Reflections about the past week (Theme 2: Theory)

This week I’ve learned many interesting things. Or perhaps as we say in this course: I’ve gained some useful knowledge about some interesting topics. In particular; Theory. I’ve learned what it is, or at least what it can be and taking note of several definitions for it. I’ve also learned what theory is not and what criteria’s need to be fulfilled for it to be theory. The concept of dividing theory in five different types of theories was a new and interesting view on the subject for me. As was the seminar which gave some interesting discussion and I’m still not a 100% clear on where to draw the line between theory and hypothesis. That will give me something to still think about concerning this week’s topic.

I assume that the definition of theory, which we together summarized at the seminar is much more abstract than methods, which we are going to touch upon next week, thereby a group project in this course about some sort of method seems more eligible than doing a project about theory.

However, in theory, the result and aim with our group project is going to end up as a theory about how to implement a method. Did you get what I was trying to say or did you lose me and think this was some sort of circular argumentation? Read again, it wasn’t. ;)

But anyway it’s good to have started to choose subject for our group project and I look forward to gain some knowledge about how to conduct surveys and questioners in the best way possible. So, basically we our group has chosen that we want to write about surveys as a method in research for media technology. Hopefully this will also later on help me when doing my master thesis and other projects in the future.