Design Research Methodology: Assignment 2

on

28.4.2022 - 12.5.2022 (Week 5 - Week 7)
Chung Yi Ki / 0345014 / BDCM
Design Research Methodology
Assignment 2 / Research - Critical Review 

Lecture

Week 5 / Critical review 
A critical review is a critical writing where the writer is required to evaluate some aspects of literary text or artwork, research article, argument or interpretation of an issue, text or artwork.

The purpose is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of an article's ideas and content. Description, analysis and interpretation of the articles should be provided to allow the readers to assess the article's value.

Critical review can increase the reader's understanding of the articles, expresses the writer's opinion or evaluation of a text and a mean to break down and study various parts of an article.

Parts of a critical review 
  • Full reference in APA style (as the title)
  • Summary of the article in one paragraph 
  • Number your critical review (Critical review #1 etc.)
  • Critique and Evaluation (can take up to 2-3 A4 pages, 12pt size font, 1.5 spacing)
  • Conclusion (can be longer than a usual conclusion)
Steps in studying an article 
Structure
  1. Consider the type of text the article is (primary/secondary source, original research, comment of an original research)
  2. Find out the different sections of the article and think about how they fit together
  3. Think about are the sections in the article effective or ineffective
Methodology
  1. Decide if the research is quantitative or qualitative
  2. Think about if the methodology have any weaknesses
  3. Consider how the design of the study address the hypothesis/research problem
Reasons/evidence
  1. Take note of the sources the author used
  2. Consider the type of reasoning the author used (inductive or deductive)
  3. Find out the type of evidence that is provided in the article (empirical, statistical, logical etc.)
  4. See if there's any gaps in the evidence or reasoning
Conclusions
  1. Think about if the data supports the conclusion of the article 
  2. Consider if there are other possible interpretations 
  3. Think about if the conclusions are dependent on a theoretical formulation 
  4. Consider what does the content in the article contribute to the field 
Logic
  1. Think about what assumptions does the author make in the article 
  2. Consider if the author took account for all the data or are there portions left out, and also is there any alternative perspectives that remained unconsidered
  3. Find out if there are any logical flaws in the construction of the argument
Effective critical review 
  • Shows an awareness of the overall idea, purpose, and the intended readers of the text
  • Shows that the article was looked at from various perspectives
  • Shows that the article was evaluated according to theories, approaches, and frameworks
An evaluation involves analysing the content and concepts of a text, separating the contents into their main components, and then understanding how all of them interrelate, connect, and influence each other.

Week 6 / Quan & Quali
Quantitative research 
Research using countable data (numbers, scales, charts, percentages, demographics, nationality etc.). Useful for collecting and documenting large numbers of information and good to use as evidence for factual claims. Can be research through both primary and secondary research. Most common examples are programme ratings, box office figures, iTunes download etc. 

Though, it is unable to collect more details on people's opinions, thoughts and feelings. Thus, wouldn't know the reason behind the statistics collected.

Qualitative research
Would be able to collect different types of information as it studies more on the personal opinions of the respondents and is targeted at a narrower detail of a topic. Useful to get the information needed to understand your target audience and client needs.

Though, the structure might be biased most common examples are film reviews, game reviews, fan-based websites, interviews, discussions, focus groups, responses to campaigns and news etc. 
Both quantitative and qualitative research can be done through both primary and secondary research. It is good to collect both types of research as it'll give a wider field and more types of response. 

Primary research - research designed and done by the researcher him/herself 
Secondary research - research by using other researcher's research 

Secondary research 
Examples - books, journals, newspapers, film archives, internet forums, CD Rom databases, audio materials etc. 

The negative part of secondary research is that it's hard to always determine if the source taken online is reliable or not.

Primary research 
Examples - interviews, questionnaire, observational studies, focus groups, participating in internet forums etc. 

All research methods in primary research are self-generated and video, audio and/or photographic records of events can be used as evidence for the research. Primary research gives a reliable and well documented source for information

The potential problem is that it is very time consuming and the amount of research gathered can be limiting.

Purpose of research 
There are various purpose for conducting a research. Some areas of research include audience research, market research and production research. 

Audience research 
Topics include audience profiling, demographics, consumer behaviour, consumer attitudes and audience awareness. It helps creators to understand and communicate with their target audience.

A good example of primary research method for this field is conducting a questionnaire, the only problem is it is time consuming and not all information gathered can be fully used.

The cons of audience research is the information gathered may not tie in with the original product idea and changes would need to be done according to the research results.

Market research 
Topics include research on one's product's market, competitor analysis and advertising placement. Market research is useful to search for gaps in the market to launch a product.

The possible problem is that the gap may be small, and the product will only appeal to a small percentage of people.

Production research 
Topics are very broad, but it includes researching on contents, viability, media placement, finance, costs, technological resources, personnel, locations etc. The pros of production research is that budgets, equipment lists, personnel contact and location access can be done before production shooting starts. 

The downside is that some filmmaker might not find the value in this as they might want to create something original and use new technologies.

