My comments

Theme 1: Theory of Science

Ragnar Schöns blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 13 november 2013 01:45

I really enjoyed your summarizing sentence in question one: "To differentiate between the appearance of an object and the reality or "truth" of an object, Russell introduces sense-data and physical object where the former is the appearance of the latter." Its easy to understand while at the same time highly explanatory.

Your reasoning on what a statement of fact and what a proposition might be is solid, however I don't see any clear reasoning on how they might differ from other verbal expressions?

All and all I think that you answered the questions very well!”

Tommy Roshults blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 13 november 2013 02:04

I like your summary of the notion of sense-data. It was very extensive and explanatory. Your examples of what a proposition might be rings true to me, but maybe you could have reasoned a bit more around what differentiate a proposition or a statement of fact in relation to other verbal expressions.”

Johan Gårdstedts blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 13 november 2013 02:20

It was refreshing to read your different (but still very good) approach/build-up to what the meaning of "sense-data" is and that you highlight that it has to do with the difference between "appearance" and "reality"!

I'm unsure what you mean by "By proposition he means the statements about something, for example an object, name etc." Isn't it more like a statement that describes the name or object? Or am I wrong? Good to see that you put these terms (proposition and statement of fact) in relation to other (mathematical) terms!”

Theme 2: Critical Media Studies

On Stefan Etohs blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 19 november 2013 12:30

I somewhat agree with your points on what "new" and "old" media are according to the authors. I think that the difference between them is partly that "old" media focuses on creativity and individualism while "new" media is the mass production media we have today. The "new" media often stands in the way of the "old" media.

I really enjoyed your examples on mass productions in "todays" society (Disney and Transformers). They sure seem to rely on their winning concepts.”

On Gustav Boströms blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 19 november 2013 12:54

I believe that the "new" media you speak of came to be around the same time as the culture industry did. The "new" media is the media that is used to mass deceit and it leaves no room for the "old" media you speak of. This means that creativity and individualism often take damage.

I agree with your thoughts on mass media and mass deception. I believe that as long as the TV-show producers (for examples) can profit from such (often) brain-dead shows they will continue to spew them out. Maybe it is time for us as consumers to choose our content more carefully?”

Comment on Roshults comment on my blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 21 november 2013 11:51

I agree with your thoughts on the culture industry as something that became very undemocratic and biased over time. At first though, my interpretation of the phenomena is that its purpose was to be something democratic and accessible for all. However, as we know by now, it turns out that we are exposed to this mass deception on a daily basis. Although you have a good point on that we as the consumers has a bigger impact on what we want to consume today. Maybe we should take this power more seriously?”

Theme 3 - Research and Theory

On Mårten Cedermans blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 25 november 2013 11:49

I mostly agree with your explanation of what theory is, although in my opinion I would emphasize that a theory should answer the question "why?" primarily rather than "how?". It has to provide a logical ground for future argument and therefore express something about the reasons behind the statements. However we seem to share the opinion that theory has to contain some sense of interconnectedness.“

Answer to Poya Tavakolians comment on my blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 25 november 2013 12:34

I agree with you that the "limitations" I speak of could be viewed as strengths but I argue that it is mostly a limitation due to its lack of broad perspective aspects. In order to be able to say something in general about the presence in golf simulators you have to be able to apply it in a wide scale. Not entirely sure that I understand what you mean by your second sentence?”

On Amanda Andersson Glass’ blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 25 november 2013 13:08

I think that you summarized the question of what theory is very well and you supply valid arguments on which theories the authors of your paper use, and why they do it. However I think that one important benefit (that you didn't talk so much about) of using the design and action theory is that the complete model can be examined in other aspects, like completeness, simplicity and ease of use (Gregor 2006). Even though the model may not be relevant to a specific situation it can still be examined on these criteria. Or maybe this is what you were aiming at when you talk about "testing and analyzing the system through an experiment"?”

Answer to Stefan Etohs comment on my blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 26 november 2013 11:46

To answer your questions the focus of the golfers in the paper were to have fun by playing golf and not to buy new clubs.

In the paper they aim to examine the relative importance of two dimensions, telepresence and social presence, in presence occurring during the virtual golf simulator experience. They provide a prediction that perceived enjoyment (a term defined in the area of social psychology) will supply the behavioral intention to play again. This perceived enjoyment also supplies perceived value (yet another term which I won't go into any deeper but you get the gist of it). The perceived value also increases the chances of a person playing again.

All and all they predicted that the sense of presence (both social and telepresence) would supply the relations described above. I mean that they over estimated the impact of telepresence as we saw in the results.

