Here we are at the eve of another Christmas! If you asked me where this year has gone I would point you to the inumerable spreadsheets, books and piles of printed papers that I have accrued over the last 12 months.
The last 2 weeks have been a mixture of triumph and disaster. The disaster was discovering a basic error in the analysis spreadsheet that meant all the work I had done up to a week last Sunday was wrong. The air was blue when I found this but since then I have corrected the error, checked the calculation cells and run the data through again. This time rather than print the results out I have simply marked up a summary sheet with colours to show the highest difference between results of those within a category and everyone else. This minor triumph shows very clearly that rest is not a factor at all in almost all the variables and that work is also less of an issue.
I have also exported the final results for the students taking the Part 1 course and this gives me a picture of who stayed the course and who dropped out early. Once Christmas is over I can make a proper start on going through the data variable by variable. I have primed the family that I will be otherwise engaged so hope to finish this by the end of the month. I am taking the first week of January as annual leave and hope to have made a start on writing before I return to College on the 12th.
Those of you following this blog will notice a change in the title as the 12 months is now stretching towards 18 months. All being well I trust I will not need to change it again!
I wish you all well and hope you have a very Happy Christmas and, credit crunch or not, a prosperous New Year.
Wednesday 24 December 2008
Wednesday 10 December 2008
Analysis on Course
The last 2 weeks have been reasonably productive. The spreadsheet for analysing the diaries against the different variables has worked well and I have further refined it so that I can drill down further to look at times by total for the week, weekdays, weekends as well as by day. I have also refined it so that I can look at specific groups of students and if necessary to exclude students who answer Yes to specific questions.
I have identified those activities and variables that I want to examine in the first round and I have almost completed their analysis. The output gives me an indication as to whether there are significant differences and the second round will be to drill deeper and to compare against the student profiles. All being well this will be completed by the end of December. At the end of this week we have the results board for the target students so it will be interesting to add in their overall result to the profiles.
I am taking the first week in January off work and will use this to crack on with the writing. I have already set up the chapters in Word so feel more or less prepared! Also early in January I will be seeing my supervisor before he jets off to Singapore and Hong Kong for his sabbatical. There really is no rest for the wicked. At the moment I'm not sure that I have time for Christmas but no doubt time will be found!
I have identified those activities and variables that I want to examine in the first round and I have almost completed their analysis. The output gives me an indication as to whether there are significant differences and the second round will be to drill deeper and to compare against the student profiles. All being well this will be completed by the end of December. At the end of this week we have the results board for the target students so it will be interesting to add in their overall result to the profiles.
I am taking the first week in January off work and will use this to crack on with the writing. I have already set up the chapters in Word so feel more or less prepared! Also early in January I will be seeing my supervisor before he jets off to Singapore and Hong Kong for his sabbatical. There really is no rest for the wicked. At the moment I'm not sure that I have time for Christmas but no doubt time will be found!
Thursday 27 November 2008
Confidence Returns
What a difference a week makes! The optimism I felt on returning from holiday has now converted into great confidence that this thesis can be completed.
After a few days work I now have the spreadsheets set up to analyse the diary data. This will tell me how students spend their time depending on their answer to individual questions on the various questionnaires. Additionally it will also display how many 'episodes' of different durations students were involved in. I can look at this either day by day or by week or by weekdays or weekends. With over 10,000 permutations this is too many so my aim is to examine weeks first and to drill down as necessary.
The spreadsheet will tell me the average hours of students within the answer category and also the average of those not in the category. This will highlight where there are differences. To help with this I have included coloured flags that change depending on whether the difference in averages is less than 15%, 15-40%, 40-65 or more than 65%. The forthcoming week will be running through the permutations to identify where the biggest differences occur. From this I will be able to go back to the individual student profiles and investigate possible contributory factors. If necessary I can also examine the daily or weekday / weekend results.
The overall plot is to have the analyse completed by the end of December and to then get on with the writing up. I have now mapped out the time between January and June to keep the writing on schedule. The target is for the first draft to be finished by the end of April and then to submit at the end of June. All being well this will allow the viva to be held in September. I discussed this with Andrew, my supervisor, on Tuesday and he agrees that it should be doable. He is off to Singapore and Hong Kong for a 6 month sabbatical from January so good communications will be vital. Hopefully this blog will assist with this.
After a few days work I now have the spreadsheets set up to analyse the diary data. This will tell me how students spend their time depending on their answer to individual questions on the various questionnaires. Additionally it will also display how many 'episodes' of different durations students were involved in. I can look at this either day by day or by week or by weekdays or weekends. With over 10,000 permutations this is too many so my aim is to examine weeks first and to drill down as necessary.
The spreadsheet will tell me the average hours of students within the answer category and also the average of those not in the category. This will highlight where there are differences. To help with this I have included coloured flags that change depending on whether the difference in averages is less than 15%, 15-40%, 40-65 or more than 65%. The forthcoming week will be running through the permutations to identify where the biggest differences occur. From this I will be able to go back to the individual student profiles and investigate possible contributory factors. If necessary I can also examine the daily or weekday / weekend results.
The overall plot is to have the analyse completed by the end of December and to then get on with the writing up. I have now mapped out the time between January and June to keep the writing on schedule. The target is for the first draft to be finished by the end of April and then to submit at the end of June. All being well this will allow the viva to be held in September. I discussed this with Andrew, my supervisor, on Tuesday and he agrees that it should be doable. He is off to Singapore and Hong Kong for a 6 month sabbatical from January so good communications will be vital. Hopefully this blog will assist with this.
Sunday 16 November 2008
Beware the Leprachauns of Time
Where does the time go to these days - I must be getting older!! There may not have been as much posted here as I would have liked but progress has been made. Largely this is due to the opportunity that holidays give for taking a step back and reflecting but also thanks are due to Charlie at IOE who gave me an hour and a half of his time to help me sort out a major issue.
For some reason that I'm still not sure how I let happen I have spent a long time searching for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. This pot contains the details of students who share similar profiles and the search for this has been driving me potty - just like the Leprachauns, as you may have read! Of course grouping of students don't exist in a neatly packaged form - just as the end of the rainbow can never be found. Thankfully with Charlie's help I have now abandoned this wild goose chase and went off to Egypt with revived determination to re-examine things from a different angle.
As you will be aware from previous posts I am not a 'do nothing' person on holiday. After a couple of days chilling (not literally as it was by the red sea!) I read William Michelson's book on Time Use and also Barbara Adam's book on Time. Both are listed on the IATUR web site and the Michelson book has helped both to confirm that much of what I have done is worthwhile but also provided new ideas for analysing all my data. With this I have spent the last 2 days building a new set of spreadsheets which I hope will provide new insights before the end of the week.
I do now feel that I can get this thesis written and have vowed to get the final draft finished for the end of April. OK this is a little over the 12 months that I set myself but some things just have to follow their own course. If April is to happen I will need to sort out some time away from work although an extended sabbatical seems unlikely. I have created a new calendar which I will discuss with my supervisor in 10 days time.
One last thing for this post is to welcome members of IATUR who may follow the link sent round by Kimberly in her newsletter. Keeping this blog is not purely self-indulgence as it serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it helps me to track my own progress and to record some of the stages I have gone through so that I can refer to them when writing up. Secondly it is an experiment in using a blog for supervising research students at distance and allows Andrew to check what I am up to at any time. All being well we will compare notes at the end and I may be able to introduce blogging with my own students! Thirdly it is open to fellow EdD students who may want to compare notes on progress and problems as they go through the same process. Lastly it allows others to comment as they wish on my experiences so it will be good to hear from anyone out there in cyberspace:-)
More shortly - hopefully with some positive outcomes!
