Professional Statement
This portfolio contains three artifacts of work done by me and in collaboration with my fellow classmates at HCDE502 - Empirical Traditions in HCDE.
Before taking this course, I was thinking it would be abstract, theoretical and not that informative though it claims to bridge some gaps between theory and practice. However, after an intensive and reflective quarter of learning, I no longer feel this way. I even no longer feel applying theory to practice is the central problem. It teaches me a way of thinking —— being open as well as critical about arguments, being persuasive when defending your opinions and being reflective about knowledge, experience and imaginations.
To be more specific, the UBASE form first lays a foundation for me in terms of research evaluation. Although not all UBASE criteria are required at the same time, a good research paper should demonstrate itself to be valid and worth reading by excelling at some of them while not screwing up at the rest. Further, I should say special thanks to P2 - Method Landscape, which helps me dive deep into a brand-new method and develop evaluation criteria through literature review and hand coding of papers. Now I get the idea of how to grab the essence of a research method, how to analyze it horizontally (landscape) and vertically (deep dive). What is more, I love the discussion about ethics. I get a deeper understanding about compromises in research. We are human beings after all. If we do not value human rights first, what’s the meaning of talking about the so-called truth?
