The
fourth theme of the course was about “Quantitative research” and this time we
had to prepare by reading "Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality” written
by Ilias Bergström and colleagues. In addition, we had to select a media
technology research paper using quantitative methods in a good way, where I
chose “Web Third-person effect in structural aspects of the information on
media websites” by Nikos Antonopoulosa et al. Even if I had lectures about quantitative
research in my bachelor studies the preparation of this theme provided me with
an in-depth understanding of quantitative research, which I haven’t had before
and thus I hope that I can make use of this acquired knowledge over the time of
my studies at KTH.
The
lecture of Ilias Bergström was very interesting as we discussed the “drumming
experiment” of his text in detail. In my opinion, reading about the applied
methodology in the text provides you already with a general understanding,
however to get first-hand experience from such a complex experiment does not
happen every day, i.e. getting background information of how such an experiment
is prepared, elaborated and analyzed. Combining the knowledge I had prior to
theme, the understanding I acquired during the home studies and the received
insights of the lecture I had the feeling that I was well prepared for the
seminar on Friday.
During
the seminar we had to discuss benefits and limitations about qualitative and
quantitative methods and how the methods related to each other? At first we
discussed the questions in smaller groups and finally together within the whole
seminar group, where we summarized our findings. Hence, quantitative research
allows generalizations of results and the measurement of the tendency of
various views and opinions. Whereas, qualitative research is suitable for
gaining an in-depth understanding of underlying reasons and motivations and
hence providing insights into the setting of a hypothesis. The relation between
qualitative and quantitative research is that qualitative research can enable
hypotheses for a subsequent quantitative research. However, quantitative
research is also often followed by qualitative research, which is focusing to
investigating particular findings in-depth. The fact that at some point
research study is due to its design by individuals somehow always subjective
was most interesting to me. As everything that has to do with people, like
designing an experiment, is ultimately subjective and hence a so called “wicked
problem”. The example that the results of the drumming experiment may have
varied when using a piano instead of drums, really helped to understand the
concept of a wicked problem”.
Hi! I enjoyed reading your post. I liked how you define relation between quantitative and qualitative methods. I agree that quantitative methods allow to get more general results while qualitative methods target to deeper investigation, but in that case the question of objectivity arises. The research paper that you've selected seems interesting. I think that nowadays Internet surveys are the most used quantitative methods of variety of research subjects.
AntwortenLöschenHi,
AntwortenLöschenthanks a lot for sharing your thoughts in your blog post and in the seminar. Since I did not have any course regarding qualitative and quantitative Research methods, the disadvantage of using quantitative methods is that the cause of a finding or an attitude such as dissatisfaction is not determined. I found your input in the seminar and the summary in this blog post really helpful. One of the most interesting parts of the lecture to me was also the part about the body ownership illusions. Keep up the good work!
I like that you found the seminar and this week’s theme informative and I hope you have gained from it what you wanted. In a section in your text you say “ quantitative research allows generalizations of results and the measurement of the tendency of various views and opinions.” I am not sure if I fully understood what you meant here. Do you consider “generalizations of results” as a plus side of using quantitative research? However, I agree that qualitative methods could help with gaining in-depth understanding and providing insights to our hypothesis. I also agree with you on the issue that qualitative methods could provide additional evidence or follow-ups to a quantitive research. Very well said. I liked reading your text, you have done a good job!
AntwortenLöschenNice summary of the week. I find you part about how we can use both quantative and qualitative methods is intresrting. I agree with you on this regard, that we can use qualitative methods after quantitative when we want in depth knowledge/ opinions. However I would like to add that I think there could be a problem if we use the same participants when they could have been affected of the study (in some cases atleast). So it could actually be a good idea to do them both during the study. We might discard the data if it didn't showed anything intresting but in this way we avoid the need to go back for more data.
AntwortenLöschenHi Leo,
AntwortenLöschenThank you for a interesting blog post, I really think that your post is covering all of the important concepts of this theme and I think that you are explaining them well. I just want to add the reasoning about the questionnaires that is a quite new concept for me and I thought it was interesting that researchers in some disciplines uses already tried questionnaires and that in some disciplines you design your own. Great job this week, keep it up!
Hi!
AntwortenLöschenThank you for a thoughtful and precise analysis of theme 4. I also read about quantitative research during my candidate and I think this week's theme has been good to build on previous knowledge of quantitative research. So I agree with you that it was possible to achieve a deeper and broader understanding of quantitative research after we finished the lecture and seminary. Furthermore, I think you raised the most important points throughout your blogpost from what we learned from the lecture and the seminar, good work!
/Paul
Hi!
AntwortenLöschenThanks for a good blog post, it was interesting to read. I liked your analyzes, for example that qualitative research often follows quantitative (instead of the other way around) and that the design makes the research in some extent subjective due to how the survey is composed. Do you think one method is easier to use than another in terms of not affecting the person in the study?
Hi,
AntwortenLöschenYour comprehensions of quantitative and qualitative methods are very structured and clarify.We also talked about the differences and relations between the both.And put them in different study area.We finally found the complementary of them.They actually exist relying on each other in my opinion.For the "Drumming" research,I think it really helpful to make sense the qualitative methods.It totally provide the novel concept of body ownership. Thanks for sharing.