Theme 4

I read the paper Canadian university students in wireless classrooms: “What do they do on their laptops and does it really matter?" from the journal Computers & Education.

1. Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
The paper used two different methods referred to Study 1 and Study 2. Study 1 started in the beginning of the fall semester and Study 2 started a few weeks before the Christmas break the same semester. In both studies the students were able to participate only if they were self-identified as laptop users in the classrooms.

In Study 1 1129 students from a university in Ontario participated in this study. The students ranged from 16 to 50 years old, and from a range of different programs at the university. The students had to answer what they were using their laptop for in class; Taking notes on the laptop, Searching complementary information on the web
, Sending emails with the laptop
, Navigate on web sites that are unrelated to school work, Visiting social networking sites
, Using laptop to watch videos/pictures
, Text messages on phones or other electronic devices
, Laptop is a source of distraction.

Study 2 focused on three unaddressed issues in Study 1; the use of a self-reported measure of academic achievement, the use of a cross-sectional design in which it was impossible to determine whether laptop utilization behaviors were prospectively associated with future academic performance and last internet addiction remains a controversial phenomenon but the uncontrolled urges to access the internet in some individuals have nonetheless been widely documented in psychological science.

In Study 2 88 undergraduate students (27,3% male) from a public university in Ontario participated. This time the students completed questionnaires that measured their laptop utilization behaviors during class time and a series of self-regulatory, motivation, Internet addiction, learning style, and emotional variables. The questionnaire was set up through psychdata.com, which is a website where one can set up questionnaires and is a tool to enhance online research. The students that participated in this study were the ones that didn’t mind sharing their grades form the courses with the researchers.

The benefits of using these methods is that it’s possible to get results that can be more or less generalized for that university since they got a big number of students participating in the surveys. Limitations when using questionnaires are always the selection of participants. Do the students that participated really match the reality?

2. What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?
I’m not sure if I can say that I learned something new about quantitative methods. Most of it I felt like I knew, or it seemed logical to me. But I realized that it’s possible to have a different layout on the paper. In this one they had Study 1; Methods & Results and then Study 2; Methods & Results, instead of having a chapter with methods and one for results. This made more sense and made it easy to follow.

3. Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?
Study 2 solved the main methodological problem. Other than that I can’t really tell if there are any bigger problems with the method of choice. There are a few thing that could have been improved for example the selection of students. The students were mainly from the first year because it was mandatory for them to participate in the survey, and they also got credits for it. The other students from other years got 5 dollars for the effort. Since 76,6% were from the first year of study, and also first semester I feel like this study could have been focusing a bit more on students further into their studies. Students on the first semester of university students might not have figured out their own study method yet, compared to students from other years. An improvement that could have been done is to either focus on first year students, or the others. 

4. Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?
Benefits of using quantitative methods are that it’s possible to get a result reflecting an average situation. The bigger quantity the more accurate the results get. Limitations are that it’s hard to understand why the answers sometimes looks they way they do. When dealing with a complex research question quantitative methods are limited because it’s hard do develop a high quality questionnaire that can generalize a complex problem.

5. Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?
Benefits with qualitative methods are that it’s possible to apply to more complex problems, for example when the research is about people. It’s more time consuming, since these methods often include focus groups or interviews. The results will be accurate, but only for the people that have been chosen to participate. It’s often hard to get the research group in qualitative methods to reflect the whole mass, which means that it’s hard to generalize the results gained by qualitative methods.

Theme 3: Research and Theory - Reflection

This week we had two seminars on the theme Research and Theory. Last week we were supposed to choose and read a text and describe what kind of theory that was included in it. Unfortunately I was sick during last week, and also this week. So I can’t really remember what we discussed during the first seminar this week, and the seminar that we had this morning I missed out on. I was hoping to be able to attend the seminar today, since I felt like I didn’t learn anything from the readings and the other seminar.

I decided to read the course wiki instead to see if I might be able to get some more new information that I didn’t know before, or just make the concept theory clearer for myself. I liked the part in the course wiki where there are examples of theories. This made the text The Nature of Theory in Information Systems by Shirley Gregor sink in a bit more. I liked how the examples show how the classification, which Gregor mentions in her paper, can be done.

Theme 3: Research and Theory

I chose a journal called New Media & Society with an impact factor at 1.824. It is an international journal that publishes research articles within the subjects; communication, media and culture, but also sociology, geography, anthropology, economics, the political and information sciences and the humanities.

In the journal New Media & Society I chose to read the article Morality and ethics behind the screen: Young people's perspectives on digital life by Andrea Flores and Carrie James. 61 qualitative interviews were held with youth from a few high schools and colleges around Boston. The paper had a focus on moral and ethics and the main questions to the students were what they thought when posting something online.

