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:-)
Saturday 15 March 2008
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!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
