Comments theme 1:
(1) When I read your first blogpost I saw that you already understood quite well the concept about knowledge as perception and the understanding through, but not with the senses. In your second blogpost you build up on your first post and give more perspectives and accesses to it. I like it that you are drawing a connection between the content from the texts and lectures and its influence on science and research. I agree with you that there is a demand of defining the result or answer you are looking for, but I think that looking at current researches in the fields of media theory these basic questions about how knowledge and how to perceive it are not essential anymore. These discussions and general questions are being held on a different level.
Further I like that you are giving a kind of "preview" on where these discussions about different knowledge and different perceptions of the world might lead.
All in all I think that you have a good understanding of theme 1 and you are even able to start connecting it to topics outside of the course content.
(2) While reading your first blog post I already could see that you understood Socrates thoughts in the beginning already, just like it would have been after the lecture and group discussion. Really interesting for me was that you took Kant's opinion about "thinking out of the box" already in the first blog post to another level and gave an access to it, that was outside of the text. This is really unique as I have seen so far. Most of the bloggers (me included) were so busy with understanding the texts and its meaning that we couldn't take a step back and understand what it means as a whole concept. In your second blogpost you underlined the knowledge theories even more with examples and drew connections outside of philosophy, like journalism. This was really interesting to read. The very most I like your final conclusion: "There is a reason but no pure reason". It sums up what you take out of this whole theme one. Good work.
(3) I like it that you set the focus of your second blog post more or less on empiricism and how the opinions of Plato and Kant agree or disagree with it. I like your thought that knowledge can never be "pure", since each and everyone has a different cultural, historical or language background. That means that the a priori knowledge varies a lot from person to person. This might have also been a reason why Kant's first book was so often misinterpreted. Considering that prior to Kant no one was able to put these thoughts about knowledge somehow into words, the opinion of him was misunderstood according to a priori knowledge, based on early attempts on knowledge.
(4) When I was reading the texts I felt just like you a little bit lost when it came to the proper understanding of the content. I think that you got already the main ideas in the first post about theme 1. Compared to you for me the lecture was more helpful than the group discussion. Although it was a lot of content in a short amount of time, it gave me a deeper understanding of the philosophical history around knowledge and where Plato and Kant are to be located inside of that. That helped me more than the group discussions, since they were not really aimed at a specific question, just like you said.
(5) I see in what you wrote that you (just like me) needed the lecture to understand as well the background of Kant and the philosophical historical placement. Even though you explained in your second post quite clear the different aspects of Kant's theory, I miss a little bit of the reflective part, meaning what changed in your own opinion or knowledge about it. So maybe you could bring in more from that perspective the next time. Otherwise it's well written.
(6) When I was reading your first blog post about theme 1 I recognized the interpretation of Kant's understanding of knowledge towards a "god's objectivity", that is not achievable for humans. That is the conclusion that so many other interpreters had after the publishing of the "Pure Reason". In your second blog post you come back to that again but through the lecture and discussion your opinion about that changed. I like the most about your reflection that you apply Kant's perception of knowledge to our learning (or gaining knowledge) process on the course. And your are right, each and everyone's reflection is just their perception of the gained knowledge. Good thought.
(7) I think you really hit the point about our first theme. The thoughts got even more complex through the lecture and seminar, but more clear at the same time as well. I understood the whole topic after last week just like you. About the structure of your second blog I like that you are reconstructing the new knowledge or perspectives we received and then go on to your own opinion about it.
Our discussion went just like yours towards the question if there exists a different world for everyone, because of our different cultural backgrounds. It is an interesting thought that we all live on such a "small" space (compared to the space of the universe) together, but at the same time we all live in a somehow different world.
(8) I agree with you that it is hard to get started in this topics without philosophical background. I had the same issue, that all the theories I was faced with during the last years were different to access. I am not used to this philosophical kind of thinking either, but I agree with you that it was interesting to shift the own ways of thinking during the first week.
