During last week I have studied the benefits and limitations
of qualitative and quantitative research methods, the only assigned litterature
for last week was two papers which purpose was not to explore the benefits and
limitations of different research methods. As a result I searched the web for
litterature about qualitative and quantitative methods and their
characteristics.
I believe that this weeks subject was a great preparation
for the master thesis, it would also have been really nice to have some of this
knowledge before doing the bachelor thesis which would have saved me some
trouble in the process of defining a good method for solving our research
question.
The structure of last weeks seminar was a bit different from
the earlier seminars. The seminar group were devided into four teams where we
competed in a game based on the word game ”boggle”. I really liked this weeks
structure of the fact that it led to intense discussions and tips from Olle
Bälter about the benefits and limitations about quantitative and qualitative
research as well as paper vs web questionnaires.
If i had to choose one of the many things i learned at the
seminar it is the importance of testing questionnaires and surveys. This will help
eliminating errors which otherwise are very troublesome dealing with.
Hi Oscar,
SvaraRaderaYou said that you learned that you should test a questionnaire and survey before using it, I would like to hear how you are suppose to do that and if you learned any good method of doing it?
I also found the lecture structure good and it was nice with another setup, and not the usual lecture on monday and seminar on wednesday. Olle managed to keep up a discussion and still delivers tips and thoughts.
Keep up the good job!
Great blog post! I did too enjoy the game of boggle. I believe gamification of a seminar like this is a good way of engaging the student into "heavy" subjects such as research methods. As you mention, small scale survey testing is really important to discover errors before you put resources into the survey.
SvaraRaderaHi!, Good reflection, very personal which makes it very understandable what you learned after the seminar. Understanding the limitations of qualitative and quantitative methods is essential to do a great job for our master’s thesis.
SvaraRaderaJust like you, I learned a lot on this theme, and I understood the importance of surveys and questionnaires when conducting any type of research, in most cases they form the main method to obtain the data for the study. I also really liked the way the workshop was held, helped us a lot to understand the topic with higher performance, I think that gamification serves in any field, especially for learning.
Isaac Rondon