Final Reflection

During this course (Theory and Method for Media Technology) I detected the concepts from a different perspective. First I thought this theme wouldn't be that difficult to learn, because I already have been in contact with this area while writing my bachelor thesis. But I realised that it was larger and deeper than I ever thought. The concepts gave me another point of view and they made me feel unsure of these definitions. I think its still confusion, but much easier than it was earlier. In the beginning, the philosophical perspectives were in focus and during the time it become more concrete and realistic. Each of every theme was interesting but for the most hard to understand and confusing to define. The texts gave me an overview of the concepts and the methods; it was not until the seminar I understood the real meaning of them. Some of them were really hard to understand from the beginning, maybe for the philosophical focus that I'm not used with.

To investigate a more complex research question, it’s important to have a good plan over the process. As Haibi Li said it’s important that you first figure out what you really want to get out of the research. One or two sub questions should follow the head question to support the investigation through the whole process. At the same time, its important to select a goal to work through, weather you will make an investigation surrounds human’s thoughts and behaviour or an ordinary statistic research on facts. In this step, it’s determined what methods will be used during the study. Another important part of the start up is to define the target group. When I was reading some of the others blog posts, I met an interesting model called Extensive Matrix of the respondent groups. This matrix divided the respondents into different groups, with different age, gender, background etc. The purpose is to make it easier for the researcher to reach the specific target group in order to collect a more significant and realistic result.

To combine different methods during a study is beneficial and it contributes to lots of data from different angels. To make a study combined of methods requires that the question is well defined and measured. A study based on a qualitative method can be supported by a quantitative method in order to ad significant data that evokes no expected results and things that the researcher didn’t think of during the investigation. To make an interview and record the respondents, contributes with quantitative data like measure the movements, unsafeness and insurance. For further analysis it is important to note every aspects that can be significant for the result. Sometimes, movements can prove the answers.

In one of the seminar held by Olle Bälter, he showed us an intelligent and interactive survey that will give direct feedback on the answers. I haven’t seen it before and it was really cool. In my opinion, the strategy to involve the respondents is good to get the most realistic answers. It turns them to receive a good response, which contributes to better results. During that seminar we also got the opportunity to discuss and compete in order to reflect and find deeper answers of what a quantitative study is and how it can be combined by qualitative solutions. Some of the most interesting learning’s from that seminar was how quantitative studies like surveys can be supported by qualitative studies like open fields and questions to the respondents. It will collect quantitative data in form of thoughts and open minds.

One research scenario that I have been in contact with is an evaluation study, were we investigated weather Skype or Google Hangout was user-friendly or not. The research was based on a think-loud research, where the participator got the opportunity to test the systems at the same time as talking with us about their thoughts – what was good or difficult with these systems. The study was ended by a short semi-structured interview and later the participators movements and clicks were counted and summarised in diagrams. The purpose was to compare the different systems usability. The interviews gave us many interesting thoughts that we didn’t think of, for instance the placement of important buttons and unnecessary steps that was confusing for the users.

Lastly, and the most surprising theme was about the case study method. It’s an already existing problem or phenomenon that collect different methods in order to find the right solution. It can easily be comparable to a crime, where the police investigate the case from different angles and different methods to find the answer (the offender). I haven’t heard about the method before and it woke some ideas that will contribute to some future master thesis that I will write. After the seminar, I realized that it’s a very common method that we don’t usually notice.

To sum up, I realised that I may have changed my strategy to investigate the research of my bachelor thesis in another way. My investigation was based on a retrospective study of a process in developing an additional application of an ERP system. The quantitative part was the retrospective study, looking back in time to see how the process took part. The retrospective study was complemented with small semi-structured interviews with employees and a small questioner with the users/customers. I maybe should have used a case study to get a better overview of the process. I’m looking forward to use these methods again, but in next time with a different point of view and fortunately with a totally different knowledge of the methods.