For some reason that I'm still not sure how I let happen I have spent a long time searching for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. This pot contains the details of students who share similar profiles and the search for this has been driving me potty - just like the Leprachauns, as you may have read! Of course grouping of students don't exist in a neatly packaged form - just as the end of the rainbow can never be found. Thankfully with Charlie's help I have now abandoned this wild goose chase and went off to Egypt with revived determination to re-examine things from a different angle.
As you will be aware from previous posts I am not a 'do nothing' person on holiday. After a couple of days chilling (not literally as it was by the red sea!) I read William Michelson's book on Time Use and also Barbara Adam's book on Time. Both are listed on the IATUR web site and the Michelson book has helped both to confirm that much of what I have done is worthwhile but also provided new ideas for analysing all my data. With this I have spent the last 2 days building a new set of spreadsheets which I hope will provide new insights before the end of the week.
I do now feel that I can get this thesis written and have vowed to get the final draft finished for the end of April. OK this is a little over the 12 months that I set myself but some things just have to follow their own course. If April is to happen I will need to sort out some time away from work although an extended sabbatical seems unlikely. I have created a new calendar which I will discuss with my supervisor in 10 days time.
One last thing for this post is to welcome members of IATUR who may follow the link sent round by Kimberly in her newsletter. Keeping this blog is not purely self-indulgence as it serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it helps me to track my own progress and to record some of the stages I have gone through so that I can refer to them when writing up. Secondly it is an experiment in using a blog for supervising research students at distance and allows Andrew to check what I am up to at any time. All being well we will compare notes at the end and I may be able to introduce blogging with my own students! Thirdly it is open to fellow EdD students who may want to compare notes on progress and problems as they go through the same process. Lastly it allows others to comment as they wish on my experiences so it will be good to hear from anyone out there in cyberspace:-)
More shortly - hopefully with some positive outcomes!
Friday 24 October 2008
Crazy Time
Despite my best intentions here we are nearly a month on from the last post! I would love to report that I have made a lot of progress but that is sadly not the case. This is due to all the other events that suddenly have to take priority in life. So two weeks ago my precious weekend time was taken up with getting a report written up for work and last weekend I was away first at a wedding in Leeds and then travelling to Paris for a research workshop.
The workshop was quite stimulating. As 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights the focus was on access and rights to education. I presented a paper on disability and distance education students which I had had accepted for a special edition of OPEN Praxis earlier this year. This resulted from a joint call for papers made by 6 international journals so I was pleased both to have mine accepted and then to be invited to present it in the UNESCO building in Paris. As with all conferences it was good to catch up with friends and make new contacts, and it was good to spend a leisurely lunch chatting with Corinne who is also taking the EdD course at IOE.
I wish I could report that this weekend will allow progress however this will be limited as I have students coming in to Reading today at the start of their course.
On the plus side I ended up with 28 responses to the last questionnaire. Not as many as I had hoped for but enough to complete the longitudinal survey. Also I have (very belatedly) discovered that Jonathan Gershuny (see earlier post about his book) has set up the Centre for Time Use Research at the University of Oxford. I have made contact and hope to meet with them soon to exchange ideas on analysing data.
As I said in my last post I am getting more and more concious that the year is nearing an end and I am still a way off starting the writing. I have now arranged a meeting with Andrew, my supervisor, at which I hope to agree where the focus should be for the thesis report as I have too much data for 45,000 words. I have also broached the idea of a sabbatical from work which hopefully will find support.
More in a week or so before I take a week's holiday in Egypt.
The workshop was quite stimulating. As 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights the focus was on access and rights to education. I presented a paper on disability and distance education students which I had had accepted for a special edition of OPEN Praxis earlier this year. This resulted from a joint call for papers made by 6 international journals so I was pleased both to have mine accepted and then to be invited to present it in the UNESCO building in Paris. As with all conferences it was good to catch up with friends and make new contacts, and it was good to spend a leisurely lunch chatting with Corinne who is also taking the EdD course at IOE.
I wish I could report that this weekend will allow progress however this will be limited as I have students coming in to Reading today at the start of their course.
On the plus side I ended up with 28 responses to the last questionnaire. Not as many as I had hoped for but enough to complete the longitudinal survey. Also I have (very belatedly) discovered that Jonathan Gershuny (see earlier post about his book) has set up the Centre for Time Use Research at the University of Oxford. I have made contact and hope to meet with them soon to exchange ideas on analysing data.
As I said in my last post I am getting more and more concious that the year is nearing an end and I am still a way off starting the writing. I have now arranged a meeting with Andrew, my supervisor, at which I hope to agree where the focus should be for the thesis report as I have too much data for 45,000 words. I have also broached the idea of a sabbatical from work which hopefully will find support.
More in a week or so before I take a week's holiday in Egypt.
Sunday 28 September 2008
Abandon Ship!
It is now over a month since I last posted and if you have been looking in you might have formed the impression that this blog has become the Marie Celeste - totally unmanned!
Actually my title for this post reflects abandonment of that great ship of research HMS Statistic otherwise known as SPSS. After spending considerable time trying to get anything sensible out of the software using cluster analysis I finally realised that the solution to my question doesn't come from analysis of values but from comparison. The reason is that all my data gathered from the various questionnaires are in the form of categorical data (or have been converted) so does not yield meaningful values.
I spent quite a lot of time casting around for other methods of comparing data values. For a while I was drawn towards the principles behind DNA and protein analysis. These are represented as strings of letters representing the different components (sorry exact description evades me). The software compares the strings, which can be lengthy, to arrive at matches between values. Needless to say the software that does the analysis is hugely complex and expensive, however, I did find a simple version that had been written for Excel. Sadly it was long out of circulation and the author (with the activation code) could not be traced. Actually this was a bit of a blind alley as the spreadsheet compared protein strings with published ones - not helpful for me but I was impressed with the basic principles.
What this highlighted for me is that what I want to know is whether sub-groups exist within the cohort of students. The sub-group need not share exactly the same characteristics but should be close enough to be distinct from other groups. Taking the principles of DNA analysis I then looked for solutions which compared letters as if these were words and found a simple Excel add-in that looks through words to spot typos. It is based on fuzzy logic and the approach is used in Internet search engines to find similar spellings.
The add-in, called Fuzzy Duplicate Finder, cost £20 (so not expensive) and will look through a list of words and group them into similar clusters. It can be set to identify groups where there are from one up to six letters different. I have now got the spreadsheet set up to sort students and their responses with the categorical values converted to letters and strung together into single 'words'. Using the add-in the spreadsheet will then create 7 sets of clusters for identical words, words with one letter different, two different and so on up to 6 letters different.
There is a caution in using this approach as the sequence in which the data is searched can influence the cluster. I need to do more work on this but as the students are listed in random order this should be a useful starting point. To start with I am looking at responses to related questions eg respones to questions about social life, domestic circumstances etc. Once the clusters are created it will be a case of looking at the individual students to find any shared features. To help with this I have also spent time setting up a spreadsheet to analyse pairs of response. These are collected and shown as values in a bubble chart. The advantage of bubble charts is that the size of the bubble indicates the scale of the values so is very visual.
The final piece of progress to report is that I circulated the last of the end of module questionnaires last week. This will bring to three the sets of data included in the longitudinal study and for this one I have included specific questions about time out for holidays and for preparing for exams (which come up in a couple of weeks). I have sent the questionnaire to 34 students and so far 25 have replied. If I can get 5 more to respond I will be happy!
As you can see the last month has not been without progress but I am at a point where I am starting to think about presenting the findings in 45,000 words. I suspect that I may already have more than I need so I hope to meet up with my supervisor in the next couple of weeks to discuss this.
All being well I aim to post the next entry sooner rather than later!