After having read some blog posts so far and listening to the group discussions, I think a lot of these went into the direction if everyone has their "own" world they live in based on own knowledge, received according to background (culture, language, etc.). To come back from this understanding to the world as it is (so "only" one world) might be difficult. There might still be a discrepancy between the world as it is and the world as we perceive it.
(9) You wrap up Kant’s theory about knowledge quite well. Especially your examples give it a more easy access to understanding. I think we all benefited in the lecture a lot of the examples that were posed there.
I am somehow not sure if I understood the connection of synthetic judgment and a priori like you. I interpreted that Kant brought up that question for being able to verify or falsify metaphysical questions, since we have no way (maybe not yet) to judge about its truth a posteriori. So it is not necessarily misleading, but has a big potential of gaining more knowledge about the yet unknown.
(10) you are having a great talent in expressing yourself. The thoughts that you are beginning your post with, the applying of the perception of knowledge to yourself, are really interesting. I didn't think about that until now. It's a good perspective on life that it's not necessary to question our own perceptions and our own world picture all the time, but sometimes we have to do that and challenge ourselves to give us the opportunity to develop and grow mentally. Somehow I think that our view on the world as we know it can be changed we quickly nowadays, because we are exposed to much information through digital media. The question is if this exposure makes us question our own perception even more of if we get immune to it?
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Comments theme 2:
(1) Hej! I enjoyed reading your reflection blog on theme 2 a lot. You are really honest with the reflection about what you didn't know before and learned throughout the week. I like your idea of a dialectic discussion between the US presidential candidates. Actually I think if the politicians everywhere would discuss more with and not against each other, the political issues that all the countries are facing would be way less. I doubt that a dialectic discussion would ever be possible during election campaigns. Though it would still be a fun concept. Maybe it would lead to enlightenment?
(2) Hi! I think your opinion about the theme 2 topics are really interesting. You give the concept of Nominalism a special importance and adapted the concept quite well on other topics. It is interesting to think about where a greater Nominalism movement would lead? If all “shapes” or “versions” of something would be accepted instead of just “one true version” of it. Would that lead to a world without prejudices or stereotypes?
(3) I think you adapted the concept of superstructure and substructure quite well to our everyday life. I agree with you that especially the changes through the new media are already and might be having in future even more a huge influence on behavior and culture. Your mentioning of the article you wrote is really interesting. I didn’t before about the use of the cell phone as “phone” just as one other app under several others. The concept phone has changed a lot and really fast in the last some years. We can only guess in which way these “hints” of the substructure might lead in the superstructure of the future.
(4) Just like you, I had struggles in the beginning as well to understand why aura is so important for Benjamin, but then he just accepts the destroying of it. Through the seminar and the discussions we had there I began realizing what kind of benefits the destroying of the aura can have. There is a way greater meaning behind it as it seems in the first moment. You mentioned right, that it is a strong argument against the bourgeoisie. But what does that mean on a bigger scale? It is the force against oppression of the working people, of the ones that do the work, but didn’t have a lot of influence back then. In my opinion Benjamin was a great and revolutionaty thinker back then.
(5) I agree with you that the most interesting thought I got from the last week as well is about the aura from Benjamin. I like how easily you just put it there (aura=uniqueness). According to me it is really interesting that Benjamin sees the value in destroying this uniqueness of a thing. The replication leads automatically to education, because a lot of people get access to something that they might not have seen otherwise. It is interesting what a great advantage it is for our society to be able to reproduce things.
(6) Thank you for this reflection that was really nice to read. I like how you draw the line from theme 1 to the theme 2 and linked them through that together. I think that is it what this whole course is about: Being able to understand the historical background of knowledge and it’s meaning in the world of today. Thank you for the book recommendation. I consider taking a look at it, maybe even before the course is over.
Your three statements in the end are giving someone a lot of thoughts after reading the post. Especially the last one about the potential of changing the superstructure through developing technological solutions. I think too many people think that the new media and the changes in the last years are having only a bad influence on the society that we’ll have in the future. Not many see the potential influence that we might have on it just through shaping it and educating the society on how to use it reflected. The internet and immense use of digital technology has brought a singularity (Prensky, 2001, p. 1) with itself that might not be changeable anymore and taken back. We should think about how we can have the very best influence on the development of it.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon, 9 (5), pp. 1-6.
