Preparation for seminar with group reports' discussion

A1: Mixed Methods Performed Online

An example of what you learnt when you read the report.

Thanks to this report I learnt that there are some templates of online-based software that helps to conduct mixed research – using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It seems very useful that there is software where you could link the qualitative data (for example, interviews with the data from quantitative data).

Something you especially liked with the report.

I really love the structure of the report – it seems very rational and clear even for a person who is not familiar with the topic: firstly, the definition of qualitative and quantitative methods, then the definition of mixed research method (with the explanation of what exactly is being mixed) and then the benefits, limitations  and discussion of it.

Something that can be improved.

I would add some examples of mixed researches that have already been successfully conducted and explanation why is mixed method is better for precisely this case.

A question you would like to ask the group.

Don’t you think that this “mixed method” had already been used for a long-long time as a simple combination of qualitative and quantitative methods  with correlation between them? (For example, in my master thesis I am using this sort of “mixed research” just to prove and strengthen my points).

A3: Phone versus face-to-face Qualitative Interviews in Media Technology Research

An example of what you learnt when you read the report.

I used to believe that face-to-face interviews are definitely better than phone interviews, so for me it was quite a surprise when I read that sometimes (of course depending on the field) there is no big difference in the collected data.

Something you especially liked with the report.

In this report I also admire the structure of exploring the topic.

Something that can be improved.

In my opinion, the topic is really broad and actually the conclusion that is made is not very unexpected. I would constrict the topic to any precise field of media technology and analyze the real examples with real data.

A question you would like to ask the group.

Are you conducting interviews for your master thesis? If you are which kind of interviews have you chosen and why?