itinerant space

Virtual Collaborative Experience (VCE): an experimental method for designing research questions in the context of a study of VCE
Ling Cai

It is late autumn. The leaves are drifting down outside the window, like a series of connected piano notes playing a seasonal melody. Sitting at the table, I place my research context document aside and begin designing questions on paper. I use scissors to separate them and then reconnect them. In doing so, I discover unexpected relationality.

This text captures a specific moment in my research journey. I begin with my research problems, and I unfold a process for designing core questions for research exploration.

Collaboration in the workplace is evolving, and the shift to normalised remote collaboration necessitates a reassessment of user experience in ‘smart’ virtual environments used for this purpose. Transitions in workplace patterns have been facilitated by the rapid evolution of communication technologies in recent years. Their uptake has been greatly accelerated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with apps such as Zoom and Miro becoming common workplace tools. The rapid development of AI-enabled virtuality is also opening up possibilities for smoother group collaborations, even across continents. However, the intricacy of this experience is still little understood in terms of impact on users. Understanding the complexities and opportunities that these technologies present for co-workers’ experience – across ethical, cultural, social, as well as technical dimensions – is crucial for empowering international work communities.  

Experience plays a central role in this research, and gauging what experience means within the current remote collaboration context is the first stage. To achieve this, my study is employing an iterative method to craft research questions to gather relevant data (White, 2009; Janusheva, 2022). This includes questions like: ‘who are the co-workers?’; ‘how do they feel about virtual collaboration platforms?’, and ‘how do these questions relate to one another?’

The method I have evolved – which I define as a ‘relationality method’ – has helped to craft relevant research questions and map relationships between them. This relational analysis includes the use of visual and tangible methods such as creating paper strips to carry questions which are separated then reconnected. This allows the questions to brush up against and caress each other (see Figure 1), thus materialising putative connections. I found that my questions fell into gentle contortions and yielded crossovers that I would not have anticipated. This prompted me to ask questions that are more open, such as: whether virtual collaboration can generate new relationalities; how might I replicate this level of accidental discovery in the virtual, and what might the user’s experience of this be?

References

Janusheva, V. (2022) A review of the qualitative research question(s)’ relevance, TEACHER: International Journal of Education, Vol, 24. pp. 25-33. ISSN 1857- 8888. Available at: https://eprints.uklo.edu.mk/id/eprint/7338/ (Accessed: 28 May 2023).

White, P. (2009) Developing Research Questions: A Guide for Social Scientists. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.111-16.

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Image Caption

Figure 1. Cai, L. (2023). The above ‘relationality method’ helps me craft research questions and map relationships between them, resulting in new connections and questions for Virtual Collaborative Experience (VCE). How I see the questions evolve is changed by this method. It enables me to perceive how questions might interconnect and adopt a more open approach to crafting questions and defining counterparts. Photograph © Ling Cai.