Theme number fours topic was about qualitative methods but when looking back on the lecture and the seminar I feel like they didn't belonged together. The seminar lived up to my expectations since we discussed qualitative methods thoroughly and therefore gave me a better understanding of the different methods. However I felt that the lecture given by Ylva Fernaeus didn't bring anything new to the table in terms of qualitative research. But I think it did what it promised on the course webpage, it served as a bridge between this theme and the upcoming one.
During the seminar we discussed the four major types of qualitative methods. These methods were Interviews, focus groups, content analysis and observations. Some of us also discussed some other less known methods such as diaries and qualitative surveys. However these different methods had one thing in common. This is that there are a lot of different ways on how to conduct them depending on what type of data you are looking for. For example focus groups can be homogenous or heterogeneous. Depending on which one you choose you are more likely to come up with very different answers to your questions. A homogenous group can be used to examine differences in perspectives between groups while heterogeneous groups are more likely to produce unique or creative ideas. This shows us that there are a lot more than just four different qualitative research methods and how important it is to pick the right one when conducting a survey/research.
A method I got further interested in after this week is ethnographical research. During the second half of the seminar Bobby Falck and Stefan Hrastinski brought this method up and Stefan gave us a good example of it. A friend of his moved to Umeå and started working for a call center. But he didn't do this because he actually wanted to move there or because he was in need of a job. He did it because call center workers were his target group and he wanted authentic data of them that would have been hard to collect if he told them he was going to study them for his PhD-Thesis.
I also found the ethnographical research method quite interesting. Does the term ethnographical explicitly refer to studies where the researcher is unknown to the users? In the case that was brought up during the seminar it was a real life situation but I guess it works just as fine in an online environment. However, there has to be some moral issues regarding the method. To what degree can it be considered ok to thoroughly study users without their consent? If someone was watching me in a systematical way I think I'd prefer to know about it. But if I knew about it, it might affect the way I act. I guess it comes down to a moral vs. results dilemma. In a perfect world nobody would know that they are part of a study since it probably affects the way they behave. I also thought about if there are certain studies more suitable for this method than others, and in that case what the characteristics if those studies would be.
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