Actually my title for this post reflects abandonment of that great ship of research HMS Statistic otherwise known as SPSS. After spending considerable time trying to get anything sensible out of the software using cluster analysis I finally realised that the solution to my question doesn't come from analysis of values but from comparison. The reason is that all my data gathered from the various questionnaires are in the form of categorical data (or have been converted) so does not yield meaningful values.
I spent quite a lot of time casting around for other methods of comparing data values. For a while I was drawn towards the principles behind DNA and protein analysis. These are represented as strings of letters representing the different components (sorry exact description evades me). The software compares the strings, which can be lengthy, to arrive at matches between values. Needless to say the software that does the analysis is hugely complex and expensive, however, I did find a simple version that had been written for Excel. Sadly it was long out of circulation and the author (with the activation code) could not be traced. Actually this was a bit of a blind alley as the spreadsheet compared protein strings with published ones - not helpful for me but I was impressed with the basic principles.
What this highlighted for me is that what I want to know is whether sub-groups exist within the cohort of students. The sub-group need not share exactly the same characteristics but should be close enough to be distinct from other groups. Taking the principles of DNA analysis I then looked for solutions which compared letters as if these were words and found a simple Excel add-in that looks through words to spot typos. It is based on fuzzy logic and the approach is used in Internet search engines to find similar spellings.
The add-in, called Fuzzy Duplicate Finder, cost £20 (so not expensive) and will look through a list of words and group them into similar clusters. It can be set to identify groups where there are from one up to six letters different. I have now got the spreadsheet set up to sort students and their responses with the categorical values converted to letters and strung together into single 'words'. Using the add-in the spreadsheet will then create 7 sets of clusters for identical words, words with one letter different, two different and so on up to 6 letters different.
There is a caution in using this approach as the sequence in which the data is searched can influence the cluster. I need to do more work on this but as the students are listed in random order this should be a useful starting point. To start with I am looking at responses to related questions eg respones to questions about social life, domestic circumstances etc. Once the clusters are created it will be a case of looking at the individual students to find any shared features. To help with this I have also spent time setting up a spreadsheet to analyse pairs of response. These are collected and shown as values in a bubble chart. The advantage of bubble charts is that the size of the bubble indicates the scale of the values so is very visual.
The final piece of progress to report is that I circulated the last of the end of module questionnaires last week. This will bring to three the sets of data included in the longitudinal study and for this one I have included specific questions about time out for holidays and for preparing for exams (which come up in a couple of weeks). I have sent the questionnaire to 34 students and so far 25 have replied. If I can get 5 more to respond I will be happy!
As you can see the last month has not been without progress but I am at a point where I am starting to think about presenting the findings in 45,000 words. I suspect that I may already have more than I need so I hope to meet up with my supervisor in the next couple of weeks to discuss this.
All being well I aim to post the next entry sooner rather than later!
Monday 25 August 2008
The Right Statistic 2!
The trouble with statistics is that even when you think you have the right one the data doesn't want to play ball! Correlation was productive but has not revealed anything too startling. There are some average correlations but nothing particularly strong that could not be anticipated. So the last couple of weeks have been investigating other techniques.
The one I am now looking at using is cluster analysis. This is because what I really want to know is how different variables gravitate towards each other. With this I can look at the individual students to get a better and more grounded picture. The problem has been that the data has to be in the right format to use cluster analysis in SPSS so I have have to amend the data to get it to work. Unfortunately the online help from SPSS is only partially helpful so thank goodness for the internet where others who have passed this way have posted their procedures.
It is all very frustrating at times as I don't really want to get deeply involved with advanced stats methods but that is the price I have to pay for not designing a simple investigation using basic techniques! Hopefully in a week or so I will have some facts to work with. I'd better as I have to present initial findings at a workshop in two weeks time with some of our tutors!
No rest for the wicked.
The one I am now looking at using is cluster analysis. This is because what I really want to know is how different variables gravitate towards each other. With this I can look at the individual students to get a better and more grounded picture. The problem has been that the data has to be in the right format to use cluster analysis in SPSS so I have have to amend the data to get it to work. Unfortunately the online help from SPSS is only partially helpful so thank goodness for the internet where others who have passed this way have posted their procedures.
It is all very frustrating at times as I don't really want to get deeply involved with advanced stats methods but that is the price I have to pay for not designing a simple investigation using basic techniques! Hopefully in a week or so I will have some facts to work with. I'd better as I have to present initial findings at a workshop in two weeks time with some of our tutors!
No rest for the wicked.
Thursday 7 August 2008
The Right Statistic
Another two weeks on and progress has been made but frustratingly so. The latest questionnaire went out to the 41 tracking sample of students on 21st July with the request for them to be completed by 1 August. The date came and only 24 had responded, however, an email reminder to those who had not completed has now yielded 37 responses with a further one likely when the student returns from holiday.
That is the progress so what is the frustration. Needless to say that is the statistics. My intention of using ANOVA was scuppered once I started to look more closely at the detail. Originally I had a mix of free and categorised data. When I looked again at the frequencies I realised that the free data had a very wide range with some extreme outliers. As most of the data is already presented in categories (ie 1, 2, 3 etc) I took the decision to convert all the data into this form. This is now done but again valuable time has been used.
Now that I only have data in categories the next frustration was realising that simple ANOVA is not suited to this as there are no figures to provide means. So which statistic to use? Rather than follow trial and error I have spent over a week re-reading the statistics books to refresh the bonce! What I am interested in is the relationship between variables to see where further investigation is needed. Correlation will provide this, but thereby results another frustration - there are different methods of determining this in SPSS! The method most suited to my categorised data is Spearman's rho correlation. I have now started to put the data through this but the SPSS output is immense. Consequently I am taking it into Excel so that I can both process and sort it but also to condense it for printing out! It may be that I will convert some data back to values at some point but at the moment I have plenty to do.
That is the progress so what is the frustration. Needless to say that is the statistics. My intention of using ANOVA was scuppered once I started to look more closely at the detail. Originally I had a mix of free and categorised data. When I looked again at the frequencies I realised that the free data had a very wide range with some extreme outliers. As most of the data is already presented in categories (ie 1, 2, 3 etc) I took the decision to convert all the data into this form. This is now done but again valuable time has been used.
Now that I only have data in categories the next frustration was realising that simple ANOVA is not suited to this as there are no figures to provide means. So which statistic to use? Rather than follow trial and error I have spent over a week re-reading the statistics books to refresh the bonce! What I am interested in is the relationship between variables to see where further investigation is needed. Correlation will provide this, but thereby results another frustration - there are different methods of determining this in SPSS! The method most suited to my categorised data is Spearman's rho correlation. I have now started to put the data through this but the SPSS output is immense. Consequently I am taking it into Excel so that I can both process and sort it but also to condense it for printing out! It may be that I will convert some data back to values at some point but at the moment I have plenty to do.
Monday 21 July 2008
A Moment for Optimism
Apologies if it appears that all I have to write about is getting the data into SPSS but it has taken nearly all my spare time! Two weeks ago I attended my son's graduation at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. It was a very proud occassion that I thoroughly enjoyed - but of course interrupted my time for working on the thesis.
Last week I attended the Pan Commonwealth Forum which was held at IOE. Apart from hearing a lot of interesting talks and presentations worthy of the international education taught module, and catching up with a number of friends and acquaintances, it also gave me an opportunity to check my data and to see my supervisor. All seems well on all fronts so I progress!
I said 'nearly all my time' as I have also created the latest questionnaire for the longitudinal time study. In this one I am repeating some questions but have reframed others to ask about the effect of work, domestic, personal problems on the time available. I am also interested to find out whether students have settled into a pattern of weekly study that enables them to 'protect' time ie hours when they are definately studying and which are ring fenced against interuption or interference. I have sent this to the 41 students who answered my previous questionnaire and already 6 have responded. I anticipate that the number completing will drop off with each new questionnaire so hope that I started with enough to see the study through!
