Methods in User–technology Studies

Schedule and location

Thursday January 22nd - Friday January 23rd

Thu 22 January: Main building (Runeberginkatu 14-16), Aalto Service Factory (3rd floor), room "Co-Create" (338-339)

Fri 23 January: Main building (Runeberginkatu 14-16), 4th floor, room A-407

Registration

Registration is open December 8th - January 16th

Speaker

Antti Salovaara, Aalto University, Finland

Organizer

Professor Matti Rossi, Aalto University, Finland

Overview

The purpose of this course is to introduce IS students to methods by which human interaction with technologies can be studied empirically. These methods are particularly suitable for finding out how people use information systems.

Students will become familiar with methods for studying users and their information systems use, and learn to plan their research considering the pros and cons of each method.
The course consists of pre-course reading material, research planning exercises, and lectures. The course emphasizes the importance of a deliberately considered research question as a guide in method selection. Students will learn how the same research phenomenon can be approached with different research questions in mind, which will lead to a different, equally valid, choice of empirical methods.

On a concrete level, the course will introduce the students to the following areas of research planning:

Central methodological concepts: triangulation, saturation, necessary redundancy and overlap between methods, interventions, open vs closed research designs, the idea behind grounded theory, and “thick” description.
Data collection methods: (participatory) observation, ethnography, digital ethnography, system use logging, diaries, experience sampling, field trialing, usability evaluation, experimental (lab) research, quasi-experimentation, wizard-of-Oz simulation, participatory design, and action design research. Interviewing and questionnaires will be mentioned as secondary methods that support the other methods.
Analytical methods and interpretive frameworks: model and theory testing, grounded theory, interaction analysis, distributed cognition, structuration, actor network theory, activity theory, situated action.

The students will get a more hands-on experience from these contents through a research plan writing exercise in the end of the course. In addition, to avoid students getting a sense of disorientation among the different methodological alternatives, the contents above will be presented as compatible clusters rather than as atomistic elements, tied to different types of research questions.
Through exercises, the course participants will have the opportunity to get to know these approaches more holistically and reflect on their applicability to their own research.

Detailed Program

Before the course:
Read the following articles. While reading, analyze the reasons that have influenced the researchers’ choice of research methods. The papers are also good examples of the use of those methods.

A study where Facebook content was modified to examine users’ reactions. Exemplifies a means to do experimental research “in the wild”, but also a warning example of ethically questionable methodology: Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(24), 8788–8790.
An engaging ethnographic study on the information ecology of a highly dynamic workplace setting: Mackay, W. E. (1999). Is paper safer? The role of paper flight strips in air traffic control. ACM Transactions on Computer–Human Interaction, 6(4), 311–340.
A mixed-methods field study on an ICT-based collaboration platform: Muller, M. J., Geyer, W., Brownholtz, B., Wilcox, E., & Millen, D. R. (2004). One-hundred days in an activity-centric collaboration environment based on shared objects. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2004) (pp. 375–382). New York, NY: ACM Press.

You can find a link to these materials at the bottom of this page under the headline "Materials". The pathkey to the materials will be sent for the participants on Jan 16th. If you need the pathkey earlier, contact the Inforte.fi office.

Day 1

10:00 Introductions
10:30 Instructions for starting exercise in small teams
10:45 Team exercise
11:30 Reporting team exercise results to others
12:15 Lunch
13:15 Introduction of individual course exercise (research plan)
13:45 Lecture: Broad concepts

14:30 Coffee

14:45 Lecture: General research methods + small break

15:30 Lecture: Observational studies + small break

16:15 Lecture: Interventionist studies
17:00 Close

Day 2

10:00 Lecture:Participatory studies (guest speaker: Matti Rossi)
10:45 Lecture: Analytical frameworks for understanding technology use in situ
11:45 Lunch
12:45 Lecture: Research ethics
13:15 Lecture: Practical tips
14:15 Coffee

14:30 Research plan presentations + discussion

15:45 Wrap up + question
16:15 Close

After the course:

Those who wish to earn credit points for participation need to write up the research plan exercise into a document and send it to Antti Salovaara (antti.salovaara@aalto.fi) by 30 January 2015.

Credit points

Doctoral students participating in the seminar can obtain 2 credit points. This requires participating on both days and completing the given assignments.

Materials

Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(24), 8788–8790.
Mackay, W. E. (1999). Is paper safer? The role of paper flight strips in air traffic control. ACM Transactions on Computer–Human Interaction, 6(4), 311–340.
Muller, M. J., Geyer, W., Brownholtz, B., Wilcox, E., & Millen, D. R. (2004). One-hundred days in an activity-centric collaboration environment based on shared objects. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2004) (pp. 375–382). New York, NY: ACM Press.

You can download the materials here. The pathkey to the materials will be sent for the participants on Jan 16th. If you need the pathkey earlier, contact the Inforte.fi office.

Registration fee

This seminar is free-of-charge for Inforte.fi member organization's staff and their PhD students. For others the participation fee is 750 €. The participation fee includes access to the event and the event materials. Lunch and dinner are not included.