Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research (Pre)

I chose the research paper The psychological functions of avatars and alt(s): A qualitative study which was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. This journal has a current impact factor of 2.067 and a 5-year impact factor of 2-489.

The aim of this paper was to assess how people use multiple accounts in virtual worlds such as Second Life. Previous research have shown that roughly 50 % of the users have one main avatar and another, “second” avatar. The method used in this paper was a qualitative analysis of 24 semi structured interviews. To make sure that the participants had sufficient experience of Second life the authors had some criteria when recruiting them; they must have been a “resident” of Second Life for 6+ months, be at least 18 years old, speak good English, etc.

The most obvious benefit of this method is that the authors could extract in depth knowledge of how the Second Life players use their main and second (and third, in some cases) avatar. Most of the questions that were posted were open ended, thus allowing the participants to speak freely about the subject. The interviewer followed a protocol the interviews were semi-structured, meaning that follow-up questions could be asked.

One drawback of this method is the small sample size and the skewed relation between male and female participants. From a total of 24 participants 18 were female and only 6 were males. I do not know if this is the normal composition of Second Life, but it really seems as if female participants are overrepresented in this study. The same can be seen in the racial composition, where I believe Hispanics and Blacks are underrepresented compared to the American society in general (8 % and 4 % respectively).

When reading this paper it clear that the qualitative method is a great was to get a comprehensive view of a certain subject. I also like how semi structured interviews and follow-up questions could be used to gain more knowledge than you anticipated.  

A case study is a research method were you look at a specific event, phenomenon or group of people. The aim is to thoroughly examine and analyze the event within the context that it occurred. Data collection could be done through both quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews) methods. The case study is most commonly used within social sciences but it could also be used within natural sciences.

The second paper I chose is The tweets that killed a university: A case study investigating the use of traditional and social media in the closure of a state university which also was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. In this paper the authors examine the event where the University of South Florida Polytechnic was restructured / closed down. The main focus was to look at how students, media and people involved used different media (social and traditional) to discuss this event that was ongoing for 12 months. Data was collected through a questionnaire that was sent out to 244 students at the affected university. The questions concerned standard demographic data, level of internet and social media usage, news consumption and how the students acquired data about the pending changes to their university.

In the paper Building Theories from Case Study Research Eisenhardt presents guidelines for successfully conducting case research. When looking at these guidelines I see some strengths and weaknesses in the study I selected. In the second paragraph Eisenhardt states that it is important to examine a specified population when working with a case, something that was clearly done in my paper when the authors chose to look at students. The third paragraph states that it is recommended to have multiple methods of data collection to strengthen the grounding of theory. This was not done in my paper, since the authors only use the quantitative method of a questionnaire. Furthermore the data collection should be flexible, which I do not think a questionnaire is. A questionnaire is very static and could not be adapted to the participants, as opposed to a semi structured interview with follow-up questions.    

References

Gilbert et al. (2013). The psychological functions of avatars and alt(s): A qualitative study. Computers in Human Behavior 32 (2014) 1–8

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.

Kelling et al. (2013). The tweets that killed a university: A case study investigating the use of traditional and social media in the closure of a state university. Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 29, Issue 6, November 2013, Pages 2656–2664.