Last Thursday we had about 200 students come to a face to face workshop in Reading which gave me the chance to talk to some in the breaks. They are interested in the outcomes and I have been able to use some of their comments to frame the latest set of questions. Of course another questionnaire means yet more data but as the saying goes 'you can never have too much data'!!
This week my aim is to start the analysis of the data in earnest. My plan is to use one-way ANOVA to identify where there is significant variance in the data and then to use this to review the printed profiles. Currently I have 323 variables (not all of which I intend using!) and will pick off the main areas likely to impact on time in clusters. Hopefully my next posts will start to summarise findings.
All in all I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the research - long may that continue.
Last week I attended the Pan Commonwealth Forum which was held at IOE. Apart from hearing a lot of interesting talks and presentations worthy of the international education taught module, and catching up with a number of friends and acquaintances, it also gave me an opportunity to check my data and to see my supervisor. All seems well on all fronts so I progress!
I said 'nearly all my time' as I have also created the latest questionnaire for the longitudinal time study. In this one I am repeating some questions but have reframed others to ask about the effect of work, domestic, personal problems on the time available. I am also interested to find out whether students have settled into a pattern of weekly study that enables them to 'protect' time ie hours when they are definately studying and which are ring fenced against interuption or interference. I have sent this to the 41 students who answered my previous questionnaire and already 6 have responded. I anticipate that the number completing will drop off with each new questionnaire so hope that I started with enough to see the study through!
Last Thursday we had about 200 students come to a face to face workshop in Reading which gave me the chance to talk to some in the breaks. They are interested in the outcomes and I have been able to use some of their comments to frame the latest set of questions. Of course another questionnaire means yet more data but as the saying goes 'you can never have too much data'!!
This week my aim is to start the analysis of the data in earnest. My plan is to use one-way ANOVA to identify where there is significant variance in the data and then to use this to review the printed profiles. Currently I have 323 variables (not all of which I intend using!) and will pick off the main areas likely to impact on time in clusters. Hopefully my next posts will start to summarise findings.
All in all I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the research - long may that continue.
Saturday 5 July 2008
Where does time go?
So two weeks on from my last post and not a lot to report. Mainly this is because family matters are absorbing the precious weekend time. The last two weekends my son and his girlfriend have been staying with us. He has just completed his Event Management degree at Manchester so is now looking for work (if anyone knows of openings anywhere in the world let me know!!). This morning was the ceremony for my students who have completed their course, and tomorrow I go to Manchester to attend his graduation ceremony. It will be wonderful to see him receive his degree but it does mean I have less time!
Mostly I am still sorting out SPSS data. I had forgotten how long it takes to set up variables and with 323 so far it has been a lengthy process. I have also had to resort to IOE for assistance in getting clear how to deal with missing data. With Charlie Owen's help I think I have the solution now so hopefully can get on with the analysis.
One thing I will need to do in the next week or so is to create the next tracking questionnaire as my sample of students are about to finish their latest module. No rest for the wicked!!
Mostly I am still sorting out SPSS data. I had forgotten how long it takes to set up variables and with 323 so far it has been a lengthy process. I have also had to resort to IOE for assistance in getting clear how to deal with missing data. With Charlie Owen's help I think I have the solution now so hopefully can get on with the analysis.
One thing I will need to do in the next week or so is to create the next tracking questionnaire as my sample of students are about to finish their latest module. No rest for the wicked!!
Thursday 19 June 2008
Time to Reflect
Over a month has passed since my last post, however, the lengthy delay is due to my rewarding myself with a holiday in Portugal! Actually this was an opportunity to combine a break with attendance at the European Distance and E-Learning Network conference in Lisbon. I presented a paper titled Time and Borderless Distance Education that introduced the main issues surrounding this research. I am pleased to say it was well received and attracted a few questions afterwards.
Holiday is always a good time for reading. I did allow myself a couple of novels but additionally managed to finish reading Ron Barnett's book A Will to Learn. I found his perspectives on student 'being', motivation etc very interesting albeit that he was focusing mainly on full time students. If I get a chance I must talk with him about distance learners.
Taking a holiday provides good opportunity for reflection. I feel pretty happy that the data collected so far is representative and that apart from the follow up surveys to track my sample of students I can definately draw a line under the data collection. Incidentally 46 resonses have been made to the first of these follow up questionnaires which I have yet to analyse.
I had my annual review with my supervisor at the Institute yesterday- we both agree that things are on track and that the next stage is to analyse the data collected in clusters to identify any significant relationships. These can then be examined in more details from the collected data. I am still remaining optimistic about completion and aim to have the first draft written by the end of this year.
Better get to work!!
Holiday is always a good time for reading. I did allow myself a couple of novels but additionally managed to finish reading Ron Barnett's book A Will to Learn. I found his perspectives on student 'being', motivation etc very interesting albeit that he was focusing mainly on full time students. If I get a chance I must talk with him about distance learners.
Taking a holiday provides good opportunity for reflection. I feel pretty happy that the data collected so far is representative and that apart from the follow up surveys to track my sample of students I can definately draw a line under the data collection. Incidentally 46 resonses have been made to the first of these follow up questionnaires which I have yet to analyse.
I had my annual review with my supervisor at the Institute yesterday- we both agree that things are on track and that the next stage is to analyse the data collected in clusters to identify any significant relationships. These can then be examined in more details from the collected data. I am still remaining optimistic about completion and aim to have the first draft written by the end of this year.
Better get to work!!
Sunday 18 May 2008
Stage 4 Preparation
The last two weeks have been slower due mainly to the mini heatwave that we experienced for the first 10 days of May. Last weekend was too hot (30 degrees) to do a lot on the computer so time was spent in the garden with a cooling hose or in the shade!!
Not that the EdD was overlooked entirely. As mentioned in my last posting, this research not only aims to understand what happens with student time during the period of study for a module but also aims to track a sample of students through a sequence of modules. Therefore the last couple of weeks have been spent looking through the initial output data to identify which students will be asked to participate in the follow up surveys.
The decision has been helped by the question asked at the end of the post-module questionnaire. Only those students who positively agreed to participate further were considered - a total of 184 students out of 310 (64%) that completed the questionnaire.
Of these, deciding which students to include has not been too difficult, and has either been based on a process of elimination or on a need to include basis. Having the detailed analysis of the IMC forums, and the Blackboard access statistics, has proved useful in determining those students who appear to have provided accurate data in their diaries about their study. In the believe that an 'honest' student will continue to offer truthful answers these students were included in the pot.
On the 'need to include' side, this stage aims to track students longitudinally over the course of their Part 1 studies. Consequently only those students who are taking the full course without retake or exemption were included. Additionally, due to the nature of the EdD those students located overseas were automatically included - not least as they are a relatively small number in comparison with UK ones. As family circumstances are a (critical) focus for the research all students indicating that they have a family aged below 16 were also included.
This provided a pool of 122 students who either invited themselves into the follow up stage or did not exclude themselves. This was considered to be too large a sample and the final step was to look through the data again to decide who to leave out. This was not done entirely scientifically but did aim to generate a representative sample by gender, age, location and study route (ie property or construction). The aim was to end up with a sample of 50 students. In the end 62 students have been identified which represents about 20% of the main group of 295 students. The larger number allows for casualties along the way.
The tracking sample will be emailed later this week and invited to complete a follow up 'tracking' questionnaire. This aims to collect changes in time use and life circumstances from the students and will be repeated after the next two modules as well. It contains several questions identical to those in the post IMC questionnaire allowing comparison to be made. It also includes questions that drill deeper than the previous one in areas related to time and the course, study, personal circumstances and employment issues. Lastly it feeds back the summary weekly time commitment from the student's own diary and asks them to update on how their use of time has changed.
