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!