[IxDA Discuss] on research.

[Katie Albers]

At 3:59 PM -0700 7/13/06, maria romera wrote:
>[Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted material.]
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>"Robert Hoekman, Jr." <rhoekmanjr at gmail.com> wrote: 
>>>Are  there a lot of  people out there masquerading as User 
>>>>>Researchers who have never taken  Research Methods or 
>>>>>Statistics?  Maybe... I don't know the  answer  to that, but I 
>>>sure >>hope not. 
>>So you can only do effective research if you  took a college course 
>>on >it? And if you didn't, you shouldn't  bother researching users?
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>   Robert, was my comment really so black and white?
>   If I asked you if you would hire someone to code C++ without a 
>college  degree in Computer Science, wouldn't I be oversimplifying? 
>But it  would sure make you feel good to know they had the right 
>background.

Well...you did say that people who consider themselves user 
researchers should have at least a course in Research Methods and one 
in Statistics...so...yes...it necessarily follows that people who 
have neither (or only one or the other) cannot properly be considered 
User Researchers. And that's a very black and white statement.

I think your comparison about the college degree in computing is 
flawed at best. A course isn't comparable to a major. But it, for the 
purposes of this conversation, we assume that they are 
comparable...I've known brilliant C++ coders who taught themselves 
and took neither a course in programming nor a major in Computer 
Science. Would I feel better hiring the guy with the academic 
credentials? Nope.

You may be trying to get a debate going here, in which case I'd have 
to say that you're making some very broad and unfounded assumptions 
and probably insulting lots of people here as much as you're 
insulting me.

kt