Reflections

In last week's lecture and seminar, we heard about the main character traits of the quantitative method in respect to the research paper Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality, as well as recapped the benefits and limitations of this type of research, which has been additionally covered in our pre theme.

One thing that stayed in my mind is that the lecturer stressed particularly the importance of the design process. Quantitative research is following a fixed design, which is already predetermined before the data collection starts. On the one hand, this enables a clear structure, which focuses on the research objectives; on the other hand, the flexibility and freedom during the measurements are very low. Since this type of research in particular depends on numerical measurements, questionnaires are often used.

When our lecturer mentioned that the procedure to the final questionnaire could actually take years, I got interested how a questionnaire is actually set-up. In the following, I will therefore reflect on the approach and line of action.

A questionnaire in a quantitative study is usually formally standardized to try to test explicit hypotheses that have been formerly generated. The questions are prescribed in their wording and order, their affiliated explanation, and their response format enabling an easy completion.

The starting point is to articulate which objectives you intend to meet with the questionnaire. Therefore, it has to be clear which information is actually required, which should be also comprised in the research proposal. Similar to marketing research, the next step is to decide which respondents are targeted. It must be taken into account that the samples of interviewees are reacting in terms of their age, education, etc.
Moreover, the method of questioning has to be established (personal singular/group interviews, via mail/telephone) since the construct of the questions has to change according to the medium.
On the one hand, the content has to comprise the most critically important questions concerning the research objectives. Therefore, the questions should be tested in their contribution factor or redundancy. On the other hand, some questions might specifically be neutral to distract the examinees from the study purpose.
The design of the questions can be formed in three different ways (closed, open-ended, open-response); the wording via the closed-form provides the most exact answer, and easy evaluation and specification afterwards. In order to keep the attention of the interviewees up, you have to guide them through your questionnaire with some opening questions, a natural question flow, a good variety also keeping the length and time in check. In the end of the progress, the appearance should be focussed on as well, since the layout has a significant effect on how much and what quality data is collected; there a pre-test could also help to improve the design.


Fao.org, 2015. Chapter 4: Questionnaire Design [online]. Available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/w3241e/w3241e05.htm [Accessed 5 Oct. 2015].


The research article you chose seems very interesting, especially in our age of digitalization. I wonder how the technology has actually changed the behaviour of nowadays children, therefore, I will read through this article for sure.
It is interesting to read about your seminar discussion and that you used the example of the pen to explain the difference between a theory and a hypothesis. I think that a there is no such a thing as a wrong theory, but just a hypothesis that prove out to be wrong. To make sure that it is not just an experimental error like you described, it is probably always advised to compare the hypothesis to practise more than once.


It is obvious that you put a lot of time and effort into your two posts this week. You did a great job by structuring the topics and focussing on the main points of your research paper, the lecture and the seminar. I think the most interesting thing of the comments this week is to read the research articles chosen by every student. The role of Twitter in the Political Campaign seems very contemporary and the integration of social media a development of new media that will just rise in the future. Interesting read!

3. Blog Comment (Link):

Thank you for your thoughts this week. Your clear structure of your reflections makes it very easy to get into the topic. Interesting how you worked with the research article and the questions you chose to focus on. I agree with you, I also found the third's week topic harder to get into and to follow. However, you did a great job at summarizing the theme's tasks and describing what you have learnt, in particular that you have to put the validity of theories also in context of the academic discipline. Well done!

4. Blog Comment (Link):

Thanks for sharing your insights on this week's theme. I agree with you that social media has developed to a very one-sided tool of profiling. People usually want to get validation constantly. Jumping back to Adorno and Horkheimer for a second and their take on a slow developing superstructure, I wonder what affect this current social media behaviour will have had for instance on the values within our society in a few decades. Let's hope therefore, that the given positive sides of this type of interaction prevail. Regarding your post-reflection, you described the meaning of theory clearly and easily to comprehend. Great job!

