In the lecture we talked about how to structure your (design-)research. Starting of with an introduction and background about related works. Then moving on to the methods like overview diagrams, photos from workshops, sketches et cetera. Then come the results of the research, again illustrated with photos or diagrams and alike. And lastly the discussion with the illustrated articulation of the researches insights and his main findings. Ideally also articulating possible improvements and outlooks for further research.
We also talked about research design being different from commercial design work. Research design is intended to gain new knowledge. But in order to do so one needs to articulate ones findings. Artifacts and pictures are not self explanatory. Data without proper interpretation is just data, not new knowledge. Only by interpreting the data and articulating it, it becomes research and new knowledge. Design research is not about articulating ideas that are already there, but the process of designing is needed to shape the ideas.
We also looked at the remake of Ylva Fernaeus & Jakob Tholanders remake of their 2005 design. The change of technology forced a change of the experiment. In 2005 screens on the NFC-Detectors would have been extremely costly and therefore weren't even considered. In 2015 however, basically every smartphone comes with an NFC-Detector. Not using the screen would have been a waste of resource. On the other hand the NFC-Detectors in smartphones can only read whatever is on the back of the phone. The cards therefore had to be redesigned into patches on the floor.
In the Seminar we talked about replicability. We concluded that a true replication of an experiment with the same outcome is impossible because technology and the knowledge people have change over time, therefore one can either replicate the experiment and analyze the different outcome, or one has to change the experiment, so one would get the same outcome. The latter being done in the remake of Fernaeus & Tholander. This however only applies to social sciences. In the "hard sciences" it is possible and also very important to replicate an experiment and to come to the same conclusion. The laws of physiques don't change like people do, therefore it is possible to replicate experiments even after a long time. Whether there is an easier way to do this now compared to the past is a different topic.
When you say that replication isn't possible within social sciences, do you mean specifically design research within social sciences? In that case, why would it be more replicable with "hard sciences" if you are only referring to design research? It seems like you could've clarified this in your text, as well as what exactly is contained within "hard sciences".
ReplyDeleteHi! Thanks for your interesting reflection. I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteTo elaborate on your taught of replicability being more important in “hard science” than in other researches. I don’t agree with this statement, I think that a study being replicable is important for the all research fields. I only think that because technology keeps evolving and the environment keeps changing, replicabily in for instance design research is much harder to achieve, but it doesn’t make it less important. As Ylva said during the lecture, there are often questions raised of design research over time, as the attempt to copy doesn’t necessary yield the same results.
I enjoyed reading your reflection, seems like we had a lot of similar thoughts on the subject. I agree with you about data needing to be interpreted correctly for it to be research and considered new knowledge.
ReplyDeleteWhen talking about replicability we had some of the same ideas, in my seminar group we also discussed how replicability would be very difficult as it all changes very quickly, and that we can either replicate the experiment, but then get a different result and analyse why, or we can change (or modify) the experiment in order to get the same outcome.
It was an interesting reflection. I had a similar understanding in some of your points. The time aspect and the fact that the setting and tools are changing it would not be surprising if a replicated research resulted in new results as you said. Though in the hard sciences we can not exclude that some elements have been missed out or not thought through during earlier studies because of the lack of advanced tools we have today, but it is more evident that the attitudes and behaviour of people changes with time in social studies.
ReplyDeleteThank 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?
ReplyDeleteWe also discussed the differences in commercial design and design research; in my mind it’s a huge distinction in commercial design and academic design. On a commercial basis the researcher works to create new but also for money, the result does not need a scientific relevance. Maybe it would be better to call design-oriented research, design science research? What I understand from reading papers and the discussion at the seminar design-oriented research is not as widely accepted as other more traditional disciplines, however its getting more and more accepted. I believe its good that design research is being more and more accepted because traditional science is not the only source of building knowledge.
ReplyDeleteReplication is less important in design-oriented research however its still have relevance and value for theory building; it’s a problem with the “replication crisis”.
Thanks for your thoughts and reflections.
I like how you bring up that artifacts and pictures are not self explanatory. I think I would have a hard time reproducing the research based on the information given in the papers for this theme. I brought this questions up to discussion during the lecture and the researcher was positive that the research could be reproduced based on the facts given in the paper. I think there is a risk that you as a researcher could become so familiar with a topic that you have a harder time accounting for the information needed to reproduce a study in a valid way. You write that they the change of technology forced the researchers to change the experiment. I don’t agree with that. They were not forced, they simply adopted the study to a more modern context.
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