Hope this gave you a satisfying answer! :)”

Theme 4: Quantitative methods

On Oscar Fribergs blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 2 december 2013 09:20

I think you summarized the quantitative and qualitative aspects well, however I would like to add my reflections on this. I believe that quantitative methods are more often used in relatively new research areas and qualitative methods are more often used in relatively established research areas. The relationship between them are that quantitative data creates a foundation on which you can create qualitative questions/data. Do you agree with me on this?”

On Martin Johanssons blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 2 december 2013 09:39

I believe that the benefits that you speak of concerning surveying on the streets (many different people in different social groups) can be  considered a limitation as well. This of course depends on what kind of results you are after. If you don't have a specific target group it is beneficial.

You present a good point that the qualitative methods are often used when the results can't be quantifiable. I'd like to add to that by stating that qualitative methods are often used when quantitative results often already exists (so that you can base your qualitative questions on the quantitative results). Do you agree?”

On Marit Aldéns blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 2 december 2013 10:30

I agree with Filip that the knowledge of which paper you read would have given some context for better understanding at first. It is indeed hard to get people to actually answer the questionnaire. I believe that you often have to offer some kind of reward if you want to get good (or just many) answers. Sometimes when you hand out your questionnaire by e-mail it can get caught in the spam filter which is another problem.

One thing I thought of was that qualitative methods are often used when quantitative results often already exists. The qualitative questions (via interviews as you speak of) can be more easily created when you have quantitative data on before hand. Do you agree?”

Theme 5: Design research

On Oscar Fribergs blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 9 december 2013 09:27

I as well thought that the article by Fernaeus et. al. would have gained a lot if it would have contained some kind of real application. That is the one fact that I based my question on. What would a real application be? And also, is it clear that the end-users really want this kind of functionality? I understand that there are research that indicate that there exists a desire of new forms of programming, but is this really what is meant by that? Maybe it can serve as a first step towards something good, but I do not know what that would be at this point. The article certainly leaves you thinking!”

On Martin Johanssons blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 9 december 2013 09:40

You make a good point that this kind of physical "coding" might be a gateway for children or inexperienced programmers to further investigate the world of programming, and that is of course a very good thing! However I fail to see what other use physical programming might have in the real world. What would be a real application, today or in the future?

After reading what you said about the benefits of prototyping its clear to me that financial backing has to be one of the main reasons, or at least motivators, to make a really good prototype. I can't believe that I didn't think of that! Maybe you have a more entrepreneurial spirit than I do. This of course depends on what your goal with your research is. It might be to get a market share in a specific field, or it might be to contribute to the scientific development of a specific area (or maybe both?).”

On Sara Långviks blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 9 december 2013 09:56

I think that you summarized the part about prototypes nicely, however the part where you say that a prototype might "fail to deliver the specific information we're looking for in the way we expect it" caught my attention. In my opinion, when a prototype fails to deliver what was expected might still count as some kind of result. It might tell you what not to do or how not to design something and I mean that a result like that always will benefit future research. It might also give you some information that you hadn't yet considered as a possibility.

I enjoyed reading what you wrote about "proof-of-concept" prototypes. I have been racking my brain for some time now and I can't find a situation where making a proof-of-concept prototype is bad. In my opinion it can only benefit the design or implementation of a, for example, future product or system.“

Theme 6: Qualitative and Case study research

On Jakob Florells blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 16 december 2013 09:29

Hi, Jakob!

When reading the part you wrote about semi structured interviews I can't ask myself what the difference between those kinds of interviews and the focus group method is? A focus group is used in the paper I read for this weeks seminar, and that implies that you as a moderator want the participants to feel free to partly come up with the discussion topics themselves. You just have to steer them in the right direction from time to time as to keep the discussions relevant to your research questions. I don't have a lot of experience using semi structured interviews, and to be honest I haven't googled it either, but would you say that the two different methods have a lot in common? What separates them in your opinion?”

On Johannes Hörnfeldt Nordströms blog:

“Carl Ahrsjö 16 december 2013 10:08

Hi, Johannes!

I also read that qualitative studies are best used in relatively new research areas, however I argue that quantitative methods can generate good results as well in these new areas. Of course some qualitative results can be of good use when you try to define what kind of quantitative, statistical information you want to receive, but still I believe that some general quantitative questions could be asked together with the qualitative ones (in new research areas). Maybe this could at least give you a better idea of the basic structure of the research area.”

Answer to Katerina-Ioanna Kourti’s comment on my reflection:

“Carl Ahrsjö 18 december 2013 11:21

Hi!

Yes, of course the personality of the participants and the dynamics between them in general play an important role when it comes to the potential vividness of the discussion. However I mean that this is all secondary to the moderators ability to influence others and to what extent he/she has prepared for the focus group meeting by, for example, setting a time limit for each discussion/question. It might also be good to have some kind of strategy for how you will move the discussion along if it stagnates.”