the deleted comments just had some typos... you can't edit comments, so they're not too useful if you're writing something longer, and you might care about editing them for clarity or accuracy.
Re: handing a survey out in classes, perhaps a few folks could try out asking some profs they know how they would feel about it. Having your class' perceptions and motivations assessed is part of how our work is evaluated here so you may find that to be a sensitive subject.
That can all depend on how you frame the goals of the project. Is it to make judgments about who is a good teacher, or who has the "best" teaching style, or is it for all of us to work as a team with faculty, students, administrators, and anyone else interested towards making this campus a more motivating place to learn? (Even so, you might find some profs skeptical or antsy about participating, until they know better what we're up to and whether the can "really" trust us to be on everyone's side).
Keep that in mind when thinking about potential areas for hypotheses too...
I think Bryon's idea of using a survey as a breeding ground for hypotheses is a good idea, although our hypotheses and preconceptions will shape what kind of questions we put on the survey, thus limiting the kind of hypotheses we might get out of it. It might be useful to combine surveys with open ended interviews. You could use the survey to get people thinking about the subject, and then when they're done, if they are willing, start them talking to get some additional perceptions which the survey might not tap into.
I think it would be really useful for all of us who care about this process to spend some serious time reflecting on our ideas about student motivation, and spend some concerted effort writing those ideas, hypotheses, assumptions down. Then we could spend some time together, maybe this Friday, putting those ideas together, to get the broadest span. Then we could identify embedded assumptions in our views and question those in order to include more potential ideas that might be "blind spots."
You folks talk about this stuff with me all the time, we talk about it in learning and cog, too, so I know you have really useful ideas and insights. Reflecting on them thoroughly enough to write coherently about it should help focus our hypotheses, questions, and potential areas of focus.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Response to Survey Questions
Looking over the questions again, I can see where they can touch upon many different aspects of motivation, from the simple case of class participation and assignment completion to the more complicated, yet substantially important, issues of topic interest and college financing. These questions will, no doubt, help us more fully analyze the sources of motivation for students. One thing we are lacking, however, is a direction to take on this study. Perhaps this isn't such a bad thing right now...
Chris mentioned his preference to do a series of more intensive studies on fewer individuals as opposed to a large scale study to determine the motivation of the non-existent "average person." I believe this approach will greatly limit the use of a self-report survey, like the one we worked on today. Although I have my reservations about this approach (perhaps saved for another blog entry), I think we can still utilize a survey prior to engaging in our mini case studies.
A case study without a focus is simply a list of observations. If we can use this survey on a large number of students before we start observing individuals, we might be able to see a faint outline of a hypothesis forming. For example, if we give the survey out and see that females tend to report themselves as more motivated than males did, then we can test that against our smaller group through our more objective observations. It is sort of like a post-hoc hypothesis, if that makes any sense. We can use this approach to test any other trends we notice in the survey, too.
These are just my thoughts on the matter... I hate going into a situation without a plan or defined purpose, so perhaps this will help us overcome that problem. With that in mind, I'd like to propose that we make sure we ask for majors and genders on each survey, to help track any possible correlations that might be found there. Also, I think that these surveys should be handed out in classes and not randomly, so questions can be answered about that specific class. Finally, I think that we need to design as many questions as we can to be categorical, as in having them circle either Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often, or All the Time, to avoid untrue dichotomies of yes and no, where it is applicable. Perhaps we can also assign them numeric values to correspond to the category... we know how scientists love their numbers.
I hope these thoughts are helpful, I can see this study being very interesting when we actually do it :)
~ Bryon
Chris mentioned his preference to do a series of more intensive studies on fewer individuals as opposed to a large scale study to determine the motivation of the non-existent "average person." I believe this approach will greatly limit the use of a self-report survey, like the one we worked on today. Although I have my reservations about this approach (perhaps saved for another blog entry), I think we can still utilize a survey prior to engaging in our mini case studies.
A case study without a focus is simply a list of observations. If we can use this survey on a large number of students before we start observing individuals, we might be able to see a faint outline of a hypothesis forming. For example, if we give the survey out and see that females tend to report themselves as more motivated than males did, then we can test that against our smaller group through our more objective observations. It is sort of like a post-hoc hypothesis, if that makes any sense. We can use this approach to test any other trends we notice in the survey, too.
These are just my thoughts on the matter... I hate going into a situation without a plan or defined purpose, so perhaps this will help us overcome that problem. With that in mind, I'd like to propose that we make sure we ask for majors and genders on each survey, to help track any possible correlations that might be found there. Also, I think that these surveys should be handed out in classes and not randomly, so questions can be answered about that specific class. Finally, I think that we need to design as many questions as we can to be categorical, as in having them circle either Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often, or All the Time, to avoid untrue dichotomies of yes and no, where it is applicable. Perhaps we can also assign them numeric values to correspond to the category... we know how scientists love their numbers.
I hope these thoughts are helpful, I can see this study being very interesting when we actually do it :)
~ Bryon
Friday Class
On Friday we are holding class at Starbucks in Wayne! Since our class is short we should be meeting there at 2. A number of people have cars. I'm planning on walking over...and don't know the way. So if some of you want to meet up with me 10-15 minutes before 2 to walk over together that would be cool. If the weather is bad we can take a vehicle instead.
Current Draft of Survey Questions
Draft Survey Questions
Student Motivation
(Q for us:
What’s our goal?
Describe,
predict, --who will be motivated, or under what circumstances are certain individuals motivated
-explicit hypothesis… match of teaching style to preferences?
explain, enable/self-control control)
...define the sample)
I received a mid-semester warning in this course. Y/N
Is this course an elective for you? Y/N
How many classes have you missed? ___ (estimate if you need to)
Are you often bored in class?
Do you text in class?
Do you participate in class?
Are you personally paying for (or going into debt) to finance your education?
Do you put off homework until a few hours before its due?
Do you find the content of this course (separate from how it is taught) interesting?
Does the professor engage you in the material?
Does your class have assignments?
If not skip the next question
How often do you turn in assignments late?
- Were you interested in (this class, this subject) prior to coming to college?
- Has your interest in education increased since you’ve been here? (Or declined)
- Did you choose to come to college or were you coerced in some manner?
- Since you’ve been in college for some time now, do you see a purpose for college besides attaining a degree? Has this been your purpose in college?
- Do you think that it’s important to enjoy your education?
Do you see this as preparing you for your future?
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