Briefly explain to a first year student what theory is, and what theory is not.

Theory is a term that is hard to define, since it’s defined differently depending on the discipline. It is a lot easier to define what theory is not. Theory is for example not references, data, variables, diagrams or hypotheses. References, data, variables, diagrams and hypotheses can rather be seen as parts that back up a theory. A theory tries to answer the question Why something happens.

Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?

The main theory in the paper I chose was a moral development theory that can help understand young people’s approaches to online life. The theory is based on studies in psychology (Kohlberg, 1981, 1984; Piaget, 1965; Selman, 1975; Turiel, 1983). Kohlberg’s stage theory can help people understand how youth thinks when they’re online. The stage theory describes an evolution of moral thinking in different stages; with focus on the self, to known others, to society and toward the establishment of abstract principles, such as justice.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?

The benefits of using this theory are that it can easily be used to discuss some of the results from the qualitative interviews. The interviews showed that many students don’t think about the consequences when they post things online, which shows that the students are at the first stage in Kohlberg’s stage theory; they only think twice when they think the post can affect themselves. I think the theory is a good choice for this paper because it kind of gives a clear view of at which stage the students are and you can easily see which stages that follows and how they can reach them.

Theme 2 - Reflection

This week we had our first seminar in this course. The theme was Critical Media Studies and read Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). I found parts of the literature hard to understand on a deeper level. The seminar was helpful to give me some input on how the other students interpreted the text and also get some examples that made it easier to understand the text. It was also good to hear Leif Dahlberg mentioning that this book is always included in the literature in Media studies, for me this makes it easier to put more focus on actually remember things I read if I have a purpose for it.

On the seminar we discussed Mass Deception and Culture industry for quite a while and it was interesting to hear different points of view of the two terms. We got a bit into how art has developed between what Adorno and Horkheimer call old and new media. Art in old media mainly consisted of lets say actual paintings. In the new media print made it possible to mass-produce paintings that could reach a bigger group of people. Same thing happened with written art. Adorno and Horkheimer were critical to the new media that made it possible to reach basically everyone in the world, but at the seminar we discussed that we still have a group that is keeping the art just the way it was in the old media. I remember someone in the seminar group called this group an elite group, but I would rather say that this group is a group that by their own decisions based on their passion chose to be a part of it. I believe that it is like that with a lot of things connected to the culture industry. There will always be an exclusive group that are a bit more interested in some thing more than an average person. I also think that this can be applied to a lot of different subjects. For example filmmaking. Filmmakers can, if they want to reach a big group of people, but usually those films are made by a smaller group of people that knows exactly what the crowd wants. The films become commercial, and obviously their main goal is to get as big profit as possible. Then we have this exclusive group that decided to take a step aside from the whole commercial part of the industry by making independent movies, because to them the films are pure art. I argue that this group is more passionate about making films and to them and their peers film is what Adorno and Horkheimer says that culture was before the new media came. This can also be applied to basically any other interest, for example video games, coffee, food, books, TV, music etc.

I found this part of the culture industry extra interesting to talk about. I kind of had a picture in my head what Adorno and Horkheimer wanted to say, and also had my picture about how to apply this to todays’ discussions, but I definitely got some input from the other students at the seminar that broadened my view which I think was valuable.

Theme 2

1. What is Enlightenment?
Enlightenment was a movement that emerged during the 18th century throughout Europe. Instead of relying on the beliefs in a specific religion, people started to rely more and more on science. Old traditions, religion, beliefs and mythology were something people trusted less, and instead logic, peoples’ knowledge and science was of higher value. This basically means that peoples’ ideas before the enlightenment was based on, normally, the beliefs in God, and after the enlightenment they were based on knowledge based on science.

2.What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument?
Before the enlightenment knowledge was based on beliefs and myths. A myth can be described as a description of something, based on thoughts and beliefs. Myths and religion was both constructing a mindset of the people to guide them to think and live a certain way. In the text they describe that in the same way as myth and religion was affecting people before the enlightenment, science and knowledge affects how people think and what they know after the enlightenment.

3.What are the “old” and “new” media that are discussed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment?
“Old” media can be differentiated from “new” media in many ways. In the Dialectic of Enlightenment, the different between “old” and “new” media is how many people that are reached by the media. In this case “new” media is media that can reach the wider mass, called Mass media. It’s media that can be produced to reach a lot of people at the same time for example the TV, radio etc.

4.What is meant by “culture industry”?
Culture is a broad term that includes many different things such as magazines, TV, radio etc. Culture industry can therefore be describes as an industry that produces those things. Adorno and Horkheimer are very critical to the culture industry because as they see it, the industry decides what the bigger mass is supposed to consume. The culture is by the industry standardized and production is driven by capitalism, which is something Adorno and Horkheimer dislike.