5. Blog Comment (Link):

Your research paper sounds very interesting. I wonder what results it presented in the end, if they are significant personal and social factors to be representative as a gamer. You take on the research shows that you analysed it in-depth and thought about possible improvements. In general, it is easy to follow your thoughts thanks to your clear writing, emphasized remarks and the visual images you put in your text!

6. Blog Comment (Link):

I agree with you and your remarks on this week's topic. Since I generally always put more focus on the practical sides on media, it made it hard for me to get into the texts about theory. However, our group discussion proved to be very interesting – although it is quite hard to pinpoint the term theory that everybody would agree with. Your quote is indeed chosen quite well, since it reflects the meaning of hypothesis in a very crisp way and nevertheless leaves room for reverberation.

7. Blog Comment (Link):

Thanks for sharing your well-rounded thoughts on theme 3. Your take on theory and its connection to our previous topics made me think about them once more. Likewise your emphasis on why theory can never be stated as true. A theory has always again been matched by practical experience due to direct and indirect changes surrounding it. Your samples are great to shed light on this 'theoretical' subject and I enjoyed reading your reflections on it. Great job!

8. Blog Comment (Link):

Your reflections are as insightful as ever, therefore it was a joy to read them! I felt the same way about this week's theme and the difficulty of defining theory. Your research paper seems to break ground on an uncovered topic, but indeed one that will grow in importance in the following years. Social media has obviously a lot of advantages, however it is interesting to see it from an objective news perspective. Since I also belong to the category of 'news selector', I wonder how this shapes my perspective in the long run. Realistically, I probably miss out on news coverage I would have stumbled on by reading a newspaper, which intends to cover a range of topics for a wider audience. It will be interesting to see how digital journalism will develop further on and moreover, how journalists will keep their integrity.

9. Blog Comment (Link):

Thank you for your reflections! You succeeded in explaining the week's main achievements with the help of a clear structure shaping your thoughts. The seminar has evidently accomplished to give more complexity to the subject, for example by touching on the difference between theory and hypothesis.
One statement I found especially fascinating in your chosen research paper is that politicians have yet failed to fulfil the potential of social media. It will be interesting to observe how campaign management will be perfected in the future and which risks lay in social media's power of steering voters to one side. What are your thoughts about this?

10. Blog Comment (Link):

I really enjoyed reading your thoughts about this week's theme. Your well-structured texts make it easy to follow and you have plenty of interesting remarks on our subject 'theory'. It seems even difficult for scientists to really specify the term itself. Here, it is interesting to read your reflection on the seminar and how you categorized theory into good and bad.
The topic you chose as research paper is quite interesting. I was not that aware about local news stations being forced to change due to the alteration in broadcasting and how this transformation affects the profession as a journalist. I especially like your sentence "more news does not mean more democracy or a better informed public", since it is really thought provoking. Well done!

Design research

To answer the following questions I read the given research paper, written by Haibo Li with colleagues 'Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration' and also read the chapter 'Prototyping tools and techniques' of the book The human-computer interaction handbook.

How can media technologies be evaluated?

Suggested by the given paper, media technology can be tested by experiments, by evaluating its usability or by trainability, which helps in improving the system. As we are in the age of digitalization and a lot of technologies depend on the user surface, I would put in particular a lot of focus on evaluating usability. Following the guidelines ISO, "usability is defined as the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals in particular environments" (ur Rehman et al., 2008: 1026).

What role will prototypes play in research?

Prototypes describe the thoughts of the designer at specific stages in the design process, and always try to represent what is the best way to usefully contribute answering the research question. Since prototypes take on different purposes throughout the design process, they also take on different forms. In general, there are two different sorts of prototypes: the Off-Line prototype (paper prototypes) and the On-line prototypes (software prototypes).
The first ones are non-computer based, usually drafted by hand very quickly at the early stage of the design and are destroyed as soon as their purpose is fulfilled. The latter, On-line prototypes, require a computer, have usually a higher cost, but can contribute to research variously by showing animations, interactive video presentations, or contain written programs or applications. These are likely to contribute to research, since they give users the opportunity to explore the system actively. Moreover, "(p)rototypes increase creativity, allow early evaluation of design ideas, help designers think through and solve design problems, and support communication within multi-disciplinary design teams" (Beaudouin-Lafon and Mackay, 2003: 1102).

Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?

Since prototypes are an essential part of an interactive design process and therefore also the resulting data, the concept has to be thought through in-depth. Throughout the design process, they represent the progress of the research, implementing the ideas of the research designers and showing how the system could look and feel like. The concept prototype has to follow certain principles set up by the researchers in order to assure a representative outcome of the research that could be used as basis further on.

What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

Prototypes vary in their possible forms and characteristics widely depending on their intention. They could be rough sketches or detailed computer software. However, they always intend to give the designers, users and developers an early glimpse of a possible future product. They are concrete tools to explore the design space, continuously question the design decisions and can therefore steer the research process, because they "highlight the areas that must be refined or require additional ideas" (Beaudouin-Lafon and Mackay, 2003: 1029). The advantage, for instance in the given research paper is that the prototype functioned as test object for both researchers and mobile-users presenting an un-known system and enabling experiments in order to develop it further on and test the user responds to vibrotactile rendering of live game information.

The limitations of prototypes are their confined test coverage being only tested on a few examples, not build for other cases. Therefore, prototypes will most likely not work (or crash) on other cases since they are too specific and built for something else. Moreover, prototypes can do early test rounds on users and usability, but since its still just a model, you do not get the final user assessment as you would for the finished product.

How can design research be communicated/presented?

Design research evaluates the test results of the design process like any other research paper. Evaluations should either be based on the quantitative measures or on the qualitative measure like user impressions. Since the results are very specific and are likely to vary within other designs, the researcher has to consider other possible factors, like product features that would evolve in a non-test environment. 


Beaudouin-Lafon, M. and Mackay, W., 2003. Prototyping tools and techniques. The human-computer interaction handbook. J. Jacko and A. Sears, p. 1006-1031. 

ur Rehman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L. and Li, H., 2008. Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. IEEE Trans. Multimedia, Vol. 10, No. 6, p. 1022-1033.  



What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

In the first research paper by Fernaeus and Tholander, the empirical data was derived from video recorded material. The data was then analysed with the help of four concepts specifically discussed in tangibles user interfaces. In the second research paper by Lundström, a series of interviews, conducted with experts or other selected partners, represent the empirical data.

Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution'?

Both research papers prove that their design work generated some new knowledgeable information that has contributed in form of new topic related learning. This could be, for example, in form of challenges, warnings or training characteristics.

Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?

There might be a difference in their intention of usability. I think that in a research project usability is a very important goal while design in general can also focus on other outcomes more. Design, I argue, is of course also adapting to usability, but other factors might overrule it, e.g. its appearance or art value. During the design process, researchers might also value the problems that come up since this is information that has to be considered during the research; designers in general are more solution-oriented and could more easily change to other techniques in order to achieve the goal.

Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc?

Since research projects usually take a long time to develop and later on to analyse, it is hard to replicate research in general, not just within tech domains. If you are replicating the exact variables, repeating the exact research, with the same software, same participants and same researchers, you might come close to the same result, but I still think the results will always be different. Time and setting play an important role, but they are inflexible variables and not replicable at all. The human perception also changes, so it would be a rare case if the participants would react the same way twice. Moreover, the goal of research is to go with time and support change through continuously developing and evaluating new ideas and research approaches.

Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?

I think since design research takes attributes of the field of design in general, it could perhaps be said that design tries more to be good instead of new, tries to focus more on the user instead of the research goal. Whilst other research practices focus more on the outcome itself, the design process in research design is more important, adjusting and reflecting ideas for example in regard to their usability. 


Fernaeus, Y. and Tholander, J., 2006. Finding design qualities in a tangible programming space. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems - CHI '06.

Lundström, A., 2014. Differentiated Driving Range. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications - AutomotiveUI '14. 


