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!
Sunday, 16 November 2008
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!!
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