2020 Session Research Methods Ricardo Sosa, PhD www.designcomputing.org

1. CTEC810 TransD Research Methods
Week 1
Nau Mai, Welcome
Course: https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz

3. Welcome to #CTEC810
This paper expands and develops your views about ways
of conducting research
Goal: to grow your literacy and respect for other
approaches to knowledge

4. Success in #CTEC810:
Capacity to identify, evaluate, and appreciate a variety
of research approaches

5. Success in #CTEC810:
Capacity to plan a research project being aware of the
methodological decisions and implications

6. 2020 Semester 1
24 February First day of classes
10 April - 14 April Easter break
15 - 24 April Mid-semester break
2 - 19 June Exam weeks
19 June Last day of semester
CTEC810 2020
26 Feb
w1: Definitions of research: types, levels, goals.
Research, search, practice. Research design.
Pathways. Research outputs.
04 Mar
w2: Types of Research Questions. Working title.
Mapping the research landscape. Abstracts.
Justification and positioning.
Formative assessment due: PGR1 Working title and
abstract
11 Mar
w3: Feedback on working titles and abstracts.
Literature reviews, precedents, grounding. Expected
contribution.
DCT Faculty Colloquium One: Sustainability & Ethics
Friday March 13th 4 to 6 pm: WE230
18 Mar
w4: Surveys, questionnaires, and interviews.
Assumptions, uses, results, contributions, criteria of
quality.
25 Mar
w5: Experiments and user testing. Computational
simulations. Assumptions, uses, results,
contributions, criteria of quality.
01 Apr
w6: Participatory, action research, practice-based,
Research through Design. Assumptions, uses,
results, contributions, criteria of quality.
08 Apr
w7: Ethnography, fieldwork and case studies.
Assumptions, uses, results, contributions, criteria of
quality.
15 Apr
Mid-semester break week 1
22 Apr
Mid-semester break week 2
29 Apr
w8: Philosophy. Creative, queer, indigenous,
feminist methods. Assumptions, uses, results,
contributions, criteria of quality.
DCT Faculty Colloquium Two: Feedback & self-
reflection. Friday May 1st 4 to 6 pm: WE230
06 May
w9: After Method. Design/Plan of the Study
workshop
13 May
w10: Student presentations to supervising staff
20 May
w11: Ethics, resources and time planning. Citation
and references.
27 May
w12: PGR1 writing workshop.
Summative assessment due: Final PGR1 as sent to
supervisors
03 Jun
AUT Exam week 1
10 Jun
AUT Exam week 2
Deadline to submit signed PGR1 to programme
leader

7. Code of Conduct and Expectations
• Respect
• Student agency: participation
• Openness
• Be brave!
• Enjoy and have fun
• Engagement
• Feedback/forward

8. The “R word” at AUT
• Doctor of Philosophy: Undertake advanced research,
develop their careers, make significant contributions
to society. Obtain advanced specialist/discipline
knowledge that makes an original contribution to a
particular field of enquiry; A mastery of body of
knowledge in the field of study; An advanced
capacity for critical appraisal of relevant scholarly
literature / knowledge; An advanced ability to
initiate, design, conduct and report research;
personal, professional, intellectual integrity, respect
and understanding of the ethical dimensions of
research…
https://autuni.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/sdwstg/research/prores/EURx-IDfvPpKjubUKqcJewABKAu7THik4-8Q4eT8CjJR-g?e=Ywya92

9. The “R word” at AUT
• Master’s: Show evidence of advanced knowledge
about a specialist field of enquiry or professional
practice; Demonstrate mastery of sophisticated
theoretical subject matter; Evaluate critically the
findings and discussions in the literature;
Research, analyse and argue from evidence;
Work independently and apply knowledge to
new situations; Engage in rigorous intellectual
analysis, criticism and problem-solving.
Demonstrate a high order of skill in the planning,
execution and completion of a piece of original
research; Apply research skills to new situations.
https://autuni.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/sdwstg/research/prores/EURx-IDfvPpKjubUKqcJewABKAu7THik4-8Q4eT8CjJR-g?e=Ywya92

10. What the “R word” means to you…
• Study, reading, critical thinking + stress
• Thinking from a new perspective
• Establishing new facts, new conclusions
• Systematically
• To explore a theme to influence or guide my practice
• Learn what is to think what could be
• Searching for new knowledge in/outside of us
• Immerse yourself into knowledge
• Find answers*
• Being open to being wrong
• A genuine curiosity
• An itch you need to scratch
• Purpose: to improve
• Challenging yourself

13. about
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by
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Research
Practice

14. Research and Search
• To search:
• to inquire, investigate, examine, or seek; conduct an examination or investigation.
• Check, comb, examine, explore, go through, hunt, inspect, investigate, look, probe
• To research:
• to make an extensive investigation into
• Analyse, consult, explore, investigate, probe, scrutinise, experiment, inquire
• Primary, secondary research
• Research purposes:
• Exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, action research

15. https://methods.sagepub.com/
https://journals.sagepub.com/home/mmr

16. Ontology
What is the nature of reality?
Epistemology
What can we know about reality?
Methodology
How can we go about building that knowledge?
Methods
What actions can we implement to build that knowledge?
Findings
What can we grasp, collect, analyse, evaluate, apply?

