Paper reviewed for the alt.chi 2007 conference An introspective HCI paper dealing with the notion of “failed” research. Successes are reported, failures swept under the rug. The paper discusses the limitations of quantitive approaches, especially in providing novel explanations, because of their strict structuring. Qualitive approaches are by definition more open-ended, but the initial expectations can sometimes be false. Should researchers present a “revised” study, or just publish the negative results?
I’m pretty sure that many published successes are “restructured” failures, in the same way that few scientists follow the hypothesis testing model to the letter. I think that the difference lies in the fact that Qualitive (even the term qualitive is problematic) research is open to results that contradict the researchers initial assumptions: in fact it welcomes them!
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