Final Blog Post

In my final blog post I am suppose to reflect about different ways of combining different methods in order to answer complex research questions. I think this task will summarize this course rather well since a lot of the treated subjects in his course involved in-depth reflection of the methods of conducting research and analyze of research concepts like knowledge and theory.

Going into this course, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. My best guess would be that the course material would consist of only analyzing recent papers in the field of Media Technology. This has of course been a vital part of the course, especially the latter weeks of the course where we discussed different research methods and design, but I was very surprised by the topics of the first three themes. To begin by reading Plato and Kant was far from what I had in mind and I questioned this at first, thinking in terms of; what is there to learn from these old philosophers? But now I understand that we had to get to the core of what knowledge is and isn’t before moving on to the rest of the themes and learning how we can achieve knowledge. I think theme 1 laid a foundation for the rest of the course as it was always applicable on the other themes in one way or the other. I also find it very interesting now in retrospect and I learned a lot about philosophical reasoning, different concepts and perspectives in philosophy and how you can question pretty much everything. Knowledge is a concept that every field in science is producing and it is produced by analyzing and interpreting data obtained from different methods. So before discussing research methods and research questions one must discuss and question the concept of knowledge. The same goes for the topic of theme 3: theory. Theory is a word that I before this course thought I understood. Now I know that theory is a complex concept that goes far beyond what I initially thought. Theory is about explaining why something occurs. It’s about somehow observing the world and trying to grasp it, to understand it. Theories describes the world which can lead to knowledge - which of course connects to theme 1.

In theme 2 we read and discussed nominalism and the enlightenment. I was very unfamiliar to some of these topics so the theme felt difficult at first. But now i retrospect I understand that the theme was about culture and technology, how they are connected and how they influence each other. Terms like aura questions what is lost in a reproduction and how does that affect our surrounding. Similar topic has come up several times during other courses, questions like does society control the advancements in technology or is it the other way around, but this time it had a more philosophical and theoretical approach with written material from those who witnessed major changes in society and media.

The three latter themes treated the topics I was expecting this course to be about; research methods. I found design research to be the most interesting one since I had not encountered it before, at least not at this theoretical level. Design research is something that I think is really important for us media technology students. To test and evaluate our technical solutions through for example a prototype is something that a lot of us will do in the future. The main reason of making an evaluation is to gain knowledge, which once again connects with theme 1. The knowledge one gains depends on how you designed your prototype and conducted the evaluation. The different research methods were discussed very intensely in this course. Their actual methods and the output data have been compared and analyzed. What I have learned is that in order to chose what method is the best for a given question you must know what kind of answer you are looking for. It is very important to know what answer you are looking for, otherwise the selected research method can output data that is not compatible with the question. There are different advantages and disadvantages with qualitative and quantitative research methods. With a quantitative research method it is easier to generalize and compare your findings. There are statistical and analytical tools to utilize to present your findings in an understandable way. The drawback is that you don’t take everything into account. Qualitative research methods can take a lot more into account (reasons behind the whatever you’re are examining or consequences) but it takes more work, is not as replicable and it’s hard to avoid being bias.

Something I will take with me from this course is something Haibo Li said in his lecture about research in the field of media technology, and that is to focus on defining the problem rather than solving it. This is something that I in retrospect should have applied in my bachelor thesis. Almost all energy and effort was put into solving the problem instead of defining it which made it hard to chose the best method and to conduct a good research. I will also take with me the great tool that is case studies. A case study looks at something specific and asks what sticks out. It is a great way of looking if something is worth researching and it can spark ideas.

This course has combined abstract and complex philosophical and scientific concepts with the more hands-on work an engineer does. It has also pretty much questioned a lot of things we take for granted which has been kind of eye opening and interesting. I have enjoyed the diversity in the lectures. We have had the pleasure to listen to interesting talks from different perspectives, especially regarding design research. I will definitely have this course in the back of my mind when I write and conduct my master's thesis