19. A Dog Has Died
by Pablo Neruda
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.

20. Clinging to the pleasures of human–animal companionship, Victorian
animal lovers may have perversely complicated the deaths of pets
and lost sight of other animals as they strove to account for that
most complex of simple things—loving and feeling loved.

22. Research Design
• Methodology, method
• Methodology: the philosophical bases of the study
• Method: a plan of the strategies used to pursue the
research question. Describes tools, instruments,
apparatus, procedures, steps
• Research design: choice of methodology which shapes
the research questions and type of research inquiry
• Questions:
• What is yet to be known? (a gap in knowledge)
• How are questions asked? (problematisation)
• Who will benefit from my research? (ethics)
• How can we study this? (methodologies)
• What motivates this? (justification)
Salkind, N. J. (2010). Encyclopedia of research design (Vols. 1-0).
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412961288

23. https://listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/feature-a-mouth_75646415_SMALL.jpg

24. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-baa4ab74d783d638b28cca968f951fc7

25. http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs14/i/2007/097/8/c/eye_wide_open_by_EvilDan.jpg

26. https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/32b95096/dms3rep/multi/right-tool-for-the-job-1999x885.jpg

27. Qualities and Criteria for Evaluating
Digital Design Literacy in Education (CC),
(4+4/5+3), 2020-9
This project develops a qualitative understanding of the state-of-the-actual in
terms of students’ use, experiences and understandings of everyday digital
technologies and their ability to deploy more advanced technologies as a
means to proactively engage in the design of digital artefacts.
The project will produce a taxonomy for students’ digital design literacy both
in relation to understanding existing digital technologies and engaging in the
design of future digital technologies, and deliver a conceptual model for
educators to evaluate students’ digital literacy as part of curriculum-based
education.
The ideal candidate has a background in digital design, child-computer
interaction, participatory design, design research in the area of emerging
technologies, with the ability to conduct empirical and intervention-based
research.
Research questions:
• Which competencies supports children’s ’digital design literacy’?
• What are the evaluation criteria that applies to digital design literacy with
emerging technologies?
• How is digital design literacy supported in a progressive development
through educational levels?
https://phd.arts.au.dk/applicants/open-and-specific-
calls/phd-call-2020-9/

28. Surveillance and user involvement in the
healthcare sector (4+4/5+3), 2020-8
The purpose of the PhD project is to develop a framework
for creative solutions to the practical challenges and
ethical dilemmas which arise with the introduction of
surveillance technologies to manage the issue of elderly
with dementia walking away from their homes. The project
involves planning, execution and evaluation of a number of
user-involving design processes such as workshops and
tests. The PhD project thus engages with central issues in
the use and development of technologies and workflows
to manage elderly with dementia’s wandering behavior.
Qualified applicants should have competencies in
qualitative methods and knowledge about humanistic
aspects of the use of ICT.
It is also a requirement that the applicant can understand
Danish.
Relevant educational backgrounds include information
studies, digital design, anthropology or similar.
https://phd.arts.au.dk/applicants/open-and-specific-
calls/phd-call-2020-8/

29. PhD scholarship within the project: “PREDICTING
RESPONSE - AI FOR 3D PRINTING BIOPOLYMERS IN
ARCHITECTURE” at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine
Arts, School of Architecture
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of
Architecture, posts vacant PhD scholarship as of 1
February 2020
Predicting Response is a 4 year project funded under
Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF) Thematic
Research on Digital Technologies. The research
project assembles a cross disciplinary team drawn
from architecture and chemical engineering
This project investigates the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for
creating predictive models for unpredictable material practices in
architecture. AI and the use of advanced generative, search and
predictive models are established parts of contemporary
architectural modelling. This project hypothesises that machine
learning can be employed to develop new bio-based graded
material practices for architecture informed by material
performance and integrated with intelligent fabrication. With a
special focus on biopolymer composites, the project examines
how machine learning can be used to predict behaviour and
grade these with versatile non-standard robotic 3D printing.
Designing with biopolymers necessitates solid understanding of
material behaviour both as a finished material and during setting.
These states are radically different; where wet setting states are
highly pliable and thixotropic, dry states are structurally rigid.
Subproject 1 develops models that predict material
transformation during setting and final structural performance.
The project supports UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.4
(Improve global resource efficiency in consumption and
production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from
environmental degradation) by developing new methodologies
for sustainable production.
Center for Information Technology and Architecture
https://kadk.dk/CITA

