Links to my comments on other students blogs:
Visar inlägg med etikett Theme 3. Visa alla inlägg
Visar inlägg med etikett Theme 3. Visa alla inlägg
söndag 4 oktober 2015
måndag 28 september 2015
Post Theme 3: Research and theory
The literature we had to read for these theme differed from the previous texts. I felt that these texts were much easier to understand because they were more based on facts than philosophical thoughts and reasoning. This gave me much more time on actually thinking about what I had read and the questions I had to answers.
The lecture with Leif D. started out good, with a clear definition of theory.
“A theory is a set of propositions that aims to identify (abstract) objects and their relation to each other.” -Leif Dahlberg
Especially this sentence confirmed my understanding of what theory is. I also felt that my understanding prior the lecture was confirmed during the lecture. One thing I didn’t really understand was the point of the question “What is man?”. We all gave a lot of answers to the question, such as culture, body, consciousness, feelings, and so on that we put up on the whiteboard. But I did not understand the purpose or felt that it was explained by the lecturer with a conclusion. Maybe it was just a way of making us give a set of propositions?
During the seminar my group discussed our chosen papers as a starter. It seemed that no one had difficulties understanding the task and questions. Most of us also felt that it was easier describing theory by what it is not rather than what it is. We agreed on everything and I felt that it was because of the texts being pretty straightforward that there were not that much room for open interpretations from these texts. One thing my group brought up, that I found to be interesting, was that the authors contradicted each other on one statement. In the text “What theory is not”, Sutton and Staw states:
“Diagrams or figures can be a valuable part of a research paper but also, by themselves, rarely constitute theory”
Meanwhile Gregor points out one of the categories of theory being Analysis. He explains it as a category analyzing what is. This theory analyzes data and diagrams which contradicts Sutton and Staws statement.
Another debate during the seminar was what hypothesis is and how it differs from a theory. I felt that this discussion gave me a better explanation on what a hypothesis is. A hypothesis must be something you can reason around and argue about, if you can not do that then it is not a hypothesis. And a theory is built on a hypothesis that can be tested.
This theme was fun to read about, especially since I could relate to the keywords after having done my bachelor thesis. The assignment, lecture and seminar were mostly straightforward in my opinion.
fredag 18 september 2015
Pre Theme 3: Research and theory
I have chosen the journal Computers in Human Behavior which is a scholarly journal with an impact factor of 2.694. The journal focuses on the human behavior and interaction with computers from a psychological perspective. Their publications examines the usage of computers on fields related to psychology and the effect that computer usage has on different levels such as individuals, groups and societies. I found the journal to be interesting and relevant for media technology research because of the main focus being on humans interacting with computers and not vice versa. Media technology is developed for humans and therefore it's important for us to understand and examine phenomena such as human development, learning and social interactions that are being affected by computers.
A paper that has been published in this journal is “Eyeface: A new multi-method tool to evaluate the perception of conceptual user experiences”. The paper aims to validate if a new multi-method tool named Eyeface could be used to evaluate the user experience in the conceptual phase. The Eyeface tool is a combination of two tools, the Eye-tracking and the Facereader. Two computers manages the data but the user executes the experiment on one computer. A tool called Panas-X, list of words that shows your feelings and emotions, was used to complement and validate collected data from the Facereader. To confirm their hypothesis of the Eyeface providing validate data to judge conceptual user experience they tested it on seven students. The students where first briefly informed about the study, and then after the calibration of devices they watched a video while being analyzed through face expressions and eye movement with the Eyeface. The video shows a new concept Fundawear founded by Durex, the video is available on Youtube. After the video they filled out the Panas-X form and then a questionnaire with the purpose of collecting qualitative data regarding the user’s perception in order to help the design process. All data collected was lastly analyzed and presented through graphs, showing result of the Facereaders expressions for each user and the amount of positive or negative emotions felt for each user. Through the Eye-tracking data they could see which part of the design that interested the users. With this exploratory purpose they concluded the hypothesis being proven. Although the Eyeface needs more research and further development before providing satisfactory accuracy.
I perceived this paper to be interesting with a new perspective on how to use two already existing tools. The background part is thin, I’m lacking a bit more research on how Eye-tracking and Facereader has been used before and how accurate they have proven to be. Since the journal focuses on the humans and not on the technology they have a very simple and good explanation on the technologies being used. They only portray one argument about companies starting to take into account the experience of the user and they feel that it’s important to keep bringing the academic knowledge and companies together. They could have had more arguments, such as maybe how this could be used as a tool to analyze learning methods by using videos. Their method is simple, although they don't explain why they informed the participants before the study or how this could've affect the results. In think informing the participants did affect the result since they knew they were being watched through their facial expressions and could've altered their expressions.
1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
Theory is not data, lists of variables or constructs, diagrams or hypotheses. A strong theory is a theory that explains why, how and under which circumstances something occurs. By this meaning that only a researcher can provide the information on why and how different parts of the paper affects each other.
2. Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?
The major theory on the paper I chose would be the theory for design and action, because the paper is about how to use a new multi-method tool in order to evaluate and prove the hypothesis of it being effective. They also use a certain prescription and technique on how to collect and read the data.
3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
The benefits with the theory is that the tool can be used by using the given methods, techniques and so on. Which means that you get an answer to the questions; what? when? how? where?
On the other hand some limitations as mentioned in the text by Gregor is that making non-experts understand the expert knowledge and making it actionable are needed (Table 8).
References:
Ganix Lasa, Daniel Justel, Aiur Retegi, Eyeface: A new multimethod tool to evaluate the perception of conceptual user experiences, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 52, November 2015, Pages 359-363, ISSN 0747-5632, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215004550
Computers in Human Behavior, http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computers-in-human-behavior/
Gregor, S. (2006). The Nature of Theory in Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, 30(3), 611-642
Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M. (1995). What Theory is Not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371-384
Prenumerera på:
Inlägg (Atom)