Met with James in the corridor
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: I'm a Believer (The Monkees)
Topic: Meetings
So, just met James in the corridor and we were discussing the BSRLM conference and I told him although it was ok, I didn't think it was that useful. He suggested that sometime in future I should make a trip down to Bristol, since they are doing some interesting things there albeit all in schools!

Anyway, he said it will be good to dip into looking at conversation analysis (I told him I thought it looked hard :) ) - but he said I should still look at it, particularly look at Diane Laurillard book since she speaks about a framework for comparing software uses in difference disciplines (at least I think so) and if that gets more interesting to look at the work of the original developer Harvey Sacks.

So, will have to do that .. thought Gill had the book but couldn't find it on her shelf so may have to get it from the library.

Brainstorming about PhD research: Methodology
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Travelin' Man (Rick Nelson)
Topic: Methodology
So, as part of the U500 session I attended on Tuesday we were also required to put together a list of tasks that we will undertake in the coming year. So, I listed a generic list of tasks, so here the are:

1. Literature Review
2. Decide on Methodology/ Methods
3. Negotiate Access with Universities
4. Pilot a study (still thinking about it!)
5. Observation of teaching LP in universities

Well, decided to expand on these just not to make it look so generic. So, first up is the literature review, which I'm looking at different types of software including example-based, problem-based and context-based as well as black-box and white-box software. Besides that my literature review may have to include something on cognitive learning (so far looked at a paper on cognitive load theory) and then something on computer-intensive curriculum and learning strategies with computers.

Deciding on the methodology or methods is difficult and I have no clue about that as yet. I was thinking I might have to do some kind of experimental design. The normal experiments that happen in schools is that the class is split and one group of students do one things and the other group do something different and then compare these groups - not sure how that is going to work - since I'll need access to a group of students to do that - and to keep the experiment of the two groups homogeneous somewhat such as same lecturer, same sort of approach (maybe depending on what I'm doing). Also, if I want to do it for several classes or disciplines, I'll also have to keep in mind that LP may be taught less or more in some disciplines or subjects as well for varying lengths sometimes in 2 hrs or 10 hrs!

I just scribbled something her on measuring student's usage of the software - not quite sure what I mean but perhaps how they use the software and what length etc., but then I was also considering to do a questionnaire of the student's attitude towards the differing software or I can do a pre-test/ post-test experimental type thing, give them both kinds of software and see what they think about it afterwards - mot quite sure if this will measure anything useful in this contest since giving a questionnaire before they even know LP and then giving them one after they know LP - how's that going to help anything - probably could get their attitude to what they expect the software to do for them and then see what it actually did - but this is all from their perception which may be 'coloured' and hence cannot provide actually what the software may/ may not have done for them - I guess that is why there is triangulation of methods in cases like these.

So, decided to group the pilot study and the observation study into one since I probably can do both in the same instance. So, for the pilot study I was thinking I can observe how students use the various software or how teachers employ the software and interview the students and teachers as to what they think about the using of the software etc. But before I can do this, probably, I should do the following:

1. Create a list of nearby universities with linear programming courses
2. Get the course lecturers contact details
3. Write to them to gain permission to come observe and interview them
4. Get a list of dates/ times when LP is being taught so you can travel and visit them

Thinking of PhD research: research questions
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: All I Have to Do is Dream (The Everly Brothers)
Topic: Research questions
So, went to the U500 session yesterday on research questions and design, so got me thinking about my research question, so I slapped down a few questions - they are definitely not perfect but needed to create one for the session: Well a very broad question I developed was:

"How do student learn LP using various types of software?"

This was quite broad but this is what I want to answer essentially, I do need to identify what is the types of software - so far, I have two definitions: one that goes with the box approach but this for solution software: so white-box and black-box, and then I can go to how they teach (software used in the teaching process) such as: problem-based software, example-based software or context-based (such as using problems that are related to their disciplines like agriculture, engineering, business). Well, using the box-approach to the classification of softwares, I developed a somewhat other question and this is based on Jonathan research (and somewhat what James is interested in):

What strategies do students employ when learning LP using a) black-box software and b) white-box software?