(7) Just like you the concept of Nominalism was as well for me (next to the aura concept) one of the most interesting discussion topics. I also thought about how our world would look like if we all would not think and see things in “groups”, like humans, trees or books, but as individuals. The grouping of things often lead to stereotypes and narrow-mindedness.
What I ask myself is if we are even able to understand the world in just individualistic things. If we wouldn’t have groupings, wouldn’t that make understanding of facts and building of theories really difficult? We built theories generalize processes and built constructs that are applicable to a whole group of people and not just individuals. Wouldn’t a nominalistic world somehow lead to a world without theories?
(8) Hi! I like your reflection of all the different concepts we talked about in theme 2.
The most I like your comparison of the church and science in the topic Enlightenment and their big difference of accepting criticism. Especially the researchers of today are not having it easy to just state things. Through peer-review and a lot of other reflecting from colleagues and the society they are maybe sometimes overwhelmed by criticism. But that is how research works today and actually it is good to have it like that. It makes it credible and believable, just like you said.
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Comments theme 3:
(1) Hello,
You wrote some interesting thoughts about last week in your reflection. I agree with you that it is really hard to put into words what we think what theory is, and it is even harder to explain it to someone who had never heard of it (or even thought of it).
However, the most important part for me in your reflection is the following statement: "hypotheses are formulated without scientific substantiation, whereas theories have to have some sort of proof before they are formed." I think you brought it really on the point. To form a theory you need to proof hypotheses that lead you to this theory. You can not just come up with a theory and say that it is true. There has to be some kind of verification about what the theory states. To your description of the hypotheses I’d like to add that even though you don’t SCIENTIFIC substantiation, you still need a reason why you are stating the hypotheses. In every scientific paper are other papers or theories mentioned, which motivated someone to build specific hypotheses in a research field.
(2) Thank you for the further explanation about how the impact factor is built. After the last week I knew how to interpret it, but not really how it is measured or where the number was coming from. So thanks for clarifying that. The paper you chose sounds really interesting. I go along with you in the thought that online searches with natural language mostly leads you faster to your desired finding. At the same time you just need to know how to use search engines right to find whatever you search way more effective. Anyway, when I read your reflection on the chosen article I thought immediately about the keywords “semantic web”. Maybe that could also be interesting for you in this field.
(3) Hi, thank you for this nice reflection on the last week’s theme. Obviously we were in other discussion groups, because in our group the topic about the wrong use of the term “theory” didn’t come up at all. It is interesting to think about it though. According to me many words a used really wrong in the everyday language, but that is just my opinion. According to me their use is wrong, because I might have more knowledge about the meaning of the word or concepts behind it, like now about theory. It could also just be because the synapses in my brain are connected differently about that term than the synapses of the other person. And according to them their usage of the word is right. It would be interesting to research how and when words are taken away from their alleged meaning and used in a wrong way (according to an object perspective).
(4) In comparison to the previous comment by u1kq1ay0 I agree with you on the statement that there exist different definitions of theories. A theory in a natural science can not be compared to a theory in social sciences. Theories are differently produced and especially used. What the papers we had to read in advance to theme 3 just try to build a theory around theory again. It gets more and more abstract. In the end I agree with the statement, that theories have to answer some kind of questions through models or designs. The way they do it can vary not only from field to field, but as well from theory to theory. There is no rule how one should look like, and there can be no rule, because every construct is differently and demands through that a different way of explanation/question-answering.
(5) 󠆜¡Hola! I like the own definition of a theory at the end of your blogpost. That is really much the definition my group came to after the discussion we had. The description of the quite messy way to get there makes it quite clear how a theory is formed. However, I’d like to add a little bit to the way to get there. The way hypotheses are formed that you described covers more qualitative than quantitative researches. In a qualitative research you start with your research question and go into the field with a quite open mind about how it can be answered. Hypotheses are built after through the finding of the data, just as you described. But when we take a look at quantitative research, you mostly form the hypotheses that might verify or falsify your research question in advance and collect the data based on that. Your data is there then to proof or reject the hypotheses. Based on that you build the theory. At least that’s the way I learned it.
