I have read the paper “Adopt, adapt,
abandon: Understanding why some young adults start, and then stop, using
instant messaging”, where adoption, adaption and abandoned use are
examined of Instant messaging by former users.
1. Which qualitative method or methods are used
in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
The qualitative method used in this paper was inductive qualitative
technique, also described in grounded theory (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967). In this
approach you use the data to build theory, by examine concrete events and from
these data attempt to identify larger categories and to understand them. The
direction of reasoning is often thought of as “bottom up”, from data to theory (Eben A. Weitzman, 1997). The inductive
qualitative technique was used to analyze interview data collected from 21
participants from a semi-structured interview.
A benefit with this method is that it’s an excellent way to provide
framework, for unearthing unknown or unexpected phenomena. A limitation
connected to this benefit is that it’s hard to follow a plan, which can have an
impact of the conducted timespan. Another benefit is great awareness of the
perspectives of participants.
2. What did you learn about qualitative methods
from reading the paper?
The interview questions was refined and evolved in an iterative process
between the first 4 interviews. I find this as a benefit to be able to see
flaws and be able to fix them. At the same time this may have resulted in different
starting points and affected the outcome. Which should have been fixed with
earlier pilot testing. Which is something I will avoid when performing
interview testing. But overall, the entire method is an evolving process, and
finds unexpected answers.
3. Which are the
main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative
method or methods have been improved?
First of all, the first 4 participants that performed the
study were counted to the end results even tough the test was modified between
them. It’s not legit to create a conclusion of participant data if they had
different settings. Otherwise I think the method was good, the use of WEFT
Qualitative Data Analysis tool to transcribe responses was a benefit to obtain
quantity of data. Which made it easy to code the data according to the themes observed
in the initial analysis. Which strengthened the benefit of qualitative methods
to find new themes whuch were added to the coding scheme as necessary.
Case study
A case study is a descriptive, exploratory or explanatory analysis of a
person, group or event. Case studies are used to explore relations of
underlying principles to create an analytic frame within the case to illuminate
or explicate.
The second paper selected for comparison with "Process of Building Theory from Case
Study Research" is “Mobile phones during work and non-work
time: A case study of mobile, non-managerial workers”. It is a case study, which examines how
some non-managerial/professional workers (mobile service engineers) used mobile
phones for work, with a central focus on phone use during working hours. Where
findings addresses management of the work/non-work boundary during work hours.
First off the paper had a good argumentation and
presentation about the area of blurred lines between work/non-work related
communications during work hours. Referring to other similar studies about affects
from off-work, work load which is a strength comparing to table 1. The study
had a specified selection of 3 engineering companies with a total of 17
participants. Specifically chosen for sampling, which also follows table 1.
Data was collected during a semi-structured interview with recording tool,
which later were transcribed. According to table 1 there should be multiple
data collection methods to strengthen grounding of theory by triangulation of
evidence. I feel this point is fulfilled with recording as back up to manual
data gathering. Analyzing was conducted through an open coding of the transcribed
data, it created a Varity of topics. Only one technique was used when
analyzing, according to table 1 at least two different techniques should be
used to force the investigators to look beyond the initial impressions. The
forming of hypothesis had a good iterative process where the found topics were
discussed, connected and together constructed a logical foundation for two
hypothesis. Conflicting literature was taken up in the discussion to provide
dynamic in interpretation of the study. It improves the construct definition to
not only have supporting litterture.
References
Paper: Adopt, adapt, abandon:
Understanding why some young adults start, and then stop, using instant
messaging
Journal: Computers in Human behavior
Impact factor: 2.489
Glaser & Strauss, 1967, The
discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research
(Eben A. Weitzman, 1997) esourceresearch.org
Paper: Mobile phones during work and non-work
time: A case study of mobile, non-managerial workers
Journal: Information and
Organization
Impact factor: 1.381
Hi Gustav, seems like a fascinating qualitative paper. Did they come to any intruiging conclusions? The 21 participants, was it both men and women? I have never heard of this inductive method before, seems to be a special method. Does it seemed as something that should be used more and is it harder to conduct in comparison with normal qualitative methods?
SvaraRaderaAs you conclude, their pilot testing is good and i think it is very important to do it independant of which research method you are using. Well focus groups might be hard but the individual methods at least like interviews and questionnaires. But it was strange that they counted to the end result. Did they say anything about why they did that? 17 answers instead of 21 would still be good in my opinion.
Really interesting written Gustav! The only thing I wonder about is how they defined "abandon" in your first paper "Adopt, adapt, abandon: Understanding why some young adults start, and then stop, using instant messaging”?
SvaraRaderaFor me personally have I gone through those two first steps, but not 100 percent sure that I have gone through the last. Obviously have my behavior changed the last 10 years, but would I be someone who has abandoned instant messaging, if I'm only using facebook's chat function once and a wile?
Thank you Adam! The word "abandoned" was defined as either completely abandoned or reduced usage. I would also like to clarify that the participants was all college students and all lived on campus. I believe this fact had a bigger affect on the abandonment of IM compared to other social environment. Some comments suggested that some of the main reasons they reduced their use of IM, was because it was so close to walk over to a friend and have face-to-face conversation. That was more appreciated and it felt ridiculous to use IM when you had that option. I feel that this conclusion or motivation to why the participants IM use was reduced is misleading. It's a very certain environment, students living on a campus should not have been my first choose of target group. That might be one of the biggest weaknesses in this paper that the research was conducted on participants that is somewhat more isolated then most of the population.
RaderaI agree with you that using the first four participants in the interviews as a part of the end result is falsely done. As we discussed at the seminar they should be considered to be pilot-testers for the type of questions which should be posed.
SvaraRaderaDo you have any thoughts on how the answers of the first four can make the end results skewed? Where the questions they ended up using for the rest of the participants very different?
The interview questions wasn't attached with paper so I have no way of knowing how the test was executed more than as described in the text as an open ended interview. Thereby no way to compare what may have differed in the interview from the first participant to the end participant. The only information concerning changes during the interview was described following: "The interview protocol was iteratively refined during the first 3–4 interviews, but was relatively stable after that. The order of items was occasionally changed to adapt to the flow of conversation and particular circumstances of certain participants." From this information we can only tell that the ordar questions and subjects was discussed were changed and redefined questions. Further changes can only be left to speculations. From own experiences when conducting interviews, there is always a chance to influence participants and lead them on to say conclusions you as a interviewer are looking for. That may have happened and been improved after self reflection between tests. Do you have any further suggestions on the topic?
Radera