I'm not quite sure what I mean by strategy :) and what I hope to get from this. My third research question is alot like the first, so just will state it because I think I will throw it out soon:

How do students learn using software that are example-based, problem-based or context-based?

I was thinking about what James was saying about groups depending on their background may 'take to' differing software so perhaps something like this:

How does a student background influence their learning of LP using software?

But here I'm not sure what I mean by background - do I mean their disciplinary background? Their attitudes to computer? Their mathematical ability? Their age? Their sex? Their race? Their culture? All these are background factors now got to ask myself which do I mean! Perhaps, I can go back to what I originally wanted to study such as:

How does employing various types of LP software affect the learning of LP by students?

This is what I'm mainly interested in, and this suggests to me that the learning of LP may also depend on the course, the curriculum, the discipline etc and thus depends on how the software is integrated into the course and to what purpose it is used in the course. I expect in some cases where learning LP is done mostly by hand to learn everything, then employing a software to do the solutions only, wouldn't really have much of an effect. My problem comes here in what I consider learning of LP to be ... that is how do I measure it, and what constitutes that someone has learned LP. The question to ask is does LP consists of someone being taught the formulation of the problem, the solution of the problem (and which solutions these are: the simplex, the graphical, the interior-point?) and the sensitivity analysis (is this just learning the range of the coefficients of objective variables or the range of RHS variables or finding the dual price as well?). The next hard part is deciding when students have learnt LP is that when they are able to put the numbers into the software and get the answer out? Able to interpret the answer? Understand the theory behind it? Able to produce the answer by doing it by hand? Understand the principle? I think I have to soon (but not as yet since I don't want to limit my thinking)to make strong barriers and definitions for my research, for example, looking at courses teaching the graphical method only or the simplex algorithm only. Or looking at courses where the examination is by hand or something like that - got to think and decide about it. You may have note that my research question has nothing about disciplines in it ... and I do want to compare disciplines so somehow got to tuck that in - or let it be some parameter for comparison in my study.

Keith Trigwell and John's presentations
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Sooner or Later (Supertramp)
Topic: Seminars
Thought the last entry was getting too long so decided to post it in a next entry.

Keith presentation although alright didn't engage my attention as much as Noel's (which is quite surprising since I was more interesting in Trigwell and Prosser work in the MSc!). I think perhaps because he was looking at students' perceptions and approached to learning from Oxford University and since I'm somewhat prejudice towards them decided to not pay much attention :). He talked mostly of the development of the model for student learning, particularly the 3P model (Presage, Process and Product) and how each part of the model relates to 'real' life such as degree result, deep and surface approach, teaching workload etc.

He did mention that in the Oxford undergraduate system, the humanities/social sciences tended to a lot more preparation for their work before a tutorial (and this perhaps increased their deep approach??). He also mentioned something called adoptive and adaptive learning by Blackmore which seems as something that might be of some interest to look up just to check what it is about.

Keith did have something interesting in his findings, that students had 1st class honours tended to perceive their workload as being appropriate and the same for good teaching. Which perhaps just means that students who are probably bright/ intelligent just think workload and teaching are good because the work is easy enough for them :)

They looked at the perception of students, their approaches to teaching and their motivation and conception. Keith was able to identify two clusters from these results. He found that for English, law, maths, history and physics students that the clusters were significantly different for each other for all the scales. However for engineering students the "good teaching" and "clear goals and standards" for perception was not significant between the clusters, and for the languages the deep approach clusters were not significantly different and for the Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) students, the clear goals and standards were not significant either.