Reflections

Last week dealt with the question of what theory really is and what types of theories exist. In particular, there was one question in the seminar, which was debated over and I tried to reflect on this question specifically: What is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory?

As we learnt in the lecture, a theory provides an explanatory framework for an observation. It presents a range of proposals to identify objects and their relationship to each other.

On the one hand, a theory generally describes the scientific realization itself, describing an idea of something being not subject of our sensory perception. As a scientist, you usually observe first and then based on your findings try to form universal laws not by experience but by reasoning. A theory is therefore always something constructed and not something that exists by itself. As each theory is based on a key idea, it has to be continually contrasted by practise. The saying "it might work in theory, but not in practise" is hereby actually wrongly used, because when something is wrong in practise, it is essentially wrong in theory too.

On the other hand, a hypothesis can potentially become a theory, but starts out as a logical idea. It functions as prediction, which is taken as an explanation of certain appearances - usually in nature. For instance, you watch the light fall a specific way, and take on an assumption about the nature of light itself. Based on this prerequisite you try to explain other phenomena of light. Hypotheses present therefore the state of our knowledge of that truth. For them to become part of a scientific theory, you have to check them in reality. Therefore, a chain of events should be conducted emphasising the hypothesis. When the comparison with practise is failing or in the long-term not possible, the hypothesis is proven wrong and rejected as unscientific. As long as a hypothesis cannot be compared to reality, it cannot be called a theory.

A theory has therefore always to be matched with experience. It tries to reflect the best possible and complete image of reality. Laws of nature and theories are not allowed to contradict each other. When they do, then it is a sign that something is wrong. That is why you always have to review, adjust and extend your understanding. However, in science the concept of the one final, universal truth does not exist. A theory can never dispel all doubts or be ultimately proven, it can just be confirmed by tests.


Carone, L., 2008. Was ist eine Theorie? [online]. ScienceBlogs. Available: http://scienceblogs.de/planeten/2008/04/07/was-ist-eine-theorie/ [Accessed at 27 Sept. 2015].

Kirchner, F. and Michaëlis, C., 1907. Kirchner's Wörterbuch der philosophischen Grundbegriffe. Leipzig: Dürr, p. 632-633.

1838. Brockhaus Bilder-Conversations-Lexikon. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, Vol. 2, p. 435. 



Reading you first blog post on this topic, I can see how much time you have put into these answers and you worked well with the texts! The lecture and seminar, though, seemed to have helped you - also me - to clear things up, for instance, on the term Nominalism; I found Plato's cave allegory also really helpful, nice to read about it again! I agree with you, the context the texts were written in is extremely interesting - I think by trying to understand their environment more, but being able just to imagine how they lived at that point in time, we uphold Benjamin’s point on perception being determined by nature and history.


Your pre-reflections on theme 2 clearly show that you worked hard to get a good understanding of the texts! I especially liked your evaluation on how perception is historically determined and how you comprehend the term Nominalism.
You have a very structured way of writing and I like also that you focus on the main parts of the seminar discussion you found particularly interesting. Since I was in another group, I enjoyed reading about the connection between enlightenment and mass media in the eyes of Adorno and Horkheimer. Well done!


I definitely agree with you, the seminar helped a lot by explaining the term Nominalism. You did a great job in presenting how Nominalism and Enlightenment are interconnected – especially the examples help to underline your words.
The power of media still strikes me and it is just realistic to attest it even more growth over the next coming years. There is a quote by Allen Ginsberg saying, “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” I think this is a very important statement and specifies that we have, in the context of fostering vision and development, a certain responsibility which media we decide to 'let come true'.


You did a great explanation on the term aura in your pre-post! Interesting example by differing between the presence in a theatre play and in a motion picture.
Both of your posts are very well written and structured, so it's very easy to follow your thoughts. The seminar seemed to have helped you especially by resolving some questions about Nominalism, its comparison to Platonic realism, and its connection to enlightenment. Nice reflection!


