For this weeks theme I read the articles "Perceptual evaluation of violins: A quantitative analysis of preference judgments by experienced players" and "Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection". I also read about different qualitative and quantitative methods and approaches on the course web page and extensively on wikipedia.
I found the seminar of this week to be the most valuable part of this theme. It was a fun and good way to learn a lot more about how to relate to quantitative research. What I feel like is the most important lesson is that the research design down to the smallest detail is crucial for the results obtained. There are so many factors to consider when gathering data and the result is bound to be biased or useless if only a few factors are taken into account. It seems to me like it is a good idea not only to test your study in small scale before deploying it, as we were told in the seminar, but also to use some sort of focus group to come up with problems and ideas for conduct when designing your study. By discussing benefits, disadvantages, possibilities and limitations in group in the seminar we came up with a lot of ideas that I wouldn't have come up with on my own.
The article I chose had implemented a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods which came up in the articles and reflections for next weeks theme. I think this was another valuable lesson. When conducting a study based on qualitative methods adding a quantitative part will greatly help in discussing and clarifying the results.
Some issues regarding how to design a questionnaire also came up during the seminar. I have many times been irritated when answering questionnaires that do not give me the options I'd like to have or where answering is simply to tedious. I've thought that this is just a natural part of questionnaires in general and that designing these is at least as tedious as answering them. But I'm starting to think that it might be really interesting to design a questionnaire. They rely on so many psychological factors about stuff like how to create unambiguous questions, driving motivation for participants to answer and what questions to include. What is relevant, necessary and sufficient questions in a questionnaire?
A great post and it seems that you have understood the concept of quantitative methods and analysis. I did also enjoy this weeks seminar. As you mention it is very important to do a pilot test before launching something. Great Idea of focus groups but don't you think there will be issues with resources and also you need to find people that have the right knowledge for putting together a study?
SvaraRaderaHi Andreas!
SvaraRaderaI think that you manage to reflect upon the key points from this theme. To try you questionnaire before sending it to the responders are indeed crucial since you might be blind to your own mistakes.
I was thinking of the benefits, disadvantageous, possibilities and limitations that you mentioned, i would like to hear an example of a thing that you didn't know and learned on the seminar. According to me, most of the was kind of obvious, but still they are aspects that you normally don't think about, and then they was more highlighted than new knowledge.
Combining quantitative and qualitative methods are indeed useful!
There are indeed many psychological factors that you should consider when desiging a questionnaire. I thought it was interesting that Olle said that When you are designing a questionnaire, you should, or must, hace an alternativ that are "in the middle" otherwise the responders get angry. I thought before that it was good not to have that alternative because people then had to reflect more and not just give the easiest answer, but i was wrong.
Good job!
Hi Andreas! Good Post!
SvaraRaderaYou mention that questionairre "rely on so many psychological factors about stuff like how to create unambiguous questions, driving motivation for participants to answer and what questions to include." I agree but do you think researchers and journalists use these psychological factors to get a prefered result or do you think it's unintentional?