30. PHD POSITION IN NARRATIVE
COGNITION AND DECISION-MAKING IN
MIXED REALITY SYSTEMS (7-20001)
At the Technical Faculty of IT and Design
- Department of Architecture, Design
and Media Technology, Aalborg
University Copenhagen – a PhD position
is available within the general research
programme Media, Architecture &
Design. The PhD stipend in Narrative
Cognition and Decision-making in Mixed
Reality Systems is open for appointment
for a 3-year period starting from April 1
2020 or soonest thereafter.
The PhD project aims at modelling and predicting human decision-
making by characterizing subconscious brain processes using mixed
reality technologies (MRT) and advance biometric signal processing.
The PhD candidate will investigate key aspects of narrative cognition
that may have an implicit influence in decision-making processes when
story elements are mediated through MRT with the purpose of
advising, prompting or persuading subjects into particular courses of
action, choices and decisions.
In particular, the candidate will investigate decision-making processes
that may be related to cognitive “narrative faculties” such as hindsight,
foresight, closure, emotional immersion and inference making, for
instance. The interdisciplinary methodology will combine tools and
techniques from MRT (VR and/or AR), interactive digital storytelling,
and a suite of integrated psychophysiological methods (EEG, HR, GSR
and eye tracking) in order to study key cognitive processes and affective
states elicited by narrative rhetorical devices in immersive technologies.
The candidate should possess a combination of: Technical/Engineering
skills (mixed reality and immersive technologies, programming, machine
learning or multivariate statistics); Experience, familiarity or strong
interest in cognitive sciences, neurosciences, psychology or affective
sciences; Experience, familiarity or strong interest in narratology or
interactive digital storytelling.
https://www.vacancies.aau.dk/show-
vacancy/?vacancy=1083724

31. https://autuni.sharepoint.com/sites/sdw/research/prores/Pages/default.aspx

32. AUT Formats (or pathways)
• Format Three
• Practice understood as the site of research,
not to illustrate theory
• Includes an artefact/performance/or other
approved output and exegesis for
examination
• The term ‘thesis’ encompasses the artefact
and the exegesis as a whole
• The exegesis relates directly to the practice-
oriented work and as such does not have a
research topic or question of its own.
• Its purpose is to elucidate and clarify the
relationship between the central concept,
key contexts, focus and methodology of the
practice-oriented work, thereby setting the
thesis in its relevant critical context.
https://autuni.sharepoint.com/sites/sdw/research/prores/Pages/default.aspx
• Format One
• Traditional research structure, wholly written
• Format Two
• Master’s and doctoral students may include
in their submission for examination
manuscripts prepared as they progress
through their degree.
• Requires a comprehensive overall discussion
and conclusion chapters.
• The student required to be the principal
author, with a stated contribution of <80%
• PhD: a minimum of two manuscripts
submitted to a peer reviewed journal
• Masters: a minimum of one manuscript
submitted to a peer reviewed journal

33. https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/the-ego-centric-art-world-is-killing-art-197530
https://www.theartgorgeous.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Miley-Cyrus_Dirty-Hippie_theartgorgeous.jpeg

34. Research Outputs
• ≥ 90 pts = thesis
• 60 pts = dissertation
• Artefact, performance or other approved
output
• Exegesis
• Option 1: exegesis is completed prior to
examining the practice
• Option 2: a reflection and final refining of
the exegesis follows the examined exhibition
or performance
• Peer-reviewed:
• Journal papers
• Book chapters
• Conference papers

35. https://library.aut.ac.nz/https://scholar.google.co.nz/
https://scholar-google-co-nz.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/

36. Keywords
• Break up your topic into main concepts
• Define keywords for each concept
• Include synonyms using a thesaurus
• Test your keywords by searching databases
• Try adding method keywords and reference keywords
• Identify a small set of sources that you find more relevant
• Refine and include keywords from those sources
• Keep a record of your best keyword(s) and combinations
• Learn the advanced search operators
• Consider related papers
• Create alerts
• Find your way: journals, conferences, key authors, special
issues and reviews, edited books…
Example:
Empathy, Design, Creativity
↓
Empathy, Designers, Creativity
↓
Empathy, Designers, Creativity, Users
↓
Empathy, Designers, Creativity, Users, Ethnicity
↓
Empathy, Designers, Curriculum
↓
Empathy, Designers, Curriculum, Games

37. Weekly homework
• Define your keywords and test them searching a catalogue
like Google Scholar or a database in AUT Library
• Select five (5) papers that tackle a theme/problem/project
of your interest. From different sources & authors
• Analyse and comment on:
• The titles & keywords of these papers
• Their research purpose (why did they do that work?)
• Their research questions or themes (what did they do?)
• Their contributions (what did they find?)
• How are these 5 papers similar/different?
Title Purpose RQs
Ref01
Ref02
Ref03
Ref04
Ref05

38. Instructor
Dr Ricardo Sosa
• https://www.aut.ac.nz/profiles?id=rsosa
• ricardo.sosa@aut.ac.nz
• Twitter: @designcomputing
Recent publications:
• Accretion theory of ideation. Design Science, doi:10.1017/dsj.2019.22
• Creativity in graduate business education. Innovations in Education and
Teaching, doi:10.1080/14703297.2019.1628799
• Innovation Teams and Organizational Creativity: Reasoning with
Computational Simulations. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and
Innovation, doi:10.1016/j.sheji.2018.03.004
• Metrics to select design tasks in experimental creativity research. Part C:
Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, doi:10.1177/0954406218778305
• The A-Z of Creative Technologies. Transactions on Creative Technologies,
doi:10.4108/eai.10-4-2018.154460

39. ’70s ’80s 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Opportunity Lab
creativity
&
cognition 3