5.What is the relationship between mass media and “mass deception”, according to Adorno and Horkheimer?
According to Adorno and Horkheimer the mass media is media produced for the bigger mass, as the name says. The media that is produced for the bigger mass is, as said in the last question, produced to make large profits for the companies or people that are the producers. The group that is producing media for the mass is small and Adorno and Horkheimer are criticizing the so called culture industry since it is a small group that decides what the mass is going to consume, and they filter away everything that does not give themselves a profit.

6. Please identify one or two concepts/terms that you find particularly interesting. Motivate your choice.
I find the term culture industry very interesting and how Adorno and Horkheimer argue that it is all bad. I can connect this to the discussion about filter bubbles today. So for a long time period the industry has been criticized for deciding for the people what to consume when it comes to culture and information. I feel like the discussions are basically the same. Someone that is trying to be independent is blaming the industry for making the people believe in certain things. But I can see a difference from the 40’s compared with today. Back then they might not have had the opportunity to look for other information or culture than what they were surrounded by, which was the mass media. Today we have the internet and by that we can all take a step, or at least try to take a step, outside the filter bubble that we are all situated in.

Theme 1 – Theory of science - Reflection

 This week we were supposed to have a seminar to discuss the theme of the week. The seminar got cancelled and instead I read a few of my classmates blogposts to fill the gap, since I’m supposed to learn something every week that I can reflect over.

It feels like everyone answered the questions more or less the same. Most of us wrote similar answers to the first question What does Russell mean by "sense data" and why does he introduce this notion? So that didn’t give me any new information that I didn’t know of from before. It just made me surer of that I understood the question and the text I read last week. When it came to the second question What is the meaning of the terms "proposition" and "statement of fact"? How does propositions and statement of facts differ from other kinds of verbal expressions? I realized that many of us interpreted the text differently than some other, and some also gave examples of how a proposition could go from being a proposition to a statement of fact. A negative thing by reading other blog posts and not having a seminar is that I feel like many of the posts haven’t been though through before handing it in. Other blog posts are really good too. In a seminar everyone has the opportunity to argue why they wrote things and can give explanations straight away and other peers can share their point of view and together we can all learn from each other. I feel like it’s hard to learn something from the other blog posts since I feel like I can’t trust the sources (haha!).

I can connect this with chapter 5 Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description in Russell’s book. Knowledge by Acquaintance in this case can be seen as when I read the book last week since I got the information straight from the source, which was Russell’s book. This week when I read the other classmates’ blog posts that gave me Knowledge by Description, since it’s all descriptions. But maybe I should also question if I should see reading the book as Knowledge by Acquaintance, since the book already is a description.

I don’t really have that much to reflect about since I feel like I didn’t learn that much since I wrote the last blog post. But I’m looking forward to get the chance to have a seminar next week, to get some feedback and discussion about next week’s theme.

Theme 1 - Theory of science

Sense data
Russel introduced the term sense data to make it easier to differ physical objects from our experiences of it. Sense data is about the data, or information, that we get from using our senses. The data is coming from the physical object itself, and not from the experience of it. Physical objects will appear differently to us depending on when we see it and from what perspective we see it. Russel gave an example with a table that will look differently depending from what angle you look at it. The structure and color of the table will appear different to every person looking at it. Sense data is individual, and therefore different from person to person.

Proposition Statement of fact
The term proposition is basically a statement that is based on someone’s beliefs, and can be either true or false. Proposition is a discription or statement about the reality. The statement of fact on the other hand, Russel argues, is a statement that has greater truth value. The truth value is based on how widespread and recognized the statement is. A proposition that gets acknowledged among a lot of people and reaches consensus becomes statements of facts.

Definite description
Russel makes a difference between two kinds of descriptions; the definite and the ambiguous. A definite description is a description on the “the so-and-so”-form. It is a specific something that is referred to. A description that is not definite is called ambiguous description and is on the “a so-and-so”-form. An ambiguous description is more general than the definite. For example when “a so-and-so exists” this could be one of many so-and-sos that exist. But when it is “the so-and-so exists” this is one specific object that is referred to.

Theory of Knowledge
Russell is questioning How can we know that something is true or false? Russell argues that knowledge cannot be seen as a true belief, because many times a true belief is based on a false proposition. Russell gives an example where a person is guessing the first letter of a given country’s Prime Minister’s last name. The person guesses B, which was correct since the Prime Minister’s name was Bannerman. But the thing was that the person though the last name of the president was Balfour. The answer is still right, but based on a false belief and therefore Russell argues that knowledge cannot be seen as a true belief.