What have I learned after this week about Qualitative methods and ???
During this week’s seminar, I gained a more
proficient knowledge about qualitative research methods. Also, I would like to
highlight that if we want our research to be of a high quality, we are to use
methods in a mix. The official term for this technique is “Triangulation”. The
benefits of triangulation include “increasing confidence in research data,
creating innovative ways of understanding a phenomenon, revealing unique
findings, challenging or integrating theories, and providing a clearer
understanding of the problem” (Thurmond, 2001, p. 254). On the other hand, one
of the primary disadvantages of triangulation is that it can be an extremely
complicated process. This is because this technique combines more than one
method for collecting data and their process can be very time-consuming
(Thurmond, 2001). Moreover, I would like to state that in my opinion, a
fundamental element of qualitative research methods is observation. It helps to
analyze data, irrespective of the method type that is applied to the research.
For example, even if a researcher chooses interviews as a method to his
research, after he collects the data he will have to observe them in order to
get to his conclusions.
Furthermore, this week we attended a lecture by
Ylva Fernaeus, during which she explain more details about the article “Comics,
Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses.” that she
has co-written with M. Jacobsson. This
paper belongs to the field of tangible interaction and more specifically is a
study about semiotics (signs like acts, sounds, gestures etc.). During their
research, the authors realized that comics are simple to understand and they
can explain programming in a good way, as 1)they (comics) are a very direct
reading experience, 2)combine text, images and visual markings and 3)are based
on a sequel of panels that make the story to flow by showing a before-after
case scenario.
In addition, authors’ interest was also
intrigued by clothes. Clothes constitute a fundamental element of human’s
culture and are a hot topic to observe, as they combine modular qualities,
layers and collections in many ways and they serve communicative functions. The
idea that people love to dress up and personalize their personal robots, leaded
the authors to the conclusion that robots can have the same characteristics. So
after that, scientists thought “why not programming robots by dressing them
up??” Finally, authors’ conclusion is that actDresses are aiming to a
meaningful interaction with robots and they are a design concept in which there
are two basic features: 1) displayed in the immediate physical context of the
objects that they refer to, and 2) close connection between appearance/action
by focusing on perceivable actions e.g. sound, movement, interactions.
Reference:
Thurmond, V. “The Point of Triangulation”, JOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, 2001.
Katerina,
SvaraRaderain my opinion, observation is what we do every day. It can be on one's workplace, university or even sitting in front of a laptop and surfing on the Web and looking for high quality papers or analyse our friend's posts on Facebook. Therefore, we are collecting data from day to day and use them for our personal needs. From my point of view,in media field the most common qualitative method is content analysis.
Hello Marina,
RaderaI can say that you have a point and your comment was quite enlightening. I hadn't really thought that the next step after the observation, something that we do with everything and all the time, is the content analysis. In order the things that we observe to make sense and be useful data, we have to analyze them. So basically in my mind observation and content analysis are two common methods that can be combined for a better outcome.
Semiotics is indeed an interesting topic, and as far as I have understood the term is quite broad and to some extent linked to our knowledge on language and the field of linguistics. As a Media Technology student, I can not help wondering why the authors do not mention the term "mapping" when discussing semiotics. Isn't that what semantics is actually about, and is the concept not important for these type of studies within HCI? :)
SvaraRaderaYou summarized the benefits and limitations of triangulation in a good way. Do you think you might try triangulation in your master thesis or is too much work for a thesis? There are actually several types of triangulation. At the seminar we discussed combining several data collection methods that can give you several, complementing sources of evidence. Yin (2008), who has written an excellent book on case study research, describes these types:
SvaraRaderaData source (multiple data sources)
Investigator (multiple investigators)
Theories (multiple theories)
Methodological (multiple data collection methods)
Hello Stefan and thank you for your comment,
RaderaI do think that triangulation is a very interesting method for any research. As your results are of a much better quality and every other researcher can agree with that, they (the results) will be treated with more respect and probably the other researchers will use them as a source for some of their future researches.
I would like to use triangulation in my master thesis; but this depends on how comfortable I will feel with the thesis theme, and if the obtaining of multiple kind of data will be possible. In the case I will decide to use triangulation in my thesis, I think that I would choose to use data and methodological triangulation, where the researchers use different data sources and collection methods, as I feel that are easier to implement and the whole process will be more intriguing.
Yin, R. K. (2008). Case study research: Design and methods (Vol. 5). Sage Publications.
SvaraRaderaObservation is an interesting, but very time consuming method. I think most would agree that it is a useful method, but since it is very time consuming and also since it can be difficult to get access (e.g. in companies), the method is not used as extensively as e.g. interviews. However, as you mention, we often at least do some observation (although it is not always described as a method). For example, when you conduct interviews in a company you often visit them at their office and get some insights by doing this.
Your posting is way too long! I appreciate if you stick to the word limit (600 words before and 400 words after).
Well after Marina’s post above, I came to believe that content analysis in collaboration with observation seems to be a more common and useful method. It still remains time consuming but at least the results are of a better quality.
RaderaSorry for the long post I will try to stay to 400 words in the reflections’ parts.
Hey Katerina,
SvaraRaderaIt’s good that you underlined the importance of observation. I want to add that we always have to be critical about observation and the subjectivity behind it, especially in the field of qualitative research. I also think that it’s very important for researchers to reflect on their subjective conclusions constantly. Otherwise their own opinion could falsify the data and thereby the results. This is in general a huge task, because there will always be some subjectivity behind research.
Hey,
RaderaI totally agree with your comment. Additionally, I believe that in every research there is subjectivity, either in a bigger or in a smaller grade. Scientists have to be critical with any kind of method they use, both in qualitative and quantitative research. Furthermore, I share your opinion about reflecting on their “doubts” about the results; this could be very helpful for the improvement their research by other scientists in the future.