(6) I think a lot of people don’t learn to see the difference between theory and hypotheses. Actually it is not relevant to understand that there is difference before you go into research. I think you understood the difference between both words quite well now after the lecture and seminar. This just shows how important it is that we all have to talk and discuss about the themes, because it helps us to understand it more. That we all are having different background helps even more to get more perspectives on something. To the statement “theory is true unless it is proven wrong” I’d like to add, that not anything can be a true theory, just because it is not proven wrong. Actually theories live and exist through the continuous try of falsifying it.
(7) Thank you for the good explanation what a theory is and how we get there. You mentioned the links to the previous topics and how every new topic builds on the previous one and at the same time it helps us understanding the relevance of the previous theme even more. Especially here theories are the enlightenment of our theoretical knowledge of understanding the world. And I agree with you on the statement that a theory stays a theory even though it was falsified. Then it’s simply a wrong theory, but still has the status of trying to explain a construct.
(8) Thank you for your good reflection on theme 3. You made clear what your definition from the first blogpost missed out and added it to your explanation. Though I agree with your understanding of theories, I not completely agree with your relation between hypotheses and a theory. You said that a hypothesis is a proposed theory. I think that hypotheses not just turn into a theory when they are verified. It’s more the collection of several hypotheses that got verified or falsified who build the basement of your theory. They don’t cover the whole construct or question. Each hypothesis focuses on one relation between two characters in a theory. So according to me a theory is based on a collection of hypotheses who were proven right or wrong and through that can a theory be constructed.
(9) Hello and thank you for your thoughtful explanation of what theory is and how are we to understand it. The thing that made me think the most in your blogpost was the thought if theory is qualitative or not. I’m not sure if my understanding is wrong, but I understood that qualitative and quantitative describe the method in a research and no the theory that is coming out in the end. Theory mostly has it’s roots in qualitative or quantitative methodically collected data. The theory itself is neither of them. But that was just my understanding. It would be nice to have a discussion about this :).
(10) Hello and thank you for your well-thought reflection. It’s impressive how you add so many recommendations for further readings and information from outside the topic. I like that a lot and it just shows how clearly you understand the themes that are covered in this course. You don’t only reproduce the learned information, but also make connections to a lot of other topics. You’re explanation of a theory is really accurate and I like especially how you bring up the often (maybe too often) used term of “I have a theory” in everyday language, although - according to scientific research it should be more called “I have a hypothesis. But who does that? Exactly - nobody, because in our “normal” speaking we mostly don’t reflect on the meaning of common sayings or constructs, like “I have a theory” - but that’s just my system of ideas.
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Comments theme 4:
(1) Thank you for your nice and sharp reflection. I think we all agree on the difficulty of having not enough content to fill the second blog entry like the others. I somehow stumbled over your meaning of “objective data”. What is “objective data” according to you? Mostly likely it shall explain that we seek for data that is not manipulated or influenced by the researcher’s opinion or other external factors. I think we should ask us the question if data can be objective at all? Yes, the collection of it can be objective, but the data itself? I think all the data in researches are subjective. Isn’t that what we are seeking for? The opinions and knowledge of individuals. And that is according to me always subjective.
(2) Thank you for your long and very detailed reflection. I want to comment on two of the topics you mentioned.
(1) According to me there are not necessarily strong skills in maths needed to analyze quantitative data. In Programs like SPSS all the different options for calculations are there already. As a researcher you just have to understand your variables and what different calculations reveal. So the skill is to understand the statistical methods, chose the right (in)dependent variables and know how to interpret the information that the Program is giving you back.
(2) As an addition: The data you mentioned that can be turned into a calculable from is called ordinal data. Categories that can be ranked somehow, but the differences between the stages sees everyone individually. So the treating of this data as interval data is called quasi-metric.
