Well, I'm still working on my proposal. I am trying to determine exactly what questions I shall ask and how I shall ask them. I probably won't get this thing finished until next week. I found this really informative site that explains the types of surveys, types of questions and basically, all things about surveys. I am going to certainly study this site (Super Survey Knowledge Base) and several others (listed at the end) that look as if they might help. Then, maybe I can write a competent survey. Any help you guys can throw my way would be really appreciated. I am glad that I qualified this research as exploratory and that I limited my participants to Santa Fe College ITE students. I should be really careful not to get caught up in the details and attend to the large issues.
Methods Tutorial: some early steps in research This goes through the whole process. Im at step 4.This one is going to be a huge help. There are many more. The query I used on Google was: tutorial "survey questions " site:edu past year.
Survival Statistics from Survey and Questionnaire Design
10 Tips for Writing and Delivering Effective Poll and Survey Questions 10 tips from Adobe connect community.
Advanced Technology for Online Surveys Lots of links here.
I am most grateful for any suggestions that will keep me on task.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
I'm working on the introduction for my proposal.
My main proposal source (http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-1/heath.html) states that I should grab the interest of the reader with a story. Therefore, my introduction is of a conversational nature. This is what I have so far. I seriously want your opinions. I do not want to embarrass myself in front of my boss...
Communication is the heart and soul of distance education. At Santa Fe College, the synchronous and asynchronous communication tools in Angel provide the potential for social presence but they are under-utilized by the students unless they are essentially forced to use them. As an exploratory research project, I would like permission to survey the students in my class in order to discover what would make the online experience more satisfactory at SFC.
When I began to teach Internet Programming this semester, I thought that there would be a lively attendance in the online office hours. I thought the students would be curious about me at the least. So far, I have had only one attendee. I have practically had to force them to use the asynchronous discussion. No matter how much I threaten and cajole, they avoid communications like the plague.
While taking a course in Distance Education at University of Florida, I was forced to attend office hours - once. Dr. Cavanaugh was using a medium called Elluminate Live!. It had the capacity for auditory communication and holographic input as well as typing. I was so fascinated by this application I returned to office hours every time they were offered and just lurked. Sometimes, even though I am quite shy, I was caught up enough to chime right in there. I then began to study the research regarding synchronous and asynchronous communication and their effect on student participation and student satisfaction.
Literature search:
During this study, I first wanted to know the ways that student participation have been measured and whether or not student participation influences student performance. I found that there is substantial evidence that class participation, no matter how it is measured, is an important factor in student success. I also found that the combined measure of participation (email, class utterances and discussion posts) and the course click count appear to be good predictors of exam performance in an e-learning course (Douglas & Alemanne, 2007).
I also wanted to know what factors influence the building of community in online instruction and to what extent they do this. My research indicated that transactional distance, instructor immediacy, lurking, social equity, collaborative learning, group facilitation, and self-directed learning, social presence has a great impact on the sense of community within online learning environments (Chongwony, 2008). I am particularly interested fostering social presence in my classes.
I also researched social constructivism in the context of social presence. The literature supported my casual findings that a facilitative teaching presence rather than didactic teaching presence does not mean that you ignore the student’s cries for help; rather, the students need more social presence and motivation in an online situation (Thomason, 2008).
What I want to find out:
What can be done that would encourage more communication by Santa Fe College students, create more social sense and thereby more student satisfaction.
Would these things help?
Synchronous office hours that could be thought of as a live discussion hour. I would not even call them office hours.
Would it help if it could involve auditory conversations as well as typed ones? There would definitely be more immediacy and a sensory social sense and by extension more student satisfaction. This would require an online tool such as Elluminate Live! or Adobe Connect
Would more instructor – student interaction in the form of assignments that require the instructors participation by modeling certain assignments help foster better communication.
I am trying this in the nature of a slide show in Javascript in which I participate and allow the students to critique.
When I began to teach Internet Programming this semester, I thought that there would be a lively attendance in the online office hours. I thought the students would be curious about me at the least. So far, I have had only one attendee. I have practically had to force them to use the asynchronous discussion. No matter how much I threaten and cajole, they avoid communications like the plague.
While taking a course in Distance Education at University of Florida, I was forced to attend office hours - once. Dr. Cavanaugh was using a medium called Elluminate Live!. It had the capacity for auditory communication and holographic input as well as typing. I was so fascinated by this application I returned to office hours every time they were offered and just lurked. Sometimes, even though I am quite shy, I was caught up enough to chime right in there. I then began to study the research regarding synchronous and asynchronous communication and their effect on student participation and student satisfaction.