I'm not sure that I want, or even need, more data, however, my objectives will not be met unless I can see how students use of time changes as they come up against different life events.
Onward and upward!!
Not that the EdD was overlooked entirely. As mentioned in my last posting, this research not only aims to understand what happens with student time during the period of study for a module but also aims to track a sample of students through a sequence of modules. Therefore the last couple of weeks have been spent looking through the initial output data to identify which students will be asked to participate in the follow up surveys.
The decision has been helped by the question asked at the end of the post-module questionnaire. Only those students who positively agreed to participate further were considered - a total of 184 students out of 310 (64%) that completed the questionnaire.
Of these, deciding which students to include has not been too difficult, and has either been based on a process of elimination or on a need to include basis. Having the detailed analysis of the IMC forums, and the Blackboard access statistics, has proved useful in determining those students who appear to have provided accurate data in their diaries about their study. In the believe that an 'honest' student will continue to offer truthful answers these students were included in the pot.
On the 'need to include' side, this stage aims to track students longitudinally over the course of their Part 1 studies. Consequently only those students who are taking the full course without retake or exemption were included. Additionally, due to the nature of the EdD those students located overseas were automatically included - not least as they are a relatively small number in comparison with UK ones. As family circumstances are a (critical) focus for the research all students indicating that they have a family aged below 16 were also included.
This provided a pool of 122 students who either invited themselves into the follow up stage or did not exclude themselves. This was considered to be too large a sample and the final step was to look through the data again to decide who to leave out. This was not done entirely scientifically but did aim to generate a representative sample by gender, age, location and study route (ie property or construction). The aim was to end up with a sample of 50 students. In the end 62 students have been identified which represents about 20% of the main group of 295 students. The larger number allows for casualties along the way.
The tracking sample will be emailed later this week and invited to complete a follow up 'tracking' questionnaire. This aims to collect changes in time use and life circumstances from the students and will be repeated after the next two modules as well. It contains several questions identical to those in the post IMC questionnaire allowing comparison to be made. It also includes questions that drill deeper than the previous one in areas related to time and the course, study, personal circumstances and employment issues. Lastly it feeds back the summary weekly time commitment from the student's own diary and asks them to update on how their use of time has changed.
I'm not sure that I want, or even need, more data, however, my objectives will not be met unless I can see how students use of time changes as they come up against different life events.
Onward and upward!!
Monday 5 May 2008
SPSS and all that!
Since my last post I have looked again at the diary data and find that there are a further 74 sets of data which are complete except for the post-module questionnaire. Therefore I have added them to the collection making 295 sets of partial or complete data. Each set has been printed out on 6 sides of A4 consuming reams of paper and several printer cartidges. The whole collection now fills six 2 inch (5 cm) ring binders!
Apart from printing and filing, my last couple of weekends have been taken up with re-acquainting myself with SPSS. I haven't really used it since the taught module on methods of enquiry (about 2004) so am somewhat rusty- also of course it is now in a new version. Thank goodness for up-to-date textbooks! SPSS 15 Made Simple by Paul Kinnear and Colin Gray is particularly helpful.
Having spent many hours checking through the Excel data relating to students and the Pre-Course questionnaire to ensure that the variables are complete and the data in the right form to import I have hit a problem today with licencing. Basically the student version that I bought tells me that the licence has expired which, as it is not yet the end of the academic year, it should not.
So rather than go further I have passed the query back to the help desk and will spend the afternoon in the garden. I'm not unhappy about this as the sun has finally come out, but it is a bit of an irritant as I had planned on getting the data into SPSS by the end of this holiday weekend.
On another front, in the next week or so I have to decide on the group of students that I will track over the coming months. Not only do I need to identify the significant profiles but I also need to prepare the questionaire for their feedback.
Hey Ho - never a dull moment in research!!
Apart from printing and filing, my last couple of weekends have been taken up with re-acquainting myself with SPSS. I haven't really used it since the taught module on methods of enquiry (about 2004) so am somewhat rusty- also of course it is now in a new version. Thank goodness for up-to-date textbooks! SPSS 15 Made Simple by Paul Kinnear and Colin Gray is particularly helpful.
Having spent many hours checking through the Excel data relating to students and the Pre-Course questionnaire to ensure that the variables are complete and the data in the right form to import I have hit a problem today with licencing. Basically the student version that I bought tells me that the licence has expired which, as it is not yet the end of the academic year, it should not.
So rather than go further I have passed the query back to the help desk and will spend the afternoon in the garden. I'm not unhappy about this as the sun has finally come out, but it is a bit of an irritant as I had planned on getting the data into SPSS by the end of this holiday weekend.
On another front, in the next week or so I have to decide on the group of students that I will track over the coming months. Not only do I need to identify the significant profiles but I also need to prepare the questionaire for their feedback.
Hey Ho - never a dull moment in research!!
Monday 21 April 2008
Initial Data Collection Complete!
Yesterday I drew a line under the initial phase of the data collection when I closed the online questionnaires to further responses.
To summarise the target students for this research:
705 students are registered to study the year 1 course in 2008, and thus were invited to complete the Pre-Course questionnaire. 567 responses were returned to the questionnaire which yielded 506 usable sets of data once duplicates were removed. As a principle the latest version of the questionnaire has been included unless this was a blank response, in which case the next earliest that included answers was taken. Overall this equates to a 72% response rate to the Pre-Course Questionnaire.
470 students are registered to take the Information Management and Control module which the initial phase has focused on. Of these 74 students were retaking the module after failing or deferring it in a previous year. 381 students submitted a copy of the diary that they kept for week 2 of the module, of which 363 were usable for research purposes. This equates to a response rate of 77% for the diary.
In respect of the module assessment 447 students submitted their first assignment and 438 submitted assignment 2, a submission rate of 95% and 93% respectively. In terms of module outcome this results in 430 students passing the module - a pass rate of 91%.
348 students submitted a response to the Post-Module questionnaire. After duplicates were removed (following the same criteria as for the Pre-Course questionnaire) this yielded 310 usable responses - a response rate of 66%.
When these various sets of data are combined, the result is a total of 221 complete sets of data that include responses to the two questionnaires, submission of the diary as well as details of student's assessment marks and their participation in the VLE forums. This equates to 47% of the module population, however, as only 2 students retaking the module submitted a complete set of data this is effectively 55% of new students taking the module.
In respect of profile of the full sets collected, 56% are from male students (compared with 65% across all students taking the module), which would appear to be representative. What appears less representative is that 99% of the students submitting complete sets of data are passing the module whereas only 1% (2 students) have failed it. This does suggest that a proportion of students (up to 45) may already have dropped out or deferred before the module ended. What is not clear is the extent that time may have caused, or contributed, to this.
The next phase is to analyse the data. All 221 sets of data are now printed and a visual examination will be the first step. This should reveal those factors which seem to contribute to time pressures, and so will be extracted into SPSS for more detailed analysis.
Never a dull day!!
To summarise the target students for this research:
705 students are registered to study the year 1 course in 2008, and thus were invited to complete the Pre-Course questionnaire. 567 responses were returned to the questionnaire which yielded 506 usable sets of data once duplicates were removed. As a principle the latest version of the questionnaire has been included unless this was a blank response, in which case the next earliest that included answers was taken. Overall this equates to a 72% response rate to the Pre-Course Questionnaire.
470 students are registered to take the Information Management and Control module which the initial phase has focused on. Of these 74 students were retaking the module after failing or deferring it in a previous year. 381 students submitted a copy of the diary that they kept for week 2 of the module, of which 363 were usable for research purposes. This equates to a response rate of 77% for the diary.
