When this course first started, I did not really know what to expect from it. My initial thoughts was that this was a fact driven, gather data and write reports kind of course, instead it appeared to start off like a philosophy course. This made it contrast extremely with all our others courses which are less humanities-based and more factual. I have learned much more in this course than I first thought I would. I have learned about how my perception differs from everyones elses and that knowledge and even things that feels like they can’t be different, like colors, are different. How everything we see and feel is interpreted by our minds, mixed with experience and changed to create different viewpoints depending on who we are. How seemingly similar things can differ so much from person to person is truly interesting.
As the course progressed I feel like it changed direction away from the more philosophical part, to a more analytical one and actually, as I first thought the course was going to be about, it took a turn for the more gather data like, practise research methods and go through theories, to later be able to make the most of our reports. I guess it did so pretty quickly, even though I feel like half the course was about philosophy.
We started to read a lot about, big spoiler, theory and different methods. I have learned what the concept of theory actually means and to reason and analyze it in a way I couldn’t before. The theme that I think gave me most was the theme “Research and Theory”. It focused mostly on what a theory are and what it’s not, which gave it a very clear picture to use for reference when continuing to delve deeper into the course. To give an example, pure data or research are not a theory though they are the building stones on which a theory can grow.
Later in the course we started to read and discuss about the different kinds of theory. Analysis, explanation, prediction, explanation and prediction, and design and action. A word ‘theory’, that earlier ment only ‘idea’ for me, now have many different underlying meanings which differs depending on the situation which they are used in and focuses on different aspects when subject changes. I found it easier to get a better grasp on ‘theory’, when these different separations arose. It’s interesting to see the development you can go through in just a brief period of time, in the beginning of the course theory doesn’t mean that much and at the end of the course you know different kinds which lets you choose the best possible action for research.
Not only can theories be categorized in the different kinds I wrote about above but theory also changes depending on the subject. Theory in natural science is not the same as theory in social sciences. Theory in the former is more about making predictions, something that is very hard in social sciences since everyone and their perception is different, instead the focus lies on explaining the occurrence of certain phenomena.
With the theory mindset now established the course progressed into the explaining and usage of different research methods, quantitative and qualitative. The former makes it easy to conduct surveys, structured interviews and observations. They are primarily based on numbers which lays the ground for easy to generalize, statistical tests. Qualitative methods on the other hand are based on focus groups, in-depth interviews and document reviews. Unlike quantitative methods this is more subjective, the condition described are from the point of view of the one experiencing it which makes it more in-depth than quantitative methods but also harder to generalize and rather focuses on a certain group.
To be able to correctly identify a problem or to answer a question you have to know what kind of research has to be done, in what ways it gives you the data necessary, how efficient the research progress will be and how reliable the result will be. The knowledge of theory and methods is what makes this possible.
Most questions can, to some extent, always be approached using either quantitative or qualitative research methods, the one that is most suited depends on the underlying main goal. To give as broad a picture as possible of the question it is very useful in most situations to combine both research methods. Which in many situations seems to solve the problems a single methodological approach unfortunately can create. The design process of the research relies heavily on the method used to conduct it and combining both methods is considerably more time consuming than just having to account for one, however the way quantitative and qualitative methods outway each other's shortcomings is often worth it if the main goal is not very well defined. It’s also important to factor in what theory you want to build when designing the research and establishing the usage of one or both of these methods.
In one of the articles I read during this course the main goal was to identify the bias of search engines, how they affect the search results, potentially hiding different sites. To test this they created a bot which collected data for several months, which they then compiled to a result. The research question here I find to be really hard to conclude without the use of quantitative methods, I can’t think of a way to perform the tests necessary using a qualitative method unless creating an AI to conduct the research.
From this I drew the conclusion that for some research only one method is possible for use but often the result could be extended using the other research method to give background, incentive or something similar to the research. Therefore I think, to best answer complex research questions you really need to know the problem. From there you can build your theory, then you can start to think about what method or methods you want to use that best fits the theory, complements it and gives the best possible case to further evolve it.
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