As this was the final theme for this course it was fitting to have course leader Leif Dahlberg holding the last seminar. There was a lot of focus on case studies since we have touched upon quality methods previous weeks, and we ended by briefly discussing some questions that came up regarding the course layout.
The seminar started off with us students dividing into smaller groups to discuss the different texts. Then the whole group started discussing together and most of the seminar went to talking about what a case study is and how it differs from a user study or a conventional research with a proper hypothesis. An object being studied in its natural habitat seemed to be a useful definition and an important thing is that the researchers are to take advantage of an existing situation rather than creating a scenario by themselves. From that point different types of qualitative and quantitative methods are welcomed in the study. I had not really considered the possibility of a case study prior to this week and I find it to be an interesting type of research method. When I did my bachelor's thesis a little over a year ago we were studying the possibility of incorporating Twitter in a creative performance process. We had an existing "case" were a dance company was developing a performance based off of Twitter and we sent out a survey for the users collaborating in the process and held interviews with the choreographers. All our research methods were held after the creative process had finished, so I guess that our project was a case study even though we did not consider this or even had knowledge of this being a certain method at the time.
Dahlberg also gave examples of "cases" being used in other situations, for example a police case or a medical case but also what is being used in economic studies: having a case, or a problem, that the student is supposed to solve. To wrap things up, I think that this week's theme was very interesting an I learned a lot about case studies and maybe a little bit about qualitative studies as well. It was a pleasant ending of this course and it was also good that we were able to ask some questions about the concluding blog post that is coming up after this one.
*We also had a postponed lecture with Haibo Li on Monday about design research and problem solutions. Li is a great lecturer (even though it can sometimes be somewhat difficult to understand) and I found his example from the film Johnny English to be different and a fun way to describe finding simple solutions. This lecture was a refreshing take on the process of defining, validating and evaluate your idea and the importance of defining your problem statement in order to find a solution.
The seminar started off with us students dividing into smaller groups to discuss the different texts. Then the whole group started discussing together and most of the seminar went to talking about what a case study is and how it differs from a user study or a conventional research with a proper hypothesis. An object being studied in its natural habitat seemed to be a useful definition and an important thing is that the researchers are to take advantage of an existing situation rather than creating a scenario by themselves. From that point different types of qualitative and quantitative methods are welcomed in the study. I had not really considered the possibility of a case study prior to this week and I find it to be an interesting type of research method. When I did my bachelor's thesis a little over a year ago we were studying the possibility of incorporating Twitter in a creative performance process. We had an existing "case" were a dance company was developing a performance based off of Twitter and we sent out a survey for the users collaborating in the process and held interviews with the choreographers. All our research methods were held after the creative process had finished, so I guess that our project was a case study even though we did not consider this or even had knowledge of this being a certain method at the time.
Dahlberg also gave examples of "cases" being used in other situations, for example a police case or a medical case but also what is being used in economic studies: having a case, or a problem, that the student is supposed to solve. To wrap things up, I think that this week's theme was very interesting an I learned a lot about case studies and maybe a little bit about qualitative studies as well. It was a pleasant ending of this course and it was also good that we were able to ask some questions about the concluding blog post that is coming up after this one.
*We also had a postponed lecture with Haibo Li on Monday about design research and problem solutions. Li is a great lecturer (even though it can sometimes be somewhat difficult to understand) and I found his example from the film Johnny English to be different and a fun way to describe finding simple solutions. This lecture was a refreshing take on the process of defining, validating and evaluate your idea and the importance of defining your problem statement in order to find a solution.
I am glad that you found the course well wrapped up. I also agree that Leif did a good job in teaching us about case studies. Like you, I also found this type of study to be interesting and well rounded, usable. Intredasting that you realized afterwards that your bachelor's thesis actually contained case studies. I found the Haibo Li lecture exciting and refreshing as well! Perhaps what we need as students is sometimes just a bit of inspiration.
SvaraRaderaHi,
SvaraRaderaI liked the way as you explained the advantage of selecting existing situation for case studies. I think in this way you can have a deeper knowledge of problem, and it will be easy to investigate it further and prepare questionnaire as you did in you bachelor's thesis. It is interesting that now you realized that actually you used case study method in your thesis :) I also think that Haibo Li's lecture was exciting and different from other's themes.