31.3.2022 - 21.4.2022 (Week 1 - Week 4)
Chung Yi Ki / 0345014 / BDCM
Design
Research Methodology
Assignment 1 / Research Proposal
Lecture
Week 1 / Research
Why should I do research
Research can establish a valuable network where the documentation and
findings can be recognized by other people.
A research question is related to the objective of your research. The
research that we’ll be doing for this module is not about a big ambitious
project, because it's meant to help you have a motivation to research deeper
into the same/other areas in the future.
How should you start the research
Identify your field of interest and read up about the subject, then think
about a problem that you want to define and write the research problem in a
statement. For example, research problem: art and design students don't like
to read and one way to motivate them to read is by implementing AR in school
textbooks. Think about the ways of suing creative media tools to solve a
problem.
Week 2 / Problem statement, research question and objective, hypothesis,
variables
Problem statement
A problem statement is a concise description of a problem, issue, or area of
improvement that needs to be addressed. It identifies the gap between the
problem and the goal of a process or product. It lets the reader understand
the research problem of a research.
Research question
A research question is an answerable question about a specific concern or
issue, something that you want to study. It is the initial step in a
research and the foundation of the research, i.e: the whole research project
will be based on the research question.
Steps on writing a research question
- Specify the specific concern or issue
- Decide what you want to know about the concern or issue
- Turn what you found in the previous step into a question
- Ensure that the question is answerable
- Check to make sure that the question is not too broad or narrow
Research objective
A research objective describes what you wish to achieve in your research. It
may be linked with a hypothesis or act as a statement of purpose in a study
that does not have a hypothesis. It serves to guide the activities of the
research.
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a prediction on what will happen between two or more
variables. Unless the study is exploratory in nature, the hypothesis should
explain what is expected to happen during the course of an experiment or
research.
A hypothesis doesn't always have to be correct. In the situation where the
research finds that the original hypothesis is incorrect, he/she might
suggest other options that can be explored in future studies.
Variables
A variable is something that can be changed or varied. By systematically
adjusting some variables and measuring the effects on other variables, a
research can determine if a change to one thing causes a change to something
else.
Week 3 / Research questions, Research objectives
Research question
Research question influences the strategy and methods that a researcher use
in order to provide answers to the question or to verify or falsify a
hypothesis.
Research objective
Research objective derives from problem statement or research question. It
is clear, concise and declarative. A good research objective is:
S-Specific
M-Measurable
A-Attainable
R-Realistic
T-Time bound
It should also be relevant, feasible and unambiguous.
Both research question and objective doesn't have a specific order on which
should come first. It depends if the research uses an inductive approach or
a deductive approach.
Inductive approach
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Fig 1.1 Steps involved in an inductive approach Source: Lecture slides |
Used when there is no existing literature on the topic, that is, when there
is no theory to test.
Deductive approach
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Fig 1.2 Steps involved in a deductive approach Source: Lecture slides |
Used when there is a theory to test. Research using deductive approach
starts with a theory and carries out studies to test that theory.
Instructions
For project 1, we are required to decided on a topic area that we want to
research on and write a research proposal. The research area has to be
related to the specialty we’ve chosen for our next semester.
Week 1
Fig 1.1 Draft 1 of Research Proposal
For this week, we are tasked to decide on the specialty of our choice and
the topic of our research, we are also tasked to write a rationale and the
research problem for our choice of research topic. The specialty I’ve chosen
is Digital Animation and after reading some blogs and news articles written
by credible authors, I decided on “The emotional impact on viewers produced
by storytelling through animation” as my research topic. I was always
interested in the storytelling in animation, especially the emotional parts,
so I thought it’ll be fascinating to research on what makes us feel empathy
for these fictional stories.
Week 2
Fig 1.2 Draft 2 of Research Proposal
After having our topic approved, we are tasked to write the, problem
statement, research question and research objective of our research topic.
Our problem statement should have citations too. As per Dr. Hayati’s
feedback, I focused on constructing my research proposal surrounding the
visual aspects of animation storytelling, and not dwell into the story
writing aspect of it. I changed the wordings of my research problem so that
it’s more like a statement to indicate an area to further study rather than
a literal problem.
Week 3
Fig 1.3 Draft 3 of Research Proposal
After getting feedbacks from Dr. Hayati, I further reworked on the wordings
of my research objective and problem statement, and also decided on my
research title, which is “The emotional impact of animation storytelling”. I
also arranged the section sin my research proposal following the order
listed in the MIB. Then transferred the details on my research proposal
document to a presentation slides format using Google Slides and designed
the slide template according to the process of 2D pencil animation and
storyboards so that it matches with my research topic. I also added images
in my slides to help further describe my proposal.
Week 4
Fig 1.4 Draft 4 of Research Proposal
There was no class this week as we had a library literacy workshop, but I
made some changes on my proposal where I checked on the grammar and replaced
a 2008 citation to a 2018 one, so that most of the references I used are
more recent. I also made sure all the citations and reference list follow
the APA 7th format. I also changed the research title in my slides so it
will sound more like a title than shortened version of my research
topic.
Final research proposal
Fig 2.1 Final research proposal slides
Feedbacks
Week 2
Specific feedback: The research topic is a good topic but make sure
that the research stays on the visual aspect of it and doesn’t go into the
script writing area of storytelling.
Week 3
General feedback: Research problem doesn’t need to be a literal
problem and it shouldn’t be a question. It can also be a statement
indicating an area you want to research more on.
Specific feedback: Research problem, research questions and research
objective are fine. Some article sources are a bit old but since the
research is focused on storytelling, they’re still applicable. Work on
transferring the document to slide format and design the slide in a way it
relates to animation, don’t directly use the template given by the website.
Also, arrange the sections according to the order stated in the MIB. “To
explore” would be more suitable than “To find out” in the research
objective.
Week 4
General feedback: Make sure that most of your references are recent
and all the citations are done according to the APA 7th referencing format.
Week 5
Specific feedback: Tweak the research problem to make it sound like
there’s a gap in the field, i.e: more like a problem. Edit slightly the
research observation too to make it relate back to the problem
statement.
Reflection
There are some challenging parts in writing my research proposal, especially
when it comes to searching for relevant articles to include as citations.
When it comes to discussing about animation storytelling, it’s a fine line
between stepping into the aspect of story writing and the aspect of visual
arts. Plus, there wasn’t much research articles discussing about the
specific problem I’m planning to research on, there are articles discussing
about the effects of empathy but not what causes it. So, finding the
articles that’s suitable for me took some time, but I’m glad that it worked
out in the end.
As for the slides and references, the slide template took some time for me
to figure out the design as I wanted it to be simple but still related to my
research topic, but I think it worked out in the end. For the references, I
had to search the web to look for the format for some sources I’m using
since the library literacy workshop didn’t mention them, such as the format
for conference paper and books with editors compiling works of other
authors.
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