In respect of the module assessment 447 students submitted their first assignment and 438 submitted assignment 2, a submission rate of 95% and 93% respectively. In terms of module outcome this results in 430 students passing the module - a pass rate of 91%.
348 students submitted a response to the Post-Module questionnaire. After duplicates were removed (following the same criteria as for the Pre-Course questionnaire) this yielded 310 usable responses - a response rate of 66%.
When these various sets of data are combined, the result is a total of 221 complete sets of data that include responses to the two questionnaires, submission of the diary as well as details of student's assessment marks and their participation in the VLE forums. This equates to 47% of the module population, however, as only 2 students retaking the module submitted a complete set of data this is effectively 55% of new students taking the module.
In respect of profile of the full sets collected, 56% are from male students (compared with 65% across all students taking the module), which would appear to be representative. What appears less representative is that 99% of the students submitting complete sets of data are passing the module whereas only 1% (2 students) have failed it. This does suggest that a proportion of students (up to 45) may already have dropped out or deferred before the module ended. What is not clear is the extent that time may have caused, or contributed, to this.
The next phase is to analyse the data. All 221 sets of data are now printed and a visual examination will be the first step. This should reveal those factors which seem to contribute to time pressures, and so will be extracted into SPSS for more detailed analysis.
Never a dull day!!
Sunday 6 April 2008
Data Collected?
Maybe this scenario is familiar to you. You have a period of free time coming up and you plan to get a lot of work / research / writing done - then life intervenes!! This was the story of my Easter break. I had some leave to use up before the end of March so booked to take the week off after Easter. My plan was to sort out the data and get it into a form ready for SPSS. All went well until Easter Sunday and then the dreaded 'flu virus struck and that was me finished for a whole week! It is a long time since I've been so badly affected to the point that I have not even wanted to switch the computer on!!
So now I am trying to catch up with my schedule. In reality I am still collecting data from the students. Despite reminders there are still a number who have not sent me their diary, however, I reckon this reflects the accuracy (or lack of it) so I am no longer pushing for these. Actually I have done pretty well and have 358 diaries to work with.
I am still pressing students to complete the post-module questionnaire as the response has not been as good as I had hoped for. 327 have so far completed it which is not bad but leaves quite a few incomplete sets of data (pre-course questionnaire, diary, post-course questionnaire) which if I can get a further 80 or so to submit will be good.
I have now finished analysing the module forums which give me actual details of messages posted and replied to, and at what time on which day these were made. Combined with the Blackboard stats, this not only allows me to compare the actual access and activity against the diaries but will also give me a picture of whether a student was posting to the study schedule and, if not, how far behind they may have got.
The last set of data that I have yet to complete is the assignment mark data. This is now waiting for one or two slow tutors to return their assignment 2 results. Once in I should be in a position to start printing out sets of results per student. As of today I have around 190 sets of complete data but with luck (and the cooperation of the students) I am hoping to get this up to around 240 students ie half the students taking the module.
The last three months have been very pressurised in terms of data collection. I am now looking forward to a period of analysis and drawing interim conclusions from the data.
So now I am trying to catch up with my schedule. In reality I am still collecting data from the students. Despite reminders there are still a number who have not sent me their diary, however, I reckon this reflects the accuracy (or lack of it) so I am no longer pushing for these. Actually I have done pretty well and have 358 diaries to work with.
I am still pressing students to complete the post-module questionnaire as the response has not been as good as I had hoped for. 327 have so far completed it which is not bad but leaves quite a few incomplete sets of data (pre-course questionnaire, diary, post-course questionnaire) which if I can get a further 80 or so to submit will be good.
I have now finished analysing the module forums which give me actual details of messages posted and replied to, and at what time on which day these were made. Combined with the Blackboard stats, this not only allows me to compare the actual access and activity against the diaries but will also give me a picture of whether a student was posting to the study schedule and, if not, how far behind they may have got.
The last set of data that I have yet to complete is the assignment mark data. This is now waiting for one or two slow tutors to return their assignment 2 results. Once in I should be in a position to start printing out sets of results per student. As of today I have around 190 sets of complete data but with luck (and the cooperation of the students) I am hoping to get this up to around 240 students ie half the students taking the module.
The last three months have been very pressurised in terms of data collection. I am now looking forward to a period of analysis and drawing interim conclusions from the data.
Saturday 15 March 2008
.... and Even More Data
As predicted this week has seen a deluge of diaries hit my inbox. Overnight from Sunday to Monday 75 arrived and this morning I have 326 diaries in total, hopefully with more to come.
I have now got opening the diary file, removing the password protection, copying and pasting the data into the master file and then saving the original diary down to a fine art. I reckon each now takes me about 2 minutes - so getting on for 3 hours work just to collect the data.
The post-module questionnaire went live last Sunday and already 200 students have completed it. All being well I am anticipating having a complete set of data (questionnaires and diary) for around 300 students. More would be nice!
One of the benefits of being in the UK is the ability to pop into IOE. I was in London for a workshop on advanced scholarship 10 days ago and arranged to have 20 minutes with my supervisor on the way home. It really is helpful to use occassions like that to take stock and to articulate where you are at with someone. Makes me think that a 'buddy' system could work equally well for times in between.
Incidentally it was graduation day at IOE so nice to see the students dressed up in all their finery and caps and gowns. Have to say the EdD robes look well worth the time and effort:-)
I have now got opening the diary file, removing the password protection, copying and pasting the data into the master file and then saving the original diary down to a fine art. I reckon each now takes me about 2 minutes - so getting on for 3 hours work just to collect the data.
The post-module questionnaire went live last Sunday and already 200 students have completed it. All being well I am anticipating having a complete set of data (questionnaires and diary) for around 300 students. More would be nice!
One of the benefits of being in the UK is the ability to pop into IOE. I was in London for a workshop on advanced scholarship 10 days ago and arranged to have 20 minutes with my supervisor on the way home. It really is helpful to use occassions like that to take stock and to articulate where you are at with someone. Makes me think that a 'buddy' system could work equally well for times in between.
Incidentally it was graduation day at IOE so nice to see the students dressed up in all their finery and caps and gowns. Have to say the EdD robes look well worth the time and effort:-)
Saturday 1 March 2008
Data, Data and More Data!
Funny how time disappears so quickly!! Over the last couple of weeks I've been processing the diaries as they come in. I now have over 160 sets of data but the real rush will come in a weeks time when students submit the assignment that the diary is attached to. My guess is that most are waiting until after they have finished writing the assignment before they send the diary to me. 479 students are taking the Information Management module so I've probably only received around a third of the diaries so far!
One tip to pass on from the experience with the diaries is to write down safely any passwords used. I password protected the diary spreadsheets leaving just the cells requiring entry to be accessible. The spreadsheet collected all the export info into a single hidden column of 1133 items so that the cut and paste into the analysis spreadsheet would be straightforward. Only when I went to unprotect the first diary did I discover that the password I thought I'd used did not work and remissly I had not written it down anywhere. You can imagine the frustration trying different words to access the data without success. Fortunately a search on the web revealed a handy bit of software that can be loaded and will unprotect spreadsheets. I don't know how it works but it does and now I have my data - relief :-).
As indicated I am collecting the diary results into an analysis spreadsheet which allows me to analyse each line of data to get summaries and averages. It also allows me to build a proportional chart from all the responses so that I can compare an individual student with the 'average'. From this comparison I am hoping to identify like groups of students who have similar time profiles, and who can then be followed up in greater detail.
