Unit 5

Case Studies, Focus Groups and Observations

Action Plan Tasks:

• Interviews Reading
• Sampling Distributions Reading
• Sampling Distribution of the Mean Reading
• Reflective Activity 2

Reflection:

What?

In this unit, we were introduced to the concept of interviews and methods. I have learnt that interviews are one of the most common qualitative research methods. It allows the interviewer to gain more in-depth insights as well as catching the non-verbal language of the respondent. The second concept of this unit was the survey. It is the most important quantitative methods of collecting data. Nowadays, it becomes easier to share surveys online. This week, we were asked to investigate the Cambridge Analytica case study, which I found interesting.

So What?

The interviewer needs to prepare in advance the questions while keeping in mind the desire output of the entire interview. Interviews can become complex for the interviewer if the questions are not well structured, misleading the respondent’ answers. Interviews may be structured or unstructured. Both approaches have their advantages, open-ended questions in an unstructured interview could require a great deal of time and effort from the interviewer to guide the conversation toward the intended outcome.

Lastly, I looked into the Cambridge Analytica case study. During political campaigns, this organization exploited loopholes in ethics and privacy laws to gain insights into people's personalities and use that to carry out marketing campaigns designed to influence people's opinions and voting preferences. In recent years, this case study has been one of the most widely discussed academic cases of research ethics and social engineering.

What next?

Next unit, I will start reading all the articled that I have selected for my literature review.