(3) I agree with you that it would be interesting somehow to replicate the research. Maybe especially in this example a further step would not be replication of the exact same experiment with other avatars, but apply the concept to another context. So for example different musical instruments could be used and the stereotypically appropriate avatar. I think the research helped the basic understanding of what is possible with VR and the influences on the behaviors of people in there. Now this knowledge has to be used and applied, and further investigated.
(4) Thank your for this really nice and detailed reflection of theme 4. It is clear that you understood the principles of quantitative research and in that field how to do an experiment. The most important part for me to read here was the importance of the researcher in a quantitative research. Someone who hasn’t been active in this field might think that the computer program does everything for you. You put in the data and get out a theory. But just like you said, this is not the case. The role of researcher is really important when it comes to the interpretation of the analyzed data. Especially when it goes over descriptive tests. There a lot of side influences and sometimes mediator variables that can have an effect on the other variables as well. It’s the researcher’s role to understand and interpret and form then a theoretical construct that can lead to a new theory.
(5) Thank you for your very detailed reflection on theme 4. I disagree with you partly on the focus of qualitative methods that you mentioned. That it “emphasizes numerical data and focuses on generalizing and systematizing the collected data”. Maybe you meant here quantitative methods? Because qualitative methods are not at all about the collection of numerical data. You collect data, categorize it and interpret the newly formed construct according to your categorization. Your aim is here to understand and not generalize your findings. Since your whole reflection is very detailed and shows your knowledge in this field, I think that you just mixed up the words qualitative and quantitative there.
Like some others here I was wondering that you didn’t come across many quantitative researches in social sciences and humanities. Many of the groundbreaking findings have been made with quantitative methods and when I was looking for my qualitative paper for theme 6 I found way more quantitative than qualitative studies, but maybe that was just because of the journals I chose.
(6) As addition to the first comment from u1cq6h0z, qualitative research is not just more subjective, because the researcher has a higher involvement in data collection, but also because the data analyzation depends more on the prior knowledge of the researcher and his experience. It is about reading in between the lines and understanding the construct behind it. In quantitative research the data is numerical and there is no reading between the lines necessary or possible. That doesn’t mean that the one or other are more difficult or more valuable. Both aim for a different understanding of the field. According to me that’s the most important to understand about research in social sciences.
(7) Hello and thank you for the thoughts about the last theme. That you reflect on your first assumptions show that you understood the topic so well that can apply it. I want to add here that not all quantitative research methods need to have a dependent and independent variable. That goes for experiments. The observation you mentioned could have been qualitative, but as well quantitative. So observations when you just count different occurrences are quantitative. As a short example: During my Bachelor studies we made a quantitative study about the communication in social networks during and after the broadcasting of a specific TV series. We built a catalogue with all the different categories and their optional answers in advance. The observation was then made of the posts on several social networks. Anyway when it comes to online observations, it can get very close to a content analysis. But that just as addition.
(8) Thank you for your really personal feedback on quantitative and qualitative research methods. It’s true that a disadvantage of quantitative methods is that every individual might interpret scales different than others. Researchers are aware of that and try to solve this problem. Because of this constructs are sometime not just investigated in single questions, but as a group of variables, that are summed up to an index. The statistical analysis is made with this value. A different interpretation of one question by the participants is not that strong valued anymore. In general, it can not be said that one of the methods is better than the other. It always depends on the field, the previous researches in that field, and the research intention. We need both methods (1) to be able to identify new constructs and theories and (2) to be able to generalize theories and verify or falsify them. I agree with you that a mixture of both methods in one research can be really suitable depending on the intention, but if that’s possible is often a financial question.
(9) Thank you for this really interesting blog post. The explanation of the research you and your research partner conducted is really interesting. The possibility that you could answer you research questions quantitative and qualitative is really valuable. Mostly the mixture of methods gives us the best understanding. On the one hand we can investigate and identify constructs and how they really look like. At the same time these findings are generalized through a survey where a lot participants are included. I think that you completely understood the value of each research method and how to combine them reasonably. All in all good reflection!
