Design Research Methodology: Assignment 3

on

19.5.2022 - 16.6.2022 (Week 8 - Week 12)
Chung Yi Ki / 0345014 / BDCM
Design Research Methodology
Assignment 3 / Research Design - Primary Data  

Lecture

Instructions


For this assignment, we are tasked with selecting a research method(s) and designing our own research instrument to carry out our own data collection for our research topic. We can use only one research method or do both quantitative and qualitative methods. The minimum amount of research instrument required is only one, but we can extend it to any amount as well. All the data collected needs to be analysed for submission.

Week 8
Fig 1.1 Justification for the chosen research methods and instruments

We were tasked in week 7 to start to decide on the choice of research methods and instruments that we want to do and prepare chosen research instruments as well as the justification before next class. As I was amending my critical review in week 7, I started my assignment 3 this week. I decided to carry out mix-method research and chose 2 research instruments. The first instrument is an online questionnaire where it will contain a Likert scale and long paragraph answer text field for respondents to type out their reasons and opinions. The second instrument is posting a question regarding the topic on a forum website called “Reddit”. The target audience for both instruments are the general public as the research topic is subjective to personal opinions. 

Fig 1.2 Questionnaire form - Draft 1

For the questionnaire it would be a video survey where it contains 5 emotional scenes from animated shows or films that I selected from my experience in watching the scenes. I also included the fan reviews of the 5 scenes in Fig 1.1 as support on my claim that they are emotional. 

Fig 1.3 Reddit post questions

For the Reddit post questions, I plan to only ask on question in the post title and the post body text would be a disclaimer about my research and how the data will be used. This is because in my past experience of using Reddit for research purposes in my Intercultural Design module, I found that most Reddit users would just read the post title and answer immediately instead of reading the body text before answering. Though, I made sure that one question would cover the areas I’m researching.

Week 9 

Fig 2.1 Observational studies

After receiving feedbacks from Dr. Hayati, I carried out observational studies on the 5 videos that I included in the questionnaire form, which then became my other research instrument. I’ve written down my analysis for each scene according to the visual aspects I’ve listed down in my research questions, which are character designs, facial and body exaggeration, background, timing, and colour which includes lighting. I used the fan reviews I found in Fig 1.1 in my observational studies as evidence to support my statements. 

Fig 2.2 Questionnaire form - Draft 2

I also numbered each section in my questionnaire and changed some question structure, as well as added in some more questions. For the third question asking about visual aspects under each video, I changed it to a multiple choice checkbox question where the visual aspects are inserted as the variables that respondents can choose. A text field answer question asking the respondents’ reason for their choice is added after that question. A section of questions asking about the respondents’ opinions on character design based on the 5 videos are added after the video sections so that the data gathered would answer the first research question. 

Week 10
Fig 3.1 Questionnaire form - Draft 3

After receiving feedbacks from Dr. Hayati, I made some further changes on my questionnaire structure. I numbered each section more clearly by separating the videos in their own sections. I also added a question asking about the respondent’s gender in the first section to see if there’s any relationship between gender and perceived emotional impact. 

After that, I distributed my questionnaire form to various online platforms and posted the Reddit post questions on the subreddit r/cartoon and r/animation. Evidence of questionnaire distribution can be found in the final primary research analysis slides. Other than distributing the questionnaire myself, I also had help from my friends where they helped me distribute my questionnaire to their families and friends, which I am very grateful for. 

Week 11

Fig 4.1 Qualitative data tabulation on Google Sheet

Fig 4.2 Qualitative data compilation

Fig 4.3 Qualitative and quantitative data analysis

I closed my Google Form questionnaire on Wednesday (8/6/2022) but reopened it after receiving feedbacks from Dr. Hayati to keep it open until my dissertation. I also started to analyse the data I gathered from my questionnaire and Reddit post this week. For the questionnaire, I decided to remove 5 unusable responses and copied the usable responses to a Google Sheet as I needed to retabulate the qualitative data for analysis and wanted to keep the original responses in the Google Form. I tabulated my data based on the relationship of demographic data vs the qualitative data in other sections. 

For the qualitative data gathered from the questionnaire, I read each of them one by one and compiled the most significant responses in a document for ease of analysis. As there are similar responses, I chose the ones that are the most detailed and effective among the similar ones. I then wrote an analysis based on my interpretation of them. 

