Final blog posts

From answering the question “what is knowledge?” to learning about producing new theory by conducting case studies; during this course one has taken a journey through both theory and method. In this final text I aim to take what I have learnt during the course and reflect around how different research methods can be combined in order to answer complex research questions. In order to do so I will start off by focusing on the “theory” part of the course and then move on to the “method” part. I think one can simplify the themes we have had into two groups, the first three into the “theory” group and the last three into the “method” one. When focusing on how to answer complex research questions the first themes focused on what one wants answered and how these answers could look while the last themes focused more on how one could go about finding these answers.

The first three themes of the course was focused on theory of knowledge and science, critical media theory and research and theory. During these three weeks we created the ground to research and started off by discussing what knowledge even is, an important discussion to have if one hopes to gain it which is the goal of most research. We never came to one clear definition of what knowledge is, but rather discussed the philosophical nature of the concept as well as objectivity and subjectivity when it comes to knowledge; how perhaps there is no completely objective knowledge but rather how our previous experiences will affect everything we perceive with our senses and learn. We discussed both a priori and a posteriori knowledge, in other words knowledge gained through reasoning or through experience and how important it can be to not be afraid to look at issues from new perspectives in order to gain new knowledge. 

Following the discussions on knowledge came more focused discussions around using knowledge to build theory. Here we started off by looking into media theory and for example differences between realism and nominalism and in doing so dived deeper into the concept of knowledge from the previous week. Here focus was put on different ways of looking at knowledge and its meaning in society, from there we ventured in to the concept of theory. When discussing theory we did not look at the casual meaning of the word, which is most often synonymous with a hypothesis, but rather theory in scientific research. This meant both theory used to build research and theory produced by research. Theory was seen as a somewhat fleeting concept which was difficult to define, but one could see theory as an interpretation of facts and answering the questions as to why things are. 

So, when conducting research the aim is often to gain knowledge, or build theory. After laying the ground by discussing exactly what these aims mean we continued in this course by discussing different methods to achieve this. This meant qualitative, quantitative, design research and case studies. Discussions around how and why the methods work as well as their strengths and limitations. So when hoping to answer complex research questions one can take different approaches depending on the type of question and what one hopes to gain from answering it. 

Qualitative research methods are beneficial when wanting to look at something where opinions are of great matter, these methods provide a wider image of the complex research question. In these methods it is often the case that the subjective views of participants are of great importance and questions are answered and theory is built using it. In the qualitative study I chose to look at during this course the research question was focused on the opinions of students whose teachers used social media and mobile phones as a part of their teaching. This is a typical example when a qualitative method is the best means to provide an answer to the research question. However, when using these methods it is difficult to generalise findings over a wider sample than the one used in the research. In order to do that one can with great benefit use quantitative methods instead. These methods focuses on collecting data which can be used to perform statistical tests and therefore conclude the validity of ones theory, or answer to the complex research question. These methods can be used when the research question is not as much dependent on opinions, but rather more factual in its nature. The qualitative paper I analysed during this course focused its research question on whether youths who participate in user generated content online are also more politically engaged. A question which is very factual in its nature and suited for quantitative research methods. The main limitation of quantitative methods are that they provide a more narrow and factual picture of an issue; in fact, the limitations of qualitative methods are more or less the strengths of quantitative ones and vice versa. This correlation between the methods mean that many studies use a combination of the two in order to answer complex research questions. Many questions are best answered using a combination of methods and if time and money is available this could be a good alternative when one hopes to provide a broad answer to a complex question, if not it could be very beneficial to base further research on looking at similar questions from a different perspective. Research will always lead to more research.

Besides the wide concepts of qualitative and quantitative research we also looked into answering research questions with the help of design research and case studies. These are more strategies when conducting research within which qualitative and quantitative methods are used, but the aim of them and when they are appropriate differ. Design research is a strategy used when wanting to produce something, when the research question is more aimed towards wether a concept could be suitable or towards the design process in itself. Case studies on the other hand is a strategy used when one hopes to look deeply into one specific case, this can be appropriate when venturing into a completely new field and producing new theory. It is also appropriate when a unique case of something is interesting and can provide answers, this could for example be disease or natural disasters. 

Overall this course has shown the many ways one can go about when wanting to answer complex research questions as well as the importance of actually asking the right questions and being aware of what gaining knowledge means; the meaning and importance of both theory and method.