(10) What a great post! You didn’t only show and explain the method of quantitative research, but also offered your opinion about how valuable it can be. I liked that you pointed out the benefit in the supplementing of qualitative and quantitative. That’s most important thought according to me. I agree with you that it is really important to understand statistical data and know how to interpret it - not only for researchers. Many people believe statistics “just because” it looks and sounds trusting, although so many of them are manipulated. When we just take a look at the presidential elections there are so many statistical diagrams published online which all show different outcomes about the same topic. Just like you said, it’s important to understand and question them for everyone.
Thank you for your thoughts!
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Comments theme 5:
(1) I agree with you that there is no right answer to question if all researches have to be replicable. Just like you said the hard sciences life basically just through the replicability. Just because of that it has been seen for a long time as the only and “true” sciences. Already in school we learn through experiments how replicability works in the hard sciences. Their theories are mostly seen as facts and not theoretical concepts anymore.
In our field of social sciences it is way harder to understand and come to a conclusion if a theory has to be replicable and what the value for us is if we replicate it. Just like you mentioned, the things that shall be explained are human behavior, attitudes, relations and so on. According to me theories don’t have to be replicated to stay valid. Researches should just be presented and reported in a reasonable and comprehensible way.
Good reflection!
(2) I like your elaboration about knowledge contribution and what kind of knowledge design researches are contributing. I think it can be both, the design process as well as the outcome of research. I think with your statement “it may not mean much in couple of years” you underestimate to value of design researches. Although the theories constructed might not be applicable due to technical or behavioral changes, it is still an important piece of knowledge that helps us understand the time and space it was found in.
(3) Thank you for this well written reflection on last week’s theme. The meaning of replicability in social sciences is something that can’t be answered easily, just like you said. We have to figure out how important it is for a research to be replicated. Does this try of verification or falsification strengthen a theory actually? Maybe we should see the replication of researches and its outcomes as an addition to the first theory. This addition could be an adapted version of the theory according to space and time.
(4) Thank you for your well written reflection on theme five. I agree with you in most of your points, although I wouldn’t necessarily say that “a true replication of an experiment with the same outcome is impossible”. I think it depends on the time that has passed since the first research and what kind of changes happened in the meantime. Further the similarities of the proband groups can have a big influence about the replicability of a research. It would be interesting to hear more about what a “true replication” is for you?
(5) Thank you for your nice reflection. I like the point you made about the replicability a lot. In the end it may not be about getting the same results, but broaden the knowledge in a specific field, based on earlier researches. According to that you are completely right: The journey is more important than the destination. Or at least as least as important, because the outcome or a replication can be a valuable addition to an earlier theory.
(6) Well done! This is really nice and well-written reflection on research through design, the meaning of data itself and if it should or can be reproduced. I liked the most your own interpretation of the thought behind replication researches. It’s true that the aim is not to copy someone else's research and try to replicate it, but adapt it to gain a new part of knowledge and theory.
(7) Thank you for this nice reflection. You stated clearly what you learned and how the discussions in the seminar went. I also had some struggles with defining the empirical data in advance. From my experience of reading papers of other researches (not design researches) they start with the introduction and theoretical background, continue with the method and after that the empirical data is presented and in a last step the data is interpreted and discussed. In the papers about empirical design there was no such structure. So I was also confused about what it could be. You described it very nicely, that especially in research through design the way the goal is, so that the empirical data is. The problem is that you can’t really define it like in other researches, where it’s the statistical data or an interview protocol. The form of it can vary a lot between the researches and also inside a research.
(8) Really good reflection. Your starter with the question what the opposite of empirical data is, is really interesting. Maybe it’s a little bit hard to define, since empirical data can have so many forms, so maybe the question could be: What is not empirical data or what is empirical data not? I’m not sure if I’d agree with all the examples that you made, since hypotheses are not just thought out, but mostly base on empirical data (at least in qualitative research). But it’s really interesting to think about!
Further I like your description of the replication of a research as a sequel to the previous and replicated investigation. This gives it the value it deserves as an addition to previously gained knowledge.
Thank you for your nice thoughts.
