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.
Sunday 17 February 2008
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!
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