This week’s theme was quantitative research, we read one
article of choice and 'Drumming in
immersive virtual reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play'. This was an
interesting article about if our body influences our attitudes and behavior.
They showed this by doing an experiment with 36 Caucasians who played the
Djembe. They choose the Djembe as an instrument because they wanted an
instrument that is attached to a certain culture, wearing certain clothes and
it was also supposed to fit in the room that they were going to use for the
experiment. The participants saw either a formal light-skinned or a causal
dark-skinned virtual body that represented them. One of the conclusions that
was drawn from this experiment was that both groups felt a sense of ownership,
but the group who was represented by the causal dark-skinned body also felt
that they were more expressive then normal. This answer supports the hypothesis
of the researchers.
The participants of the previous research paper weren’t aware of the
hypothesis of this research, so the results were based on the (honest) opinion
of the participants. The paper that I read for this theme argued that Virtual Customer Service
Agents (VCSA’s) can influence online service experiences positively also based on an experiment, an
experimental survey, but in this case the participants were aware of the
research question that the researchers wanted to answer. The drawn conclusions confirmed
to the hypothesis of the researcher. While I was reading the paper I was
wandering why they told the participants, as this will influence the results
(the researchers didn’t reflect on this). And now its clear to me that is
better to not say what the aim is. The researchers can’t make generalizations
based on the results as in my opinion the results can’t be seen as valid, as it
could be that the participants answered the questions in favor of the
hypothesis.
During the lecture, Illias Bergstrom, one of the researchers of 'Drumming in immersive virtual reality: The
Body Shapes the Way We Play’ explained the different steps they went
through and the process before the experiment. That for an example the
participants were interviewed (a qualitative method) but that the data was only
used to build the theory, so no conclusions were drawn from the data. As you
can’t do quantitative research with qualitative data.
We also discussed how much time a research consumes, I came to the
understanding that first of all analyzing the data can take a lot of work as
you need to do this very precisely to avoid misinterpretations of the results.
Second of all when a research is sent to a Journal it can take months before
the paper is published, as it needs to go through the peer-to-peer review and
the feedback that you get, needs to be improved before it can be considered for
publishing. And then you also need to hope that your chosen subject fits with
the topic of that month’s issue, if it doesn’t you need to wait again.
I also understand the process researchers go through to get results that
are as valid as possible, for an example piloting an experiment as many times
as possible, so that any mistake can be corrected before the actual experiment
and that it is important to know in advance what kind of analysis you want to
do to.
This week’s theme was very helpful and the information is good to know regardless
of if you want to become a researcher or not.
