concepts of research and design even though it was more difficult to understand.

Comments on Theme 4

1. http://remarkableathenianyouth.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-quantitative-research-or-there-is.html?showComment=1444565570299
2. http://reb2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/post-theme-4.html?showComment=1444565516774
3. http://alexisdm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-post-seminar.html?showComment=1444565460432
4. http://ninopmedia.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflection-0-false-18-pt-18-pt.html?showComment=1444565408507
5. http://pargman420.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-seminar-reflection-4.html?showComment=1444565348802
6. http://elindm2572.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-reflection.html?showComment=1444565301085
7. http://dm2572rberggre.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-after.html?showComment=1444565243736
8. http://ixxzw.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-3-after.html?showComment=144456518106
9. http://mediatechnologyatkth.blogspot.se/2015/10/reflection-what-i-learnt-during-week-40.html?showComment=1444565133612
10. http://theandme15.blogspot.se/2015/10/theme-4-quantitative-research-part-2.html?showComment=1444565080079

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

The paper 'Connected scholars: Examining the role of social media in research practices of faculty using the UTAUT model' [3] uses qualitative methods in form of interviews to gain a deeper inside into the way of how social media is used for research. To ensure to get a representative group of participants, they selected people with different nationalities and working positions. I believe that they were able to achieve that goal even though they recruited only people who are part of a specific society.
At the beginning of the interview they were shown a list of different social medias and had to answer questions about it. It is highly probable that participants were biased by these list.

Drawbacks of interviews are often that the interviewer has to react spontaneously according to the participants answers. But since the researchers in this study seem to have prepared themselves and followed a kind of interview guideline, this disadvantage is kept under control.

I found it interesting to read about an anaylsis approach they used to evaluate the qualitative data. I did not knew that detailed evaluation models with coding schemata are available for qualitative research - especially interviews.

It was an appropriate choice to use an interview as a qualitative method in this study. It was suitable to answer the research question and I would not consider quantitative methods as a necessary completion in this case.

To put it in simple words, a case study is a research theory which results into qualitative and/or quantitative data. A certain problem or a set of problems that should be resolved and solution approaches are evaluated. Beforehand, a detailed description of the research question should be defined. This is necessary, because case studies often result in a huge amount of data which could cause the research focus to become blurred [3].

I choose the paper 'The contribution of context information: A case study of object recognition in an intelligent car' [2] from the Neurocomputing journal. They tried to investigate possibilities of learning on a higher abstraction level. This machine learning strategy is applied to autonomous agents which are used in cars to recognize other vehicles. Their case study consisted of the comparison of different learning algorithms under real-world influences. By evaluating the results of the study they concluded that learning algorithms lead to a better performance in object recognition.

In my opinion they defined the research question very well. Since there are a lot of papers from related research fields which reported good results using learning on a higher abstraction level, it makes sense to test this strategy for object recognition. The specific problem definition was the hypothesis that the use of these algorithms would minimize the false negative rate at the costs of a low true positive rate of object recognition. This means that they expected the algorithms to reduce the number of missed object whereas they did not take the falsely detected objects into account. In my point of view, this is a legitimate and verifiable problem definition.

Moreover, they clearly defined their requirements for the learning algorithms. It appears to me, that they carefully chose the suitable algorithms and that they did a lot of research to be able to get a sufficient selection.

To investigate the performance and the effort of the algorithms they used SamSys to simulate different road environments and HRI RoadTraffic as a database. This part of the paper could be a bit more detailed, it lacks an explanation why they chose to use these tools and whether there might have been some alternatives.

The cases of this study are different streams from a road dataset. The streams have only been selected if there were vehicle annotations available. They did not seem to had other criteria to choose a certain stream as a study case. I guess that the study would have benefited from more specific selection criteria. But at least they tried to get road streams with different weather conditions.

In order to measure the data, they created a baseline of object detection results from a visual classification system. The data they collected using the different learning algorithms were compared to that baseline. They tried to reach closure by comparing the algorithms only to this baseline and by building clusters of cases. That means that they divided the dataset into cases with a rainy weather condition and the ones with standard weather condition. I think that this was a sufficient way of grouping the data and come to meaningful results.

In general I would they, that it was not easy to follow the study even though I have some background knowledge in machine learning and autonomous agents. But as fas as I can see, the study is well designed and they analysed the data according to their initial problem definition.

References:
[1] Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.
[2] Gepperth, A., Dittes, B., & Ortiz, M. G. (2012). The contribution of context information: a case study of object recognition in an intelligent car. Neurocomputing, 94, 77-86.
[3]  Gruzd, A., Staves, K., & Wilk, A. (2012). Connected scholars: Examining the role of social media in research practices of faculty using the UTAUT model. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2340-2350.

Comments on Theme 3

1. http://reb2572.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-3.html?m=1
2. http://theoandmeth.blogspot.se/2015/09/reflectioin-theme-3.html?m=1
3. http://fromplatotocasestudies.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-reflections.html?m=1
4. http://cscmediatechnologyassignment.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-reflection.html?m=1
5. http://dm2572elvira.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-research-and-theory-post-seminar.html?m=1
6. http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-3-research-and-theory.html?m=1
7. http://u1ifqcuc.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-research-and-theory-after.html?m=1
8. http://gamlagreker.blogspot.se/?m=1
9. http://theoryandmethodmediatechnology.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-3-research-and-theory-after.html?m=1
10. http://cloudsong223.blogspot.se/?m=1