Week 7 / Data Collection Primary & Secondary 
Categories in the field of creative research methods 
  • Arts-based research (e.g:visual arts, performance arts, textile arts)
  • Research suing techonolgy (e.g:social media, apps, computer/video games)
  • Mixed methods research (traditionally qualitative and quantitative, either mixed or one method)
  • Transformative research frameworks (e.g:psrticipatory research, feminist research, decolonizing methodologies, activist research)
Traditional market research involves face-to-face interactions or physical instruments, where digital market research involves only interacting in the digital media. Both has its pros and cons.

Primary research methods 
Examples include interviews, surveys, questionnaires, focus groups and visits to competitors' locations. These can be conducted through face-to-face interactions, telephone or mail communication or online communications.

Questionnaires (quantitative research) 
A data collection method where each person is asked to respond to the same set of questions in a predetermined order.

Interviews (qualitative research) 
Interviews can be structured or unstructured. Structured interviews are comparable to questionnaire as it also involves asking the same questions in the same order to each interviewee and with multiple choice answers.

Focus groups (qualitative research) 
Data is collected through a semi structured group interview process. Focus groups are moderated by a group leader and are usually used to collect data on a specific topic. 

Observational studies (qualitative research) 
A systematic way to collect data by observing people in natural situations or settings. In creative media, it may involve watching video, animation, film, and others.

Instructions


For project 2, we are tasked to look for and read 5 journal articles and write one critical review of the 5 articles. The journal articles have to be related to our research topic, external citations can be added as well where needed. The content of the review has to cover the structure, methodology, reasons or evidence, conclusion and the logical flow of discussion of the articles. 

Week 5 
Fig 1.1 Organising thoughts and usable notes gotten from the first read of the articles

For this week, we are tasked to select the 5 articles we want to review on and download Mendeley to help us store and make notes on the articles while we are constructing our critical review. After searching on Google Scholar and gaining access to some articles through Taylor’s Library, I selected the 5 articles I want to review on and written a research discussion/opinion of sorts to help me organise my thoughts and what I’ve learned from each article. I picked the articles according to my research questions in my proposal. 

Week 6 

Fig 2.1 A screenshot taken from one of the articles stored in Mendeley
Fig 2.2 Critical Review - First Article (Draft 1)

Fig 2.3 Critical Review - Second Article (Draft 1)

Fig 2.4 Critical Review - Third Article (Draft 1)

Fig 2.5 Critical Review - Fourth Article (Draft 1)

Fig 2.6 Critical Review - Fifth Article (Draft 1)

Fig 2.7 Combined critical review (Draft 1)

For this week, we should’ve start writing our critical review after we confirmed our choice on the journal articles. I used Mendeley to highlight points I want to look back or include in my critical review in each of the articles and typed down some annotations for some highlighted points. I’ve written down critical reviews separately for each 5 articles with citations and combined them in one document. I mostly focus on noticing the strength and weaknesses of each articles when writing my critical reviews. 

Week 7 
Fig 3.1 Revised critical review

After getting feedbacks from Dr. Hayati, I realized I’ve structured my critical review wrongly as it shouldn’t be separated, instead the review should be a combination of all thoughts on 5 articles in one singular review. I was following the example mentioned in the lecture videos so I didn’t realize the new change of format until this week. Nonetheless, I revised the structure of my critical review and rewrote and added in points where necessary. I also checked on the citations formatting in my critical review. 

I also added summary points for introduction and summary sections, rewrote methodology section as a summary findings from reading all the articles, added a small conclusion for reasoning and logic section, rewrote conclusion section as a summary findings from writing the critical review and from reading the articles. All newly added points are done by contrast and comparing.

Final outcome of critical review

Fig 4.1 Final critical review

Feedbacks

Week 7
Specific feedback: Critical review should not be a separate set of review of the 5 articles, it should be sort of a summary of the findings of the 5 articles and each section of the critical review should be done by comparing and contrasting. Though for my reasoning and logic section, it can be separated and provide a comparing and contrast conclusion at the end since that section states the gaps which are specific for each article.

Reflection

Searching for the articles that I need took a lot of time because I can’t find much research on the relationship between empathy and animation. Most of them revolve around solely character design and others are more scientific, so I had to scour the internet and online databases to find the ones that’s suitable for me to use. Though, I did find a few useful articles back when I’m writing my proposal and been saving them for my critical review, so that saved me some time.

As for writing the critical review, it took a lot of time since I had to read each article and figure out the points I needed to include in my critical review. Reading and understanding the articles aren’t the hard part, but summarising the points, structuring the critical review and elaborating the points are the time-consuming things. Though, writing the summary for each article did help me process what I understand from each of the articles. I also had to rework a lot on my critical review since I did it separately at first, and the time we have left was packed but I’m glad that I’m still able to get it done by the submission date. 

I personally find that doing the reviews individually is easier to construct since each review is focused on one article, so I got to understand the article more while I was writing their individual review. But I can see how combining them into one singular review might have help us in our literature review for our dissertation module next semester. 

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