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Comments theme 6:
(1) Thank you for your really interesting reflection about the last theme 6. I think you understood the concept of qualitative studies, as well as case studies quite well. One thing that I came across was, that you wrote the more approaches that are used, the higher the validity a study will have. I’m not sure if I agree completely with that statement. I think especially in qualitative studies, which are explorative in the first point, a use of more approaches just makes the theory more detailed or better worked out. Validity comes when the theory is applied to other groups and contexts and still works.
But all in all, good work!
(2) Hello and thank you for your thoughts on qualitative and case study research. You summed it up really nicely and reflected on what you learned. I think I just understood one thing different that mentioned in the very beginning. Especially after the discussion, I was of the opinion that not case studies are a form of qualitative research, but more qualitative research can be a form of case studies. Since case studies can also include some kind of quantitative studies, I think both of them are not directly comparable. They are on different levels. But that’s just how I understood it.
(3) Wow! Thank you for this really nice and detailed reflection about the last theme in this course. I think you understood the topics really well and I can just say that I agree with you on everything you mentioned. I think that the most people who are not somehow aware of research methods mix up the terms of experiment and case study or theory and hypothesis. When someone learns about research there are sometimes this bright moments of understanding that you used specific terms wrong your entire life (according to a research context). I think it’s just interesting to experience shifts in understanding something that enlightens you. All in all: Great post! Just like the others before. You always managed to sum it up in a really concrete and interesting way with adding also some additional information you found somewhere else.
(4) Thank you for this very interesting reflection and as well for bringing up this specific question during the seminar that you are talking about! If you wouldn’t have brought up that question I don’t think we would have discussed about that and tried to find and answer. Especially in the example of your case study it can be really confusing to see the differences. In the end I agree with you that we sorted it out quite well, that a case study has way more specific borders and and at the same time the openness to upcoming research questions is way higher. In a qualitative research the research question is mostly set, so the focus is more narrow, but the field of interest way bigger than in case studies. so both can be really different or just shaped in really similar way like in your example.
Thank you for that again. Discussing about that really widened my view on the topic.
(5) Thank you for your really interesting post. I think you wrap up the theme very well. the lecture and seminar gave me, just like you, also a different understanding about what a case study is and how it differs from qualitative methods, etc. You said it really well that the main focus is not to achieve a specific kind of knowledge, but to understand a very specific case in order to build a research question. The basic difference to other researches - maybe also in the same field - are that the researchers are not trying to generalize the knowledge they gained, it’s just applicable in this specific case.
(6) Hello and thank you for this really nice reflection. You wrapped up and explained case studies really detailed. I mostly liked your description of the case or field in the case study as a “live lab”. That’s actually really true. As a researcher you are trying to dive in into a field that maybe never was approached by a researcher before. It’s very special and as a researcher you can be really free and sometimes quite creative in finding research solutions that fit perfectly in the environment.
Just like you the theme was really interesting for me as well, because I learned a lot about it before in Bachelor studies, but never saw the huge potential in it. Earlier it was just another approach for me.
(7) What a nice reflection you wrote! Thank you for that. Just like the understanding that the aim of case studies to come up with questions was a real perspective changer for me. I simply didn’t know about that before, although it is obviously a central aspect of case studies.
Further the thought about different people who benefit from the outcome of a research is really interesting for me, too. Especially when the funder for a research is someone that has own intentions on what could come out that is helpful for them. Together with that goes, that in some cases the anonymity of the probands can be secured, what is one of the essentials of researches in general. So it can be sometimes a challenge to do a research so that it satisfies the interest of all involved partners.
(8) Thank you for providing this really nice reflection on case studies and qualitative research. I agree with you that the anonymisation of data in a qualitative research or case study can be very difficult. Especially when it comes to a study of this scale that also involves some kind of open media work. If they would to the research one more time, maybe they would not open it up to the public that much anymore. At the same time sometimes the funder insists on something like that what contradicts with basic research standards. As researchers we have to be aware of it and figure out a way to cope with it in a way that satisfies the funder and the research.
Thank you for all the other really nicely written reflections in this course! You have a great way to express yourself.
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