Your posts are very well written and well structured yet skillfully intertwined. It is really a joy to read them! Your pre-post feels like you got an in-depth understanding on the texts even prior to the week.
Indeed, the cave allegory was very helpful to understand the difference between realism and nominalism. And I like your thoughts on what could happen if you take both of them to the extreme. Excess is hardly ever an advantage; I guess you kind of need balance in everything.
I also agree that we might have destroyed a lot of the aura in our surroundings, which was likely much more cherished before the technical revolution. But I think there is already – or predict there will be – a countermovement to the strong influence of digitalization and mass media, a growing urge to experience nature or culture, go travelling or seeing things actually on-site. Do you agree?


It feels like that the seminar and lecture could give you a new appreciation of the texts and that they ignited an interest in this topic that will last also outside of class. The discussion in your group sounds very interesting. Reading about your contemplations on myth is incentive – you definitely have a point there! It would be interesting to know, which mythologies are already so enrooted in the nowadays culture that we don't even recognize them at myths anymore. Good job with your reflections!


By reading your reflection, I have the feeling you worked hard on understanding the difference between nominalism and realism. I actually also accredited nominalists the desire of promoting change and supporting new ideas, since they reject the 'putting in a box' thinking fearing inactivity and no foresight. But with you saying the revolution took actually place within a realistic worldview will start to make me think about that once more. It is interesting that we rarely hear about these concepts in our life, but that their defined way of thinking has actually such a big influence in the world we shape.


Thanks for sharing your reflections with us. You have a very nice writing style and were able to check off the given questions skillfully. In particular, I like your reasoning on how interpretations are also key to our perceptions and therefore dependent on our upbringing and habits.
The seminar seemed to have helped you, as it also did with me, to increase the understanding of the texts. I really appreciate your thinking beyond it though. How interesting to read your examples on new sort of auras for the industrialized culture. I haven't thought of that. Good job!


Thank you for your nicely elaborated reflection on theme 2. It feels like you could develop your own understanding of the texts better during the lecture and the seminar. You did a great job in putting your thoughts into words, which makes it really easy to follow – for instance your deduction on nominalism and realism is spot on! I agree with you that nowadays media with its rising force can actually both portray current living standards and argue for a change. That is indeed an interesting topic as well, so thank you for bringing that up.


Having read already other blogs, you are the first to define Dialectic with thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Interesting! We also discussed Plato's cave allegory in the seminar, but it was nice to read your summary of it again. Your reflection is well written and is nicely structured; I like that you put nominalism in context with fascism, or compare enlightenment with mass media. I wouldn't say that putting a politician in Plato's clothes would make him look cleverer, but that is again dependent on our individual perception. Anyway, I am excited about how nowadays superstructure will look in 30 years, aren't you?

Quantitative research

Select a media technology research paper that you argue is using quantitative methods in a good way. The paper should be of high quality, with an “impact factor” of 1.0 or above. The following are examples of questions to discuss in your blog posting:

The research paper "Evaluating the Wisdom of Strangers: The Perceived Credibility of Online Consumer Reviews on Yelp" is written by Young-shin Lim and Brandon Van Der Heide. The article was first published online on August 25,2015 in the January issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication in 2015 (Issue 1, Volume 20, Pages 67-82).

The paper analyses "how people make sense of consumer reviews posted by unknown others in online communities with social networks" (Lim and Van Der Heide, 2014: 79). In addition, the study presents the factor of familiarity with a certain online platform to be in relation of evaluating and combining user profile elements. Moreover, the significance of a review predicts the perceived credibility and the position to the reviewed product.

Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper?

The researchers used the method of a written survey to measure the participant’s reception of online reviews. The online questionnaire queried each participant (of 241 college students) on assessing a restaurant review accompanied by a reviewer's profile, judging the credibility of the review and to measure the attitude towards the restaurant. Moreover, the students had to fill out their level of familiarity with Yelp.com.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

Benefits include the design of the method that allows the researchers to isolate theoretically important variables. Moreover, the study approach was set to include participants of any cultural background. With the given method, the researchers were also able to set up a thought-out questionnaire attributing to a purposeful and result oriented study. They took into account other study results and tried to research other factors that could contribute, e.g. the effect of valence on the perceived credibility of Word of Mouth.