Literature search:
During this study, I first wanted to know the ways that student participation have been measured and whether or not student participation influences student performance. I found that there is substantial evidence that class participation, no matter how it is measured, is an important factor in student success. I also found that the combined measure of participation (email, class utterances and discussion posts) and the course click count appear to be good predictors of exam performance in an e-learning course (Douglas & Alemanne, 2007).
I also wanted to know what factors influence the building of community in online instruction and to what extent they do this. My research indicated that transactional distance, instructor immediacy, lurking, social equity, collaborative learning, group facilitation, and self-directed learning, social presence has a great impact on the sense of community within online learning environments (Chongwony, 2008). I am particularly interested fostering social presence in my classes.
I also researched social constructivism in the context of social presence. The literature supported my casual findings that a facilitative teaching presence rather than didactic teaching presence does not mean that you ignore the student’s cries for help; rather, the students need more social presence and motivation in an online situation (Thomason, 2008).
What I want to find out:
What can be done that would encourage more communication by Santa Fe College students, create more social sense and thereby more student satisfaction.
Would these things help?
Synchronous office hours that could be thought of as a live discussion hour. I would not even call them office hours.
Would it help if it could involve auditory conversations as well as typed ones? There would definitely be more immediacy and a sensory social sense and by extension more student satisfaction. This would require an online tool such as Elluminate Live! or Adobe Connect
Would more instructor – student interaction in the form of assignments that require the instructors participation by modeling certain assignments help foster better communication.
I am trying this in the nature of a slide show in Javascript in which I participate and allow the students to critique.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Proposal for the department chair
Well, this weekend I am going to write my exploratory research proposal for the chair of my department and, hopefully, send it to him on Monday.I have several URLs that will help me do this. The main one I intend to use is Elements of a Proposal by Frank Parhares at Emory University (http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/proposal.html) Other information as to form of the proposal will be drawn from The Proposal in Qualitative Research by Anthony W. Heath from Nova University (http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-1/heath.html). These are for Doctoral Dissertation Proposals and since mine is just a tiny exploratory research proposal, the proposal I hand him will not be as complete as these documents recommend. I hope this is the right approach.
I also intend to include pertinent educational research including that regarding asynchronous communication versus synchronous communication (http://www.thejournal.com/articles/15513,http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/ijet/v2n1/schoenfeld-tacher/index.html,http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/AsynchronousandSynchronou/47683) which suggests that synchronous communication increases immediacy and social presence to a greater degree than asynchronous communication; social presence and student satisfaction (http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Chongwony%20Lewis%20K.E.pdf?acc_num=ohiou1199472454, http://etec.hawaii.edu/proceedings/2008/Kiriakidis2008.pdf ) which suggests that a greater social presence increases student satisfaction; increasing social presence in synchronous and asynchronous formats
(http://learning.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cop/CoP_Recent_Research/LearningCOP&SocialPresecnce.pdf,http://etd.fcla.edu/SF/SFE0001236/Schullo-Shauna-Dissertation.pdf ); and synchronous and asynchronous communication tools (http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/articledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=13572 http://www.astd.org/LC/2000/0600_swider.htm). This is a progression hopefully leading to the conclusion that SFC needs a synchronous tool that is indeed "in the present"; such as Elluminate Live!
I also need to include a survey with references. This is not going to be easy.
I also intend to include pertinent educational research including that regarding asynchronous communication versus synchronous communication (http://www.thejournal.com/articles/15513,http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/ijet/v2n1/schoenfeld-tacher/index.html,http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/AsynchronousandSynchronou/47683) which suggests that synchronous communication increases immediacy and social presence to a greater degree than asynchronous communication; social presence and student satisfaction (http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Chongwony%20Lewis%20K.E.pdf?acc_num=ohiou1199472454, http://etec.hawaii.edu/proceedings/2008/Kiriakidis2008.pdf ) which suggests that a greater social presence increases student satisfaction; increasing social presence in synchronous and asynchronous formats
(http://learning.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cop/CoP_Recent_Research/LearningCOP&SocialPresecnce.pdf,http://etd.fcla.edu/SF/SFE0001236/Schullo-Shauna-Dissertation.pdf ); and synchronous and asynchronous communication tools (http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/articledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=13572 http://www.astd.org/LC/2000/0600_swider.htm). This is a progression hopefully leading to the conclusion that SFC needs a synchronous tool that is indeed "in the present"; such as Elluminate Live!
