måndag 5 oktober 2015

Post-seminar 4

For this seminar I prepared by reading the assigned research paper on Body Ownership Illusions and if they can affect performance when drumming based on the body you perceive to have, as well as choosing a research paper of my own. These were then dissected with respect to the quality of their quantitative methods.

I also attended the lecture and the seminar. As usual, the seminar gave a lot. We had a fruitful discussion on the nature of quantitative methods as opposed to qualitative methods, but the discussion largely dwelt on the nature of qualitative methods.

At first our discussion dealt with quantitative data, and we agreed upon that quantitative data is categorised as data that can be used in calculations. We then tried to put it in contrast to qualitative data, and while we felt sure we could define qualitative data, we were unsure how you could scientifically analyse it. At first we wondered if you would try to analyse it in a kind of quantitative way, that is that we wondered if you would check how often a certain answer would come up in the qualitative data and try to find correlations

We later rejected this after reasoning with the seminar leader and came to the conclusion that analysing qualitative data would be conducted in the way that you would try to find correlations in the data between the participants, and that you necessarily can’t reach a good and easy answer in the way you often do in quantitative research, but that you instead often reach long, complex answers.

Another important insight we reached was that the use of quantitative or qualitative methods depends entirely on what you are researching. Sometimes you can use both, but one of them is more suitable, and sometimes you lose parts of what you’re investigating if you try to use one or the other. Some questions can’t be answered quantitatively or qualitatively.

One thought that came up often during the seminar, both in our group and when discussing the whole class was the preconception that quantitative data in some way is more objective that qualitative. This is of course not true since quantitative data also is affected by our faculties of conceptions as well as the fact that we’ve had different paradigms in science of what is "true".

Another thing we discussed was that we often are prone to applying quantitative methods to answer questions since we often want a short and easy answer instead of a long, complex one, even if this answer may not be as good an answer as the long, complex one.

So different questions demand different methods, and we discussed the paper about Body Ownership Illusions with this in mind. In it they employed a quantitative method to measure performance in participants when drumming. This method was chosen over a qualitative method since the latter would not take sub-conscious behaviour into consideration, and would therefore not provide as good an answer to the proposed question.

11 kommentarer:

  1. Hi, I always enjoy reading your "after" blog post since you give a detailed insight of your learning process. In the discussion in class, we also mentioned that quantitative research methods allow to apply the same metric on different people. In addition to this, we discussed that an experiment is always designed and that qualitative and quantitative research methods could be objective and subjective at the same time. We talked about how researchers always influence the study with their preconceptions which means that neither method can be completely objective. Well done!

    SvaraRadera
  2. Hi! Thanks for sharing us with your thoughts. I really enjoyed reading through your reflection towards the lecture and the seminar. Your idea was written neatly and well, and then very impressive. I agree with your idea, that some researches could be conducted both by quantitative method and the qualitative method. However, there remains some kind of researches which could be neither done by qualitative method nor quantitative method of research. Good job!

    SvaraRadera
  3. Hey Anton!
    Sure seems like you had a fruitful seminar. Your discussions about qualitative and quantitative research and data are well formulated and inspiring. You give great explanations on the difference between qualitative and quantitative studies; differences in how one analyze the data, choose which method, interpret the results etc. I learned a thing or two! Keep up the good work!

    SvaraRadera
  4. Den här kommentaren har tagits bort av skribenten.

    SvaraRadera
  5. Hi!
    Thanks for this weeks post. I think the part about that quantitative data is more objective than qualitative is intresting. Because as we have learnt in this course it is impossible to get any kind of information without our perception. Another thing you mentioned is that we tend to choose qualitative methods because we want short and easy answers. I would argue that this is a limitation of quantiative methods. Because we reduce a phenomena to things that is possible to measure. With qualitative methods we are investigating the phenomena without (atleast not closed) frames. However some questions are more appropiate for one method and some can benefit from both, or atleast you can confirm the data gathered with one of them with the other (as they did in the VR embodiedment article)

    SvaraRadera
  6. Hi Anton!
    Great blog post, it provided more discussion and was more thought-provoking than what I got from this week - very interesting to read! I have to ask though - how do you mean that some questions can't be answered quantitatively or qualitatively? What would that be besides metaphysics?

    I liked your discussion on quantitative data not being necessarily more objective and true. Even if qualitative data is subjective, I guess it could be objective in the terms of one person's opinion. Quantitative data can still process opinion but in a different way.

    SvaraRadera
  7. Hi,

    I feel like you have understood a lot this week’s theme. Your reflection was a good mass up of the important parts. It was easy to follow and understand your thought. Thank you for pointed out how we can analyze qualitative data. While i was reading the post of our colleagues, this question came up to my mind and now by reading your post it is answered. I agree with you that the method we choose depends on the research question. We have to be careful which method we will choose in order not to miss the important part of the study. Sometimes also a combination of both is the best solution. Qualitative method support and complete the qualitative method and the reversed.

    SvaraRadera
  8. Hey!

    Very good reflection! I agree that analysing quantitative data is a lot easier than analysing qualitative, but that should not make us stop using qualitative research. I think that combination of two will always bring best results.

    Ilias said that in their paper they used qualitative method so they don't influence subjects perception going in to the experiment, but I would argue that they influence subjects answers by giving them a limited answers to choose from in a questionnaire.

    SvaraRadera
  9. Good reflection! You've cleared out the distinction between qualitative vs quantitative so the reader can easily understand. You bring up interesting discussions that ocurred on the seminar and explains in what situations qualitative and quantitative methods can be used.

    Keep it up!

    SvaraRadera
  10. Hi!
    It is quite interesting that one seems to almost intuitively understand the concept of quantitative methods, but at the same time have a lot harder time grasping the concept of qualitative methods. As you mention that your seminar group discussed qualitative methods a lot on a seminar on quantitative methods (so did mine as well), it seems that this hypothesis is somewhat confirmed - however, I wonder why? You provide great discussions on the concept of qualitative methods and its pros/cons. Keep up the good work!

    SvaraRadera
  11. Hi, very nice post, you introduced a very detailed descriptions for what is quantative and qualitative and the difference between them. You also add you own understanding for them. I learned more new things from your post, thank you very much!

    SvaraRadera