The other thing I've been doing since the last post is to analyse the students' contributions to the online discussion forums. A couple of years ago I wrote a spreadsheet that will produce a simple analysis of messages and tells me who has posted with date and time, whether the post was an original message or a reply to another participant and how many times the message was read. From this I will be able to verify the online (VLE) entries in students' diaries and gives a more accurate profile than the statistics of hits that Blackboard provides. It is a bit lengthy with 24 tutor groups to open and then to collect, copy and paste the messages from each of the 10 forums but it does the job.
Gradually all the different sources of data are being combined into summary pages for each student. Once this is complete I will have a better idea of the full set of variables available for detailed analysis. In the meantime my next job is to prepare the post-module questionnaire ready for the 10th March when students submit the end assignment. No rest for the wicked as they say!!
One tip to pass on from the experience with the diaries is to write down safely any passwords used. I password protected the diary spreadsheets leaving just the cells requiring entry to be accessible. The spreadsheet collected all the export info into a single hidden column of 1133 items so that the cut and paste into the analysis spreadsheet would be straightforward. Only when I went to unprotect the first diary did I discover that the password I thought I'd used did not work and remissly I had not written it down anywhere. You can imagine the frustration trying different words to access the data without success. Fortunately a search on the web revealed a handy bit of software that can be loaded and will unprotect spreadsheets. I don't know how it works but it does and now I have my data - relief :-).
As indicated I am collecting the diary results into an analysis spreadsheet which allows me to analyse each line of data to get summaries and averages. It also allows me to build a proportional chart from all the responses so that I can compare an individual student with the 'average'. From this comparison I am hoping to identify like groups of students who have similar time profiles, and who can then be followed up in greater detail.
The other thing I've been doing since the last post is to analyse the students' contributions to the online discussion forums. A couple of years ago I wrote a spreadsheet that will produce a simple analysis of messages and tells me who has posted with date and time, whether the post was an original message or a reply to another participant and how many times the message was read. From this I will be able to verify the online (VLE) entries in students' diaries and gives a more accurate profile than the statistics of hits that Blackboard provides. It is a bit lengthy with 24 tutor groups to open and then to collect, copy and paste the messages from each of the 10 forums but it does the job.
Gradually all the different sources of data are being combined into summary pages for each student. Once this is complete I will have a better idea of the full set of variables available for detailed analysis. In the meantime my next job is to prepare the post-module questionnaire ready for the 10th March when students submit the end assignment. No rest for the wicked as they say!!
Sunday 17 February 2008
Getting Down to Stats
This last week has been one of facing up to the volume of data that this research is generating.
Completion of the pre-course questionnaire continues at a trickle with 561 students having now completed it yielding 481 usable sets of data. So far 70 students have returned their completed diaries. Interestingly some appear to have chosen to give someone else's ID for the diary!
How to analyse the diary content has been high in my thoughts. During the teaching week in London last week I had a one-to-one session with one of the lecturers who knows about stats and SPSS. It was really helpful to 'voice' the research and data issues, and the result is I am much clearer about the form in which the data needs to be recorded .
One issue that stats cannot resolve is that of sequencing ie the order and times that students spend on different activities during a day. My thinking at the moment is that this will have to be looked at visually. I have therefore created a spreadsheet that shows the time students spend on the four main activities (resting, working, studying and other) as colour coded 10 minute blocks. Already this serves to show whether an individual is blocking longer periods of time or grabbing short sessions, and whether this is happening during the week or at weekends.
Another tool I have created is a proportional 2-D chart that summarises the student's week, and is based on one illustrated by Gershuny (see previous blog). Created in Excel, it shows the proportion of time spent on the 4 main activities as a grid with columns of width equal to the percentage of time spent on that group of activities. Each column then sub-divides into the time activities within that group with the height of each block proportional to the time spent on it. One idea for using this is to print each chart on acetate and to overlay them. This should help to identify common patterns of time usage (and may be simpler than trying to do multi-variate analysis!!). I'll let you know how I get on.
I'm one of those people who is more than happy crunching number but still get lost with the more advanced stats - mainly due to not using the techniques often enough. For anyone in a similar position, or even for those who are unsure about statistics, can I recommend a book by Reva Berman Brown and Mark Saunders called Dealing with Statistics. The great thing is that there are no formulae or numbers included at all!! What they do is to talk you through the basics of statistics and what techniques can / should be used for different purposes. It is only a short book so doesn't take long to read but quickly gives the sorts of reminders that a rusty mind like mine needs.
Completion of the pre-course questionnaire continues at a trickle with 561 students having now completed it yielding 481 usable sets of data. So far 70 students have returned their completed diaries. Interestingly some appear to have chosen to give someone else's ID for the diary!
How to analyse the diary content has been high in my thoughts. During the teaching week in London last week I had a one-to-one session with one of the lecturers who knows about stats and SPSS. It was really helpful to 'voice' the research and data issues, and the result is I am much clearer about the form in which the data needs to be recorded .
One issue that stats cannot resolve is that of sequencing ie the order and times that students spend on different activities during a day. My thinking at the moment is that this will have to be looked at visually. I have therefore created a spreadsheet that shows the time students spend on the four main activities (resting, working, studying and other) as colour coded 10 minute blocks. Already this serves to show whether an individual is blocking longer periods of time or grabbing short sessions, and whether this is happening during the week or at weekends.
Another tool I have created is a proportional 2-D chart that summarises the student's week, and is based on one illustrated by Gershuny (see previous blog). Created in Excel, it shows the proportion of time spent on the 4 main activities as a grid with columns of width equal to the percentage of time spent on that group of activities. Each column then sub-divides into the time activities within that group with the height of each block proportional to the time spent on it. One idea for using this is to print each chart on acetate and to overlay them. This should help to identify common patterns of time usage (and may be simpler than trying to do multi-variate analysis!!). I'll let you know how I get on.
I'm one of those people who is more than happy crunching number but still get lost with the more advanced stats - mainly due to not using the techniques often enough. For anyone in a similar position, or even for those who are unsure about statistics, can I recommend a book by Reva Berman Brown and Mark Saunders called Dealing with Statistics. The great thing is that there are no formulae or numbers included at all!! What they do is to talk you through the basics of statistics and what techniques can / should be used for different purposes. It is only a short book so doesn't take long to read but quickly gives the sorts of reminders that a rusty mind like mine needs.
Sunday 10 February 2008
Diary Recording Week
The official notification that the research proposal has been approved by IOE came through this week - nice to see it in writing and signed off by the chair of the committee.
This week the students have (hopefully) been recording the time they spend on the different time activities. The week has run from midnight last Sunday and finishes at midnight tonight. Fortunately there have not been too many queries about which code to use. Either this means the instructions were very clear or that they have not actually filled in the form yet!! We will see next week how many start to email their completed spreadsheets.
Yesterday was a face to face day for the students targeted for this research. Around 150 students came to Reading for a day of talks covering subjects and specific aspects of the course that they need to be aware of. It gave me the opportunity to introduce and explain the project and to field questions about the research and particularly issues involving the 7 day diary. Most students seem to be clear about what is involved which is a blessing.
When I decided to set the diary for this week I overlooked the fact that students would be coming to Reading, however, on reflection that will be no bad thing as it will allow me to look at the time impact on students of taking a day out of their weekend. Certainly compared to face to face days arranged during the week the numbers attending were lower.
The discussion forum for the diary has mainly been used to discuss the value of podcasts by students. Many point to the value of having audio versions of the printed materials either for downloading or as CDs which they can play in the car or train while travelling to work or between client sites. However, they also want the printed version too!
There is still a slow trickle of students completing the pre-course questionnaire. 553 returns have been made but this reduces to 472 after duplicates and substantially incomplete forms have been removed.
