Theme 4: Qualitative methods. 

Due to illness I couldn’t complete Theme 4 in time (I didn’t have access to kthb.se or to any other journal services and therefore couldn’t answer the questions in time. I happens that today was the first time I had the opportunity to actually read an article).

The paper I’ve choose to read is “On qualitative methodologies and dispersed communities: Reflections on the process of investigating an open source community” by Sigfridsson & Sheehan. Elsevier published the article in the Information & Software Technology journal, and the impact factor on a 5-year basis is 1.388 (which isn’t awfully high, but I feel it’s good enough for this kind of topic). 

The qualitative methods used in this paper are discussing interpretive research approches based on ethnographic data collection methods, including participant observation, virtual ethnography, grounded Theory and open-ended questionnaires.  One limitation of the paper is that it’s hard to conduct research on such a divided group as a FOSS-community (Free Open Source Software) due to the differences in ethnographic and geographic backgrounds. Another limitation is the risk for misinterpretation due to the large amount of material collected. This could lead to misinterpretation because of loss of context and because of geographical dispersion. The dynamics of a group involved in FOSS is also something you have to consider, what’s true today about the group may not be true tomorrow etc. It’s more like a living organism always evolving, always changing. Fickle as the wind, you might say.

The main benefit of conducting qualitative research on this kind of phenomena – according to the authors – is to build an understanding on why it does occur. And to gain an understanding of the driving factors why such a dispersed group also can create such as powerful tools as the HTTP, LINUX, and the APACHE-server etc.

While reading this paper I’ve been introduced to the concept of virtual ethnography, which is “a theorized account of the culture studied with ethnographic methods”, alas a kind of pseudo ethnographical way to theorize about one’s research group using the common investigation techniques of ordinary ethnography research:

Adopting an ethnographically inspired methodological approach of spending time in the field, observing the concrete activities which are the subject of research. Simply put, the ethnographic data generation technique of participant observation in combination with in situ interviews and collection of artifacts are a way for the researcher to gain an intimate familiarity with the dilemmas, frustrations, routines, relationships, and risks that are part of everyday life in software development [33]. 

 This was something I found interesting and something I further want to investigate.

One of the problems with conducting participant observation is the direct impact of the researchers person in the field of study: a factor to consider when reviewing the results of the study.  Some other problems with the use of these approaches used by the authors are that of Grounded Theory – which actually doesn’t say anything less it’s stated as a fact from earlier research. And I believe this is problematic because of the small risk that earlier research is based on a falsehood especially in new research areas.

All over I think that the different approaches of methodologies used collects different aspects of problems and try to minimize the risk for faulty records. One way to actually improve the way the qualitative methods were used is maybe just to focus on a smaller set of factors instead of getting the whole picture. I always find it hard when researchers want to overuse or create a Theory of Everything why don’t use their methods at hand to actually gain an understanding on the concept at hand, and if the data collection is too large to handle the question researched probably are too. 

Something about the other text:

At first I found it rather confusing but it actually helped me to understand the concept when I read the field-studies. A really interesting topic.

My question: Is this kind of physical programming just something that could be used in toys or is there any other setting of use?

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