Theme 4: Quantitative research - Afterthoughts

I really have to re-think my opinion about this theme’s topic after the lecture and the seminar. The reason for this is that I apparently mixed up subjective and objective estimations with qualitative and quantitative ones. I thought before, that methods like questionnaires which can only collect subjective data of study participants count as qualitative methods. But I was clearly wrong. This is also a quantitative method. So I have to come up with a better definition for myself, what quantitative and qualitative methods are. It can be said that one characteristic of a quantitative method is that it results in numerical measurements. And since a questionnaire leads to numerical data as well as an Electroencephalography both can be categorized as quantitative methods. So this definition is definitely more appropriate than my previous one. In order to make the definition a bit more scientific, it can be added that it is most likely that in quantitative methods an independent variable is manipulated in order to observe changes in the dependent variable. This means that there is always a parameter in quantitative methods which we expect to be influenced. But this leads us to one of the difficulties of quantitative methods: how can it be guaranteed that only the independent variable we wanted to be manipulated gets manipulated and not another one? The real challenge in quantitative methods is therefore to control the manipulation of variables and to be able to exclude other possible reasons for observed changes of the dependent variable. A well designed study should definitely take care of this. However, if the study design provides reliable data it can be evaluated with only low effort. Furthermore, another advantage of quantitative methods is that it can be very easily repeated and verified by other researchers.
In contrast to this, there is no such parameter like the dependent variable in qualitative methods. But what is the result of a qualitative method if not the dependent variable? Well, if we try to gain qualitative data there are very few presumptions or even none presumption at all we can make about it beforehand. Nevertheless, it is sometimes inevitable to use these methods. A good example for this might be a study about the design of an user interface. Besides quantitative usability tests it might be useful to ask participants some open questions like: 'How could this prototype be improved?' It is simply not possibly to cover all potential improvements of an user interface and sometimes researches might not even think about some until a participant mentions it. This is why it is important to use qualitative methods in scientific research as well. Moreover, one might not get a representative result by a questionnaire because they influenced the participants by confronting them with a limited or pre-selected range of answers. Unfortunately, an unlimited possibility of answers also leads to a costlier analysis of the research results.
But in general the best suited methods for a certain study depend on its design and its research field. In natural sciences like physics it is nearly impossible to use qualitative methods whereas in literature studies it is exactly the other way around.

Theme 5: Design research

The paper Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration examines the usability of the rendering of a football game by using vibrotactile signals. Besides the developement of a prototype they evaluated the usability of their system.
Their research paper can be seen as a representative example for the area of media technology. Due to the main purpose of media technology to bring human beings and computers together most newly developed technologies have to be tested in user studies. This is the only possibility to test the efficiency of the interaction between both parts. Therefore it is nearly inevitable to create a prototype to demonstrate and to evaluate the results of the research.
Prototypes in general play an important role in the research in engineering field since the adaption and application of developed technologies have to be tested. The introduced paper about rendering of vibrations would not have been as valuable as it is without a prototype. Even though the theoretical knowledge the prototype is based on has its foundation in approved theories and paradigms about usability and mobile applications, it would not be verifiable without the prototype. And an answer to a question or a solution to a problem is not of great use if it cannot be proven. This is why researchers strive to achieve the proof of concept, a milestone in their development process where they are able to proof that the prototype can be implemented and will satisfy its requirements. Moreover, due to the nature of the study by Réhman et al. the interaction between the human being and the developed system had to be observed in order to value the new technology. As human behaviour cannot be predicted by the use of theories, a study with participants is mandatory for a productive research.
But one has always to keep in mind that prototypes are only a tool to demonstrate the technology not to completely implement it. For example in the referenced study only one mobile phone model and a self-designed vibrotactile circuit board was used to simulate the technology. Therefore the technology has only been tested under laboratory conditions. Nevertheless, it was never the aim to evaluate the technology under all possible real life conditions. But they were able to test it in an environment which would provide significant predications to support the research and provide useful information for further research.
Another part of the research is the presentation of its results. Since the results of a design study can only be measured in abstract terms such as usability, this should happen according to established principles of measuring these terms. Réhman et al. for example measured usability according to ISO recommendations which split usability in the three components effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Every component has been measured in their study and compared to the other ones. They tried to find correlations between and within the components. That way results of design research can be presented.

We had to read two papers which address design research. The empirical data which has been used in the researches to support their findings are the results from observations and interviews. Therefore it is very difficult to reproduce this data and verify the results even though it is possible to come to similar conclusions. This is why I think that practical design work counts as knowledge distribution. But maybe the context of the design research has to be considered even more than in other scientific fields. The reason for this is that design requirements change much faster then paradigms in science. As an example one could compare the general behaviour of teenagers and elderly persons while using mobile phones and tablets. Since the first group grew up using these devices as a part of their daily life they interact more natural and easier with them. This creates new possibilities of design and with it new requirements. Even if this is an example for design in general and not specifically for design intentions within a research project, it applies for the latter as well. Furthermore, I believe that both research fields are very similar since both aim for usability and practicability. But the focus of design for a research project might lie more on the practicability.
Another important aspect that should be considered are the available tools. Technology is one of the fastest developing scientific fields. And since every year there are not only new devices like the to design for but also more tools to design with, design guidelines change very quickly. Due to this design studies has to be updated regularly. Sometimes devices like the Microsoft Hololens [Grubert, J., Kranz, M., & Quigley, A. J. (2015, August). Design and technology challenges for body proximate display ecosystems. In Adjunct Proceedings of MobileHCI 2015 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services. ACM Press-Association for Computing Machinery.] might even change our way of interacting with technical devices will change completely and as a result a lot of previous design research will become irrelevant.