In the time I've had this week I've started to clean the pre-course questionnaire data for entry into an Access database. I've also collected the base details of all the current students from the College's student records system. Once I've learned better how to work in Access I should be able to start building a comprehensive set of records!
This week the students have (hopefully) been recording the time they spend on the different time activities. The week has run from midnight last Sunday and finishes at midnight tonight. Fortunately there have not been too many queries about which code to use. Either this means the instructions were very clear or that they have not actually filled in the form yet!! We will see next week how many start to email their completed spreadsheets.
Yesterday was a face to face day for the students targeted for this research. Around 150 students came to Reading for a day of talks covering subjects and specific aspects of the course that they need to be aware of. It gave me the opportunity to introduce and explain the project and to field questions about the research and particularly issues involving the 7 day diary. Most students seem to be clear about what is involved which is a blessing.
When I decided to set the diary for this week I overlooked the fact that students would be coming to Reading, however, on reflection that will be no bad thing as it will allow me to look at the time impact on students of taking a day out of their weekend. Certainly compared to face to face days arranged during the week the numbers attending were lower.
The discussion forum for the diary has mainly been used to discuss the value of podcasts by students. Many point to the value of having audio versions of the printed materials either for downloading or as CDs which they can play in the car or train while travelling to work or between client sites. However, they also want the printed version too!
There is still a slow trickle of students completing the pre-course questionnaire. 553 returns have been made but this reduces to 472 after duplicates and substantially incomplete forms have been removed.
In the time I've had this week I've started to clean the pre-course questionnaire data for entry into an Access database. I've also collected the base details of all the current students from the College's student records system. Once I've learned better how to work in Access I should be able to start building a comprehensive set of records!
Tuesday 5 February 2008
First Results of Pre-Course Questionnaire
The course and module that this research is targeting started last week on Monday 28th January. By the end of last week there were a total of 682 students enrolled of whom 63 are retaking modules. The total includes students who completed a foundation module last autumn and 195 new students who were given exemption from the prelim study. These are all first year students and the total enrolment for all three years of the course is expected to be around 1275 students.
So far over 450 students from 38 nationalities have completed the pre-course questionnaire (over 90 were spoilt) representing 67% of target students taking year one. Two thirds are male and their employment ranges from trainees up to director level.
Responses indicate that the average working week is 37.2 hours with an average of 3.9 hours paid overtime. This gives an average working day of 8.2 hours and with an average daily commuting time of one hour gives a total weekday time commitment to work of 9.2 hours.
In respect of non-work time students indicate an average of 2.4 hours per day spent in domestic duties and 2.8 hours per day participating in social activity. Outside work most students spend between one and ten hours per week online engaged in activities such as emailing, banking, shopping, networking and general reference. Potentially this adds in a further 1.5 hours per day which increases to 2 hours if the average of 30 minutes per day spent on mobile phones is added in.
Overall the averages suggest that students already have 16.4 hours committed before sleep and study are taken into account. Adding in 8 hours sleep brings the daily average to 24.4 hours leaving zero time for study!
If these averages were accepted then the conclusion must be that students are cramming all their study into weekends. Clearly this is not the case and this highlights the fruitlessness of using average values to identify the time characteristics of the ‘average’ student.
A lot more analysis still needs to undertaken but one interesting outcome is the students’ weekly use of Facebook.
Over half the students use the social networking site with a clear pattern of increase from young to old for both genders - shown in this table.
If Facebook is a valid indicator of changing times then the conclusion may be drawn that the digital natives are indeed coming - and perhaps faster than first thought!
So far over 450 students from 38 nationalities have completed the pre-course questionnaire (over 90 were spoilt) representing 67% of target students taking year one. Two thirds are male and their employment ranges from trainees up to director level.
Responses indicate that the average working week is 37.2 hours with an average of 3.9 hours paid overtime. This gives an average working day of 8.2 hours and with an average daily commuting time of one hour gives a total weekday time commitment to work of 9.2 hours.
In respect of non-work time students indicate an average of 2.4 hours per day spent in domestic duties and 2.8 hours per day participating in social activity. Outside work most students spend between one and ten hours per week online engaged in activities such as emailing, banking, shopping, networking and general reference. Potentially this adds in a further 1.5 hours per day which increases to 2 hours if the average of 30 minutes per day spent on mobile phones is added in.
Overall the averages suggest that students already have 16.4 hours committed before sleep and study are taken into account. Adding in 8 hours sleep brings the daily average to 24.4 hours leaving zero time for study!
If these averages were accepted then the conclusion must be that students are cramming all their study into weekends. Clearly this is not the case and this highlights the fruitlessness of using average values to identify the time characteristics of the ‘average’ student.
A lot more analysis still needs to undertaken but one interesting outcome is the students’ weekly use of Facebook.
Over half the students use the social networking site with a clear pattern of increase from young to old for both genders - shown in this table.
If Facebook is a valid indicator of changing times then the conclusion may be drawn that the digital natives are indeed coming - and perhaps faster than first thought!
Saturday 26 January 2008
Thesis Review
Yesterday was a red letter day! I attended a review meeting at the Institute and was quizzed on my proposal by a panel of three including my supervisor. Thankfully the panel approved my proposal without conditions which means that I can get on with the data collection without fear that I have to change the research.
Actually the meeting was very helpful and each member of the panel gave some most useful and constructive advice. It does help to have input from others if only to clarify one's own thoughts.
The time since my last post has not been without progress. I needed some winter sun so had a week by the Red Sea in Egypt earlier this month. To be honest there was not a lot to do as it was too windy for me to go out on a boat to snorkel, and camel riding is not a favoured excursion. This meant sitting out of the wind by the pool reading.
I completed the Gershuny book (previously mentioned) which provides a lot of background about diary keeping and changing patterns of work over the last thirty years. It also has an excellent way of presenting diary info which I aim to use for my own data. Apart from this I got through a report on Work-Life balance produced by the Institute for Employment Studies in 2002 and made a start on reading up on different interpretations of post-industrial / information / knowledge societies. As this was one of the panel's questions it is clearly something that the thesis will need to address in presenting an interpretation and context.
The last thing to report is that I had anticipated a successful review and have already issued the pre-course questionnaire to students. Goodness only knows what I would have done if its use had been rejected or substantial changes suggested as up to today 385 students have completed it!! Now all I have to do is teach myself Access as the best way to manage the various sources of data and bring them together will be through a database.
The course that the research focuses on starts on Monday so the next few weeks will be pretty hectic. With over 550 students signed up I should have a decent set of data to work with!!
Actually the meeting was very helpful and each member of the panel gave some most useful and constructive advice. It does help to have input from others if only to clarify one's own thoughts.
The time since my last post has not been without progress. I needed some winter sun so had a week by the Red Sea in Egypt earlier this month. To be honest there was not a lot to do as it was too windy for me to go out on a boat to snorkel, and camel riding is not a favoured excursion. This meant sitting out of the wind by the pool reading.
I completed the Gershuny book (previously mentioned) which provides a lot of background about diary keeping and changing patterns of work over the last thirty years. It also has an excellent way of presenting diary info which I aim to use for my own data. Apart from this I got through a report on Work-Life balance produced by the Institute for Employment Studies in 2002 and made a start on reading up on different interpretations of post-industrial / information / knowledge societies. As this was one of the panel's questions it is clearly something that the thesis will need to address in presenting an interpretation and context.
The last thing to report is that I had anticipated a successful review and have already issued the pre-course questionnaire to students. Goodness only knows what I would have done if its use had been rejected or substantial changes suggested as up to today 385 students have completed it!! Now all I have to do is teach myself Access as the best way to manage the various sources of data and bring them together will be through a database.
The course that the research focuses on starts on Monday so the next few weeks will be pretty hectic. With over 550 students signed up I should have a decent set of data to work with!!
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