Method Matters : Reflections from Student-Made Mapping Studies

This Research to Practice full paper reviews two student-made systematic mapping studies and has two goals. The first goal is to report the students’ and the supervisor’s experiences with this research method, and thereby contribute to practice and knowledge on student research. A mapping study was experienced to fit a situation where the student initially had no personal research interests. Moreover, the method was argued to be appropriate for technology-related disciplines where student identities readily match with the pedantry required. Such student reflections suggest that rewarding research experiences can arise from an initially open starting point, and by considering student background in relation to the nature of work with a particular research method. Supervisors should hence learn about their students’ identities when proposing research methods-method matters. The second goal is to disseminate the results of the two mapping studies. The other study mapped intellectual property as an educational research topic, while the other focused on creative coding, similarly as an educational topic. The main results of these studies are summarized and explanation for how the results demonstrate acknowledged benefits of professional mapping studies is provided.