Limitations can be derived to the selection of one review instead of many reviews you usually read when browsing community sites. Furthermore, other factors than the investigated ones might attribute to a participant’s evaluation, e.g. predisposition to online review sites or the familiarity with the restaurant and their prior experience there.

What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?

The quantitative method attributes to a clear structure dividing each step on the way in reasonable sections, like the introduction, the presentation of key variables, source factors, followed by a detailed description of the method, the results and the discussion.

The method in the paper emphasizes the variables used to deduct the experiment. The researchers explain these in an in-depth way using previous study results on each of them, which provides a context for the variable itself and gives the reader an insight of what has to be considered.

By describing their procedure in their method design, it can be seen how a questionnaire can be measured and which scales, for instance, are used to measure perceived credibility or the attitudes towards a restaurant.

Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?

One of the main methodological problems of the given study might be the inability to imitate a real browsing experience. The participants, although not knowing what they are tested on, are aware that they are in an experiment and take therefore more time to evaluate the review on Yelp.com. They give unconsciously more thought to how they perceive the review, the reviewed object and the reviewer. Arguing that you usually scroll faster through these reviews, it might change the outcome of the experiment. In addition, you normally read more than one review and therefore compare different opinions of a restaurant, for instance. 
Therefore, the quantitative method could have been improved by testing participants on several user reviews instead of just one.


Read the following paper written by Ilias Bergström and colleagues. Reflect on the key points and what you learnt by reading the text. Also, briefly discuss the questions below.

The research paper Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality deals with the situation of changed reality and what you would do if you wake up in a different body but still with your own mind. The paper poses the questions on how your behaviour and attitude would be affected by the body change and if your level of performance would improve by a seemingly more appropriate body to tackle these.

By inviting a group of Caucasian people to a virtual drum session, participants were divided into groups of either Casual Dark-Skinned people or Formal Light-Skinned people. The differences in the movement pattern between these two groups of participants were investigated while they played the drums.

I learnt that body ownership can change your adaptability and performance towards a given task when you feel that your body is now more appropriate for it. Moreover, I find it interesting, that despite demographic differences you can still feel a high body ownership score and that "that those participants who had experienced the body ownership illusion more strongly showed less racial bias after the illusion than before" (Kilteni et al., 2013: 598). This result could benefit future research in multiple ways, for instance, in the field of psychology, rehabilitation or education. I find especially its benefit in the dissolution in resentment by enhancing a person's empathy, behaviour or attitude at least for a short period.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods? 

The quantitative method describes a method in scientific papers to systematically measure and evaluate behaviour, character traits or attitudes with the help of different tools. The starting points are hypotheses, which are then proven in concern to their correctness by measuring the characteristics in numbers. The quantitative method is beneficial if you want hart, replicable data explaining causal relationships that you can generalize later on. With the help of testing, experimenting and observing, you deduct your conclusion. However, individuality is not taken into account, and the response frame is limited.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

A qualitative method describes a process where the focus lies on observing individuals and their subjective interpretations and experiences. It is commonly used in new research fields or to develop hypotheses.
It is a beneficial method to ask questions how a singular person or group experiences certain situations. The focus lies here on the point of view of the subjects. Interviews, group discussions or text analysis are popular methods used qualitatively. The benefits are that the affected person is the centre of interest and that the method adjusts to the subject of investigation. Disadvantages might be that you investigate a very low number of people who cannot be representative. Moreover, the method consumes a lot of time and relatively high costs.


Lim, Y. and Van Der Heide, B., 2014. Evaluating the Wisdom of Strangers: The Perceived Credibility of Online Consumer Reviews on Yelp. J Comput-Mediat Comm, Vol. 20, No. 1, p. 67-82.

Kilteni, K., Bergstrom, I. and Slater, M., 2013. Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics, Vol. 19, No. 4, p. 597-605.