Reflection of Theme 4

The fourth week theme was Quantitative research. During this week I read the paper Physical activity, stress and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection written by Olle Bälter. I also read The Benefits of Facebook Friends: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites written by Nicole B. Ellison, which was my chosen media technology research paper. I thought this weeks theme was fun and the texts were interesting to read. I found this week papers easier to understand than previous ones. But it was still challenging since I was not only focusing on the text itself but also of being critical to the use of method which was used for the study. The seminar was different from previous ones, we spent most of the time focusing on discussing the actually meaning of two terms; quantitative methods and qualitative methods. We were divide into groups and made a competition out of it, which was really fun and appreciated by the students. I thought this learning technique was effective and providing. Mainly because we were not only trying to find as many pro and cons of each term, we were also asked to choose three cons or pros that we thought other groups did not have chosen. This lead too great discussion and great ideas! I did value the seminar because it clarified question marks I had on quantitative methods and qualitative methods. So, the seminar gave me a deeper understanding because we manage to put the terms in a context I have not thought of earlier.