In John's presentation he employed the use of path analysis (wasn't quite sure how this was different to structural equation modelling - SEM - but found a chapter on it on the internet - it seems that SEM is an extension of path analysis which includes the latent variables). So, John decided to test the causal relationships between demographic background (age, sex etc), perceptions of academic environment, and study behaviour for predicting outcome measures (he used marks I believe for this one) by controlling the effects of each of the predictor variables, and test whether they were acting as mediating variables. His path analysis obviously assumes that these are the only variables that affect outcome measures. In the end his results suggest that perceptions of academic environment and study behaviour both individually act to predict (or cause) the outcome measures and also, that both the perceptions of academic environment and study behaviour act through one another to cause the outcome measure.

This finding was not wholly accepted by Keith as one should expect since his framework suggested that Perceptions of academic environment and study behaviour was acting together to make the reality or perspective of a student and does not have a causal relationship between them.

In the discussion forum, John, Keith or Noel mentioned that Meyer was putting together an ASI bibliography for group disciplines. This sounded as something interesting to get my hands on.

I think this session was really good, just got to meet Ramsden and Meyer and would have met all of the famous people from my MSc research :).

Students' perceptions and approaches to studying: a colloquium cont'd
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Surfin' USA (Beach Boys)
Topic: Seminars
Well, didn't get to finish talking about the seminars yesterday since I had to go to a driving lesson and when I came back I had to go to a meeting for the International Students' Day Debriefing and then got chatting with Gill. Anyway, here it continues, and continuing with Noel's presentation which I made the most notes for.

So, was talking about Meyer's orchestration classification. Noel did a study in 2000 in which he used this classification to describe the clusters of students he found. One of the clusters he described as dissonance had relatively high or similar scores in all the sub-scale for deep and surface and on of the subscale of strategic approach, but had low scores on the organised studying (strategic) subscale.

Not sure if this is anything useful but I guess its a way of grouping of students, not sure if this helps me in anyway in my linear programming research. For example, does being dissonance or having any of the deep, surface or strategic approach affect the way in which students learn using software? I mean is there any literature of that kind?? Is it even worth looking at. What I am getting at theory as far as I know doesn't point to a difference - but will keep it at the back of my mind.

Noel also mention something he called the 3Es (explanation, enthusiasm and empathy) which he probably attributes to the student's perception of a course (the 3Es makes me reflect back on the 5Es!! - wondered if he picked that up when he was looking at Checkland's SSM).

Noel also mentioned that different disciplines/ subject students may have different experiences (this obviously peaked my interest when I heard this statement but he didn't elaborate too much!).

Noel also talked about a study by Thomas and Bain (not sure of the spelling) in which they found the study approach a student may employ made depend on how students are assessed for example they looked at students being assessed by essays and then followed by multiple choice and found that the multiple choice assessment increased the surface approach scores and lowered the deep approach scores (I think!) - but he said that the students who had high deep approach scores continue to have the highest deep approach scores although not as high as before. Noel goes on to explain it seems easier to induce a surface approach than a deep approach.

Noel described a study that they were doing presently in which they sent of a learning and studying questionnaire at the beginning of a module and a Experiences of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire at the end of the module and then small-group interviews were conducted. They did this for subject areas in electronic engineering, history, biology and economics (hearing all these disciplines again peaked my interest!). It seems now that they are calling strategic approach "organised effort".

This exercise had a bit of a test-retest experimental behaviour. Of course Campbell and Stanley thought the test-retest was a bit weak (but Noel did supplement his results with interviews so wonder how that works!).

One of the things that Noel said in their pre-test:post-test discussion(since students perception of the course change from the beginning towards the end) is that since LP is taught as a part of a larger course, does the perception of the teaching of LP influenced by how the first part of the course was taught? For example if the student hated how a teacher taught the statistics component will they have a negative attitude to how LP was taught even though it was taught quite alright?