Week 12
Fig 5.1 Different layout for conclusion slide - Conclusion slide 1

Fig 5.2 Different layout for conclusion slide - Conclusion slide 2

In this week, I transferred the data analysis that I’ve written in Fig 4.3 in a presentation slide format. I used the same template that I made for my research proposal slides but changed the layout a bit for the conclusion slides. 
Fig 5.3 Analysis for Reddit post responses
For the responses gather from the Reddit post, I wrote down the analysis in the presentation slides directly rather than writing them out in a word document first. 

Fig 5.4 Data compare and contrast slide 1

Fig 5.5 Data compare and contrast slide 2

Fig 5.6 Reflection slide

After receiving feedback from Dr. Hayati, I added two overall data compare and a contrast slides and a reflection slide in my data analysis. 

Final outcome of primary data collection and analysis

Fig 6.1 Final primary research and analysis slides

Feedbacks

Week 9
General feedback: Critical review shouldn't be too brief. For those who have done so, it should be revised again. For our primary research, we need to choose our research method based on our research objective. Sometimes, an expert opinion may be needed or a focus group may be needed together with observational studies. 

For those doing questionnaires, it's important to have an introduction so respondents would know what the survey is about, and it's important to be careful not to touch on sensitive issues. For those doing surveys or questionnaires, a minimum of 80 respondents are needed.

Specific feedback: The reasons on why the specific 5 videos are chosen count as observational studies, therefore they are part of your primary research and should be documented. Number each of the subsections and questions, so it'll be easier for you to refer to when you're doing your research response analysis.

The question about visual impact for each of the videos are better to be made as multiple choice questions instead of open ended questions. Include a copyright disclaimer and state that the videos have been thoroughly considered in the introduction of the survey. Since the set of questions for each videos are the same, consider if the questions are sufficient for your research. 

If you're worried that you won't be able to get the required respondents amount for your survey, you might want to consider changing or doing a focus group too using a similar structure to your survey. But you must weigh the pros and cons of each of the methods to see which is better. If you're doing a focus group, you'll want to look for animation enthusiasts who're able to give you critical feedback for your research. 

For the reddit questions, make sure that the questions are enough for you to carry out your research.

Week 10 
Specific feedback: Make sure to separate the sections clearly and number all the questions in each sections (e.g: video#1 for section 2, video #2 for section 3 etc.). Add a question asking about the respondent’s gender in the first section as gender might influence how empathy is perceived. Other than that, the other questions are improved.

Week 11
General feedback: Keep your survey open until your dissertation as the research doesn’t stop here.

Specific feedback: It would be better if a question asking about which country the respondent lives in was included in the survey, as culture might influence empathy for different scenes. For the responses in the last section of the questionnaire, maybe just analyse the respondent’s response in general and provide your interpretation for it, as you might not have time to look at each and every scene recommendations one by one.

Week 12
General feedback: When carrying out observational studies, remember to be objective, that is try to refrain from analysing it from only your personal opinions. 

Specific feedback: Compare and contrast the data you've collected with what you've known before and draw a conclusion to see if there's any new unexpected findings. Include arguments if there's a need. So far so good, you've demonstrated that you understand the findings that you've gathered.

Reflection

Thinking of how to construct my research instrument so that it would not only be effective in getting the data I need but also effective in getting people to respond is a bit challenging, as I had an idea of doing a video survey but it might discourage people from responding to it as it might be lengthy than normal surveys. Thinking of which scenes to include took some time too as there are so many options out there but I need to keep my options limited so it’s easier to conduct the research. In the end, there are comments received about the lengthiness of the survey and responses saying they do not have enough context for the videos, but the responses received are still valid and helpful which I'm glad of.

Rethinking the questions of the survey took some time as I wanted to avoid having too many questions but also enough for me to conduct my research. But Dr. Hayati’s feedback helped in guiding me to think of what other necessary questions I need to include based on my research questions. Finding people to respond to my survey took a lot of time too and was challenging as the mention of my survey might take 12-20 minutes to complete and has 8 sections might have discouraged people in answering it. I had to keep distributing my survey constantly to get responses, but I'm really relived and glad too that I could get above 80 responses. 

The data analysis part also was a painstaking process since I had to retabulate the data and read through the qualitative responses one by one, although the findings are interesting to learn about. Number data was more straightforward to analyse but I have to admit that I enjoy working with words more than numbers, as I personally prefer worded content more. Nonetheless, I’m glad that I was able to analyse everything in time and look over all the analysis I’ve done to write a compare and contrast section and conclusion for them, which helped me have a more organised thought of the data collected.

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