THEME 6 - Comments - Qualitative Research

Links to the comments I've made

1. On case study and hypothesis - Post-Seminar
2. On knowledge and methods - Post-Seminar
3. On seminars and disagreement - Post-Seminar
4. On case study as a tool to create new theories - Post-Seminar
5. On preparation and greatness - Post-Seminar
6. On qualitative methods and in-depth analysis - Post-Seminar
7. On the amount of participants as a condition, or not - Post-Seminar
8. On data gathering and timing - Post-Seminar
9. On natural disasters and single events - Post-Seminar
10. On case studies and strategy - Post-Seminar

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THEME 6 - Post-Posting - Qualitative and Case Study Research

This is the last post-posting I'll do for this course, as this week symbolizes the closure of the DM2572 course for me. Interestingly enough, I have been pleased to realize that week after week, my ability to analyze issues and understand research articles got much better than in the beginning. Of course, this can also be related to the fact that I got more used to speaking English, having been here in Sweden for a little more than a month now. Still, I believe that this course helped me a lot in understanding important issues and how to practically solve them. 

During our seminar, we talked more about case study research than qualitative research - as most people have already, like in Theme 4, had the opportunity to face qualitative studies and quantitative studies for their bachelor. I personally wasn't in that case, but still didn't really feel the need to go over again the difference between both, as we had already spent quite a long time during the Theme 4 seminar to discuss this issue. We then exposed the methods that were used in our papers - for example, focus groups, semi-structured interviews, auto-driving... Interestingly enough, I felt that these methods go hand in hand with the numerous methods we have in User Interface and Experience testing; to evaluate a prototype and see if it fits or to pinpoint issues that we have to correct. I feel like the fact that for both these goals we need to delve deeper in order to understand the subject plays a major role in the correlation between the used methods.

Another thing I liked about the seminar is that we got to discuss our papers - I feel like it's somehow a shame that we often didn't think to talk about what we've learned thanks to them, because we mainly talk in the seminars about the questions that we had to answer to. It could have been interesting during the other themes as well to share the conclusions we each drew about our papers, but it's a pity I didn't realize this before the last theme... 

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THEME 6 - Pre-Posting - Qualitative and case study research

Communication Processes in Participatory Websites (Walther B., Jang J.) 

Participatory websites, more commonly referred to as SNS - social networking sites - or Web 2.0, have become more or less the most popular ways to communicate on the internet. As stated by the article to qualify them, "these systems present and juxtapose messages that are generated by different authorial sources: central messages posted by a web page's proprietor, and user-generated content that other readers contribute". How are we to understand the complex communication phenomenon that facilitate but complexity social influence?
In order to tackle this question, the article takes on a qualitative method. First, by suggesting the definitions of four common message types - proprietor content, user-generated content, deliberate aggregate user representation, and incidental aggregate user representation - that they designed using a content analysis method. Then, they offer a desk research that illustrates how these message types may function in transforming online social interaction and influence. 
By offering an in-depth view into the state of the art in that field, the article builds up its reliability, and makes it possible to assess the progress made and what is yet to come. They also establish logic links between the different views and methods found in order to provide added value - they analyze and go into more details, enabling them to offer the definitions they base their paper on. 
One issue we could raise is the fact that they didn't really have any active interaction "in the field of studies" - meaning they don't have any immediate feedback on their research. Maybe having a focus group or some type of study with involved people would have helped. 

Does Internet and Computer "Addiction" exist? (Griffiths M.) 

A case study is a research strategy which contributes into providing in-depth understanding of the different dynamics involved in a specific case - which can be a person, a group, or a particular subject. It is not excluded for a case study to target more than one case, and there are different types of case study methods. Typically, a case study can be multi-layered in terms of analysis depth, and uses data collection methods such as archives, interviews, questionnaires and observations - which may be qualitative or quantitative, though more often than not they tend to stick to the qualitative side of the subject. 
The article I have chosen is based on five case studies of excessive computer usage, and tackles the issue of Internet and / or Computer "Addiction" - an urban mouth-to-mouth tale on social cyber-pathologies that are becoming increasingly popular now that children are exposed since their youngest age to digital improvements and cyberspace. 
The author begins by collecting information on the social pathology of addiction, accordingly to the first step of Eisenhardt's Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research. By detailing the principal core components, and exposing them to us, the author defines clearly the research question and makes it possible for us to start reading his research study with the same knowledge as him. Then, he proceeds to the case selection, that he is said to have done in the course of six months. Even though this selection is made on specified population and quite detailed by the author, very often the source of account is that the subject contacted the author directly, making this selection having somehow of a random feeling rather than it being based on theoretical sampling. But still, the selected subjects still have all the required traits the author exposed in the beginning, making it a specified sampling of the population. For each case, the author describes with attention and detail every information he can, which makes it easy for the reader to understand exactly the point of the study, and how he reaches closure. Somehow, I still feel that because he is the only interviewer, and that his data collection method is somehow linear and lacks perspective, the instruments and protocols he based his study on are less precisely crafted than what ideally could have been done. In having data collected by Internet Discussion, he somehow enters the field already biased, and without a means of verification, and makes his data analysis clear and not subject to any other discussion - as compared to what can be done described in Eisenhardt's table. Despite these weaknesses, I think the article is quite clear in what it wants to expose, and maybe these weaknesses come from the subject itself - because in the design of this research, I can't really think of a lot of other alternatives the author could have gone for. Maybe this is something he already decided during the design process, and he can't really be blamed for that because in the end it is still a study that shows material and reliability, in my opinion, although it doesn't really follow exactly the table of Eisenhardt. 

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