I also need to include a survey with references. This is not going to be easy.
Monday, March 23, 2009
I am preparing my proposal for the chair of my department in order to get his permission to "use" my students and the students of my generous colleagues as subjects for my exploratory research. How formal should this be? Should we just have a casual talk in the hall or should I present it in an e-mail so I have documentation that he agreed? Or, should I make a big
deal out of it and schedule an appointment with him?
I have links for writing proposals (http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-1/heath.html for one) and for support of the hypothesis of my exploratory research (Social presence and thereby student satisfaction would it increase if the synchronous tool at SFC had auditory and/or visual (web cam? avatar?) cues).
The reason for the survey involves an ulterior motive on my part. I would like for SFC to adopt Elluminate Live! or some other synchronous tool that increases social presence. Even though there is plenty of research to support the idea that increased social presence increases student satisfaction, I think my chair would be more interested if I could show that SFC students specifically would be more interested in communication with each other and the instructor if there a synchronous tool available that increased social presence. I am having to force my students to communicate with me and each other.
The problem is this: I have 3 documents to prepare. There is the research proposal for Dr. Jones, the survey and the research paper for this course including the analysis of my results. This analysis is going to include some statistical work so I am also going to have to research and implement this also. I hope to heck I can finish.
Do I dump the ulterior motive for another day and jettison the proposal for my chair and my survey and just do a plain old research paper? Help! I do tend to overdo.
deal out of it and schedule an appointment with him?
I have links for writing proposals (http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-1/heath.html for one) and for support of the hypothesis of my exploratory research (Social presence and thereby student satisfaction would it increase if the synchronous tool at SFC had auditory and/or visual (web cam? avatar?) cues).
The reason for the survey involves an ulterior motive on my part. I would like for SFC to adopt Elluminate Live! or some other synchronous tool that increases social presence. Even though there is plenty of research to support the idea that increased social presence increases student satisfaction, I think my chair would be more interested if I could show that SFC students specifically would be more interested in communication with each other and the instructor if there a synchronous tool available that increased social presence. I am having to force my students to communicate with me and each other.
The problem is this: I have 3 documents to prepare. There is the research proposal for Dr. Jones, the survey and the research paper for this course including the analysis of my results. This analysis is going to include some statistical work so I am also going to have to research and implement this also. I hope to heck I can finish.
Do I dump the ulterior motive for another day and jettison the proposal for my chair and my survey and just do a plain old research paper? Help! I do tend to overdo.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
A little more thought...
I have thought about my little project a bit more. I think that it should be conducted as exploratory research of communication technologies that SFC students actually use. I shall address key issues SFC students may have about the communication technology used in distance education. I want this exploration to tell me why, how, and when SFC students use the communication technology available and what kinds of functionality would increase the usage of this technology.
I think I am well on my way. I have found a a great website on how exploratory research should be conducted.
I think I am well on my way. I have found a a great website on how exploratory research should be conducted.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Will this dog hunt?
How I am going to do this…
I have begun to think about my little project and have come up with some ideas as to how I should proceed. Below is a tentative list.
LIST
Hi Ya’ll,
I have noticed that nobody visits my office hours. I was really hoping some of you would stop by so I could get to know you better. What’s the problem? Are the scheduled hours inconvenient for you? I know you all work and have families so I would make changes to accommodate you. Just let me know.
Well, what do you guys think? Do you have any suggestions?
I have begun to think about my little project and have come up with some ideas as to how I should proceed. Below is a tentative list.
LIST
- Write a proposal to show the chair of my department (I need his permission for this).
- Include a survey and encourage him to make suggestions as to the questions.
- My survey must be professional quality. It must attempt to answer the questions I have posed. This is going to be the hardest part of this project.
- To that end I have found some URLs that have tips on how to write a survey that will answer your research questions.
- http://www.syberworks.com/elpodcast2_transcript.htm Lots of information - very useful
- http://www.syberworks.com/articles/14surveytips.htm
- http://www.syberworks.com/survey.htm Free trial for survey software
- Begin preparing my student s for the survey and encouraging them to answer it.
- A few friendly forays into this should begin now.
- Sample post in the discussion.
Hi Ya’ll,
I have noticed that nobody visits my office hours. I was really hoping some of you would stop by so I could get to know you better. What’s the problem? Are the scheduled hours inconvenient for you? I know you all work and have families so I would make changes to accommodate you. Just let me know.
Well, what do you guys think? Do you have any suggestions?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
I have selected a topic and I am so excited!
