Theme 6: Post theme post

This week I read two papers—Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media
 and A value-oriented and culturally informed approach to the design of interactive systems
—the first of which was a qualitative research using semi structured focus group interviews about using mobile devices to complement formal higher education. The other paper was also conducted using qualitative methods, but this one involved a case study about the creation/design of a social network for teachers of students in need of specialised education.

At the seminar we discussed what we had read and what we had learnt about qualitative methods and case studies from reading our papers.
First of all we agreed to having a hard time finding papers using qualitative methods and case studies, at least in relation to finding the papers for the preceding seminars.
The qualitative methods that were used in the papers we discussed were semi structured interviews, focus groups, auto driving, and one of us read a cross case study which used structured interviews + some quantitative method.
From these the most interesting to me was the “auto driving” method because I hadn’t heard about it before. In this case the method was that the participants were given a voice recorder and were supposed to give a tour of their home and say what their thoughts were about the things they saw, so in a way it’s really an observation method.

When we discussed case studies we agreed on a definition that was very similar to what I had written in my pre-theme post. We also said that you can mix qualitative and quantitative methods when conducting a case study since the case study itself isn’t research method but more like a tool to gain knowledge about something you know nothing or very little about before. The data gathered through your case study must then be analysed and discussed for us to be able to formulate a theory about the subject.

At the seminar I also learned about Paul Feyerabend’s assertion “anything goes”, which means that you don’t have to follow guidelines or “recipes” when conducting research.
Case studies is an example of Feyerabend’s assertion; you don’t have to know a lot in advance of your study, and there may be no guidelines if the case’s context is completely new. This means that you don’t get stuck in the old ways when conducting your research and can in that way gain new knowledge. An example of scientific progress made when not following the rules that were set by other theories is the Copernican revolution which was brought up earlier in this course.

So don’t follow the old way of conducting research just because it’s considered the correct way; see if you can go outside the frames of our knowledge and make a real contribution.