- The qualitative method used in the paper were focus groups. Though Erixon describes them as interviews, and interviews are pretty straightforward; you ask questions and the interviewee answers them. The difference is that in focus groups you sit two or more people together and discuss the questions that the interviewer ask. So it’s kind of a stricter form of discussion groups; you yourself don’t decide what you’ll talk about. So it’s a trade of losing control from individual interviews to get more perspectives at once. In general, there is a risk that there will be an unspoken consensus of what is ok to say and not to, if people are coming from a homogenous group. Participants may not be able to speak up about what they think because the fear repercussions of what may happen. However, in this particular study, Erixon wants to get to the group thinking, because he believes that it will better reflect the general attitude to ICT in school. A main benefit I haven't mentioned is that you can yield high amounts of data in a short period of time.
- The main thing I really learnt about focus groups is how you can turn a disadvantage to an advantage, depending on how you design a study. Last year, I actually did participate in a focus group regarding the effects of 3D-TV and how it affected my relation to the on screen characters, so the concept of focus groups in not new to me in that sense. So when reading the paper by Erixon, I found it really interesting that obvious disadvantages can be turned around, and it made me wonder if you can do so for other methods too.
- To be honest, I find it hard too see how you could improve the study. As I mentioned, the sample is quite small, so maybe double or triple it and take participants from several schools would make it more rigid. You could also interview persons one at a time, but that wasn’t the goal as stated by Erixon.
To wrap things up, I’ll share my thoughts on the paper by Fernaeus & Jacobsson (2009). From an IxD perspective, I found it really good and interesting. They describe the concepts in an easy to understand way. However, serving as a bridge between qualitative research and design research, it is poor. It is more or less genius design, as they haven't conducted any kind of research with potential end-users, which is kind of required in qualitative methods. So altogether, the paper is really good in the field of IxD, but not in fields where you have to have some contact with the end-users.
References
Erixon, PO. (2012). School subject paradigms and teaching practice in lower secondary Swedish schools influenced by ICT and media. Computers & Education. IF 2.6 (5Y 3.0)
Fernaeus, Y. & Jacobsson, M. (2009). Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction. New York: ACM
Very thorough method here but I think they also could have used close observations as additional qualitative method for when ICT was used.
SvaraRaderaWe had some focus groups in our method during our bachelor thesis. I believe it was harder than I expected to get equally spread widely answers from all the participants, even if the groups were rather small, like 3-4 people in each group. Although we had homogeneous groups, one person often dominated and outvoted the others and perhaps you don´t want to interrupt him or her. Therefore it´s quite hard to accomplish perfect focus groups so to speak even if you are well prepared.
SvaraRaderaIn my paper, homogeneous focus groups were used. I believe it is hard to know if these should be used or not. On the one hand, if you do homogeneous group, everybody will be able to speak and relate to the discussion. But on the other hand, you probably will not get as many disagreements and argument, which I think might be valuable and reflect the real situation. There are pros and cons regarding using homogeneous groups and I think that the best solution is just to think about what fits the focus group, and the field of study, the best and then make a decision.
SvaraRadera