My topic is:
Post secondary students and their media preferences in online education.
The questions I want to ask are:
1. Why are the synchronous online office hours without participation (just like face-to-face office hours) when the student-student and instructor-student interactions are so lively asynchronously?
2. If the synchronous Instructor-student and student-student interactions were equipt with voice capabilities as well as writing capabilities (such as Elluminate Live!) would student participation increase? Santa Fe has Angel online office hours which is just typing.
3. Is the necessary scheduling of synchronous online activities causitive of lack of participation? That is, is it too much like having to attend class face-to-face at a particular time?
4. Do these students prefer the anonymity of asynchronous contact? That is, do they prefer the "I can plan and edit what I 'say' before I 'say' it"? situation in asynchronous communications?
I think a study such as this would help me provide better facilitation for my students. And, if the results showed that the students would be more engaged if we had Elluminate Live! or a similar application (speaking as well as writing, holography as well as typing) the proper person would have something to show the money people that would be indicative of possible impact so that we could acquire a technology as nice as that for our students.
There is research in this area but most of it is meta-analytical in nature. (http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/materials/clark/DE_Meta_Fin_Jan11-04.pdf and http://asterix.ednet.lsu.edu/~edtech/Lou/UndergradDE.pdf)
I would like to conduct an actual chat and survey with Santa Fe students in order to find my answers for Santa Fe students. Perhaps I can persuade Debbie, Liz, and Nancy to help me distribute a survey to their students as well as mine in order to increase the sample size. Since the students aren't genetically identical Sprague Dawley rats the Central Limit Theorem does not hold and I would definitely need more than my 13 students.
How about it ya'll? Am I biting off more than I can chew? Is this too specific, Dr. Ferdig?
Suzon
Post secondary students and their media preferences in online education.
The questions I want to ask are:
1. Why are the synchronous online office hours without participation (just like face-to-face office hours) when the student-student and instructor-student interactions are so lively asynchronously?
2. If the synchronous Instructor-student and student-student interactions were equipt with voice capabilities as well as writing capabilities (such as Elluminate Live!) would student participation increase? Santa Fe has Angel online office hours which is just typing.
3. Is the necessary scheduling of synchronous online activities causitive of lack of participation? That is, is it too much like having to attend class face-to-face at a particular time?
4. Do these students prefer the anonymity of asynchronous contact? That is, do they prefer the "I can plan and edit what I 'say' before I 'say' it"? situation in asynchronous communications?
I think a study such as this would help me provide better facilitation for my students. And, if the results showed that the students would be more engaged if we had Elluminate Live! or a similar application (speaking as well as writing, holography as well as typing) the proper person would have something to show the money people that would be indicative of possible impact so that we could acquire a technology as nice as that for our students.
There is research in this area but most of it is meta-analytical in nature. (http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/materials/clark/DE_Meta_Fin_Jan11-04.pdf and http://asterix.ednet.lsu.edu/~edtech/Lou/UndergradDE.pdf)
I would like to conduct an actual chat and survey with Santa Fe students in order to find my answers for Santa Fe students. Perhaps I can persuade Debbie, Liz, and Nancy to help me distribute a survey to their students as well as mine in order to increase the sample size. Since the students aren't genetically identical Sprague Dawley rats the Central Limit Theorem does not hold and I would definitely need more than my 13 students.
How about it ya'll? Am I biting off more than I can chew? Is this too specific, Dr. Ferdig?
Suzon
Sunday, March 8, 2009
I don't know which topic to choose.
I need some help. I can't make up my mind. I have narrowed it down to several choices. I don't want to go wrong here because if I do, it's going to be a miserable 6 weeks.
If they all suck, I have more. Input, I need input.
1.Synchronicity in distance education: Eluminate Live! or Adobe Connect?
2.Resistance to new technologies by elderly learners (I probably could actually do this one - I have 3 elderly relatives that have computers and they do not want to learn how to use them. One of them is actually using a Video Writer and it still works.)
3. Web Quests and direct teaching: Do Web Quests actually increase student learning?
4. The tablet PCs and note taking in the traditional classroom.
If they all suck, I have more. Input, I need input.
1.Synchronicity in distance education: Eluminate Live! or Adobe Connect?
2.Resistance to new technologies by elderly learners (I probably could actually do this one - I have 3 elderly relatives that have computers and they do not want to learn how to use them. One of them is actually using a Video Writer and it still works.)
3. Web Quests and direct teaching: Do Web Quests actually increase student learning?
4. The tablet PCs and note taking in the traditional classroom.
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