Anyway, got to speak to Noel during coffee since there wasn't a question session directly after his talk. So, I cornered him during the making of his coffee and told him I was interested in learning and teaching across disciplines and was interested in knowing why he chose the range of subjects to conduct his study. He explained (bit ambiguous but got the gist) that they were aiming to look at the soft, hard and applied disciplines. I reckon he was using a more distilled version of Biglan's framework. I asked him if his preliminary analysis showed any differences between the disciplines and he did indicate to me (which I did read somewhere) that the humanities and the arts tended to have a deep approach whilst the sciences a more surface approach (not something you wanted to be telling scientists who for years decided they were better than the humanities!). (Although Keith I think in his presentation did mention that these questionnaires were developed from a humanities perspective and may require us to develop questionnaires that are discipline specific). I told Noel that I was doing my research on linear programming so I can have a common ground for comparing these disciplines, as most of the studies tended to amalgamate the different disciplines.

Students' perceptions and approaches to studying: a colloquium
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Fire and Rain (James Taylor)
Topic: Seminars
So, I went to a colloquium yesterday which was led by John in the Wilson building which is a part of the Higher Education Policy and Practice Research Group (HEPPRG) - of course we had two of the big names there: Keith Trigwell and Noel Entwistle. So, cool to meet these people! Never got that at UWI.

Anyway, I just want to make some summaries/ comments of their presentations etc here. Whilst Keith and Noel did two presentations, John did two, because his first one was just on the background of students' perceptions basically deep, surface and strategic approach. John mentioned a Biggs who in 1993 used a systems approach for learning. John actually was setting up this presentation for his next presentation by presenting a series of possible causal hypothesis between approaches to studying and perceptions of academic context. John also explained that Trigwell and Prosser (1997) saw that the perceptions of academic context and approaches to studying were actually all in one framework, and these two things taken together are a view of the students' reality that is they were not related causally but exist side by side.

For Noel's presentation underlined that approaches to studying was not inherent to a student and may change depending on the context, and thus states that it may be part habit and part the influence of the course. He seems to be doing most of his research in electronic engineering and when looking at the teaching-learning environment for electronic engineering they were concerned with ways of thinking and practising (WTP). He also mentioned a new questionnaire that they were developing called the Experiences of teaching and learning (ELTQ) which contained the ALSI (have no clue what this is!) and items on experiences of teaching. I am not quite certain who this questionnaire target i.e. teachers or students. But given that his past research has been on mostly students, I'm going to guess students. Noel mentions also Meyer work. Noel explains the ASI asked for typical study situations, Meyer work looked at contextual situations, and from this Meyer was able to develop some terms for the way of studying, which Meyer called orchestration (just like a choir!). Meyer has two types of orchestration: harmonious and dissonance (or was it discordant?).

Back to the Research Poster
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: A Beautiful Morning (The Rascals)
Topic: Seminars
Well .. I started the poster in powerpoint .. did the little graphics I said I was doing and then started writing stuff about linear programming ... but it began to sound like a powerpoint presentation rather than having a feel of a poster.

So, although my little diagrams are looking cute have no idea why they are there. So, went looking up on the internet and found this site that seems to give some good tips on research posters. Well, the first thing they said is to get an idea and stick to it!!

Now, that is where the problem lies .. I have no idea what my poster is about it .. except it must have bits of the masters and bit of what I hope to do for the PhD.

I did create a cool name for the poster (well cool for me). I've decided to call it "Learning with Software: White-Box or Black-Box?" and as a subtitle "A research into the benefits of learning linear programming with software".

So, now I'm thinking what the idea of my research is. So, the site says I must have a succinct message.Rebecca said that her supervisors said to use the Research Day as an opportunity to solicit ideas and feedback from the persons there. I think the succinct message is then Help Me! Share some ideas! Give me Feedback! on my research. Not sure if that works as the idea.

So, my succinct message is that learning linear programming can't be taught with either black-box or white-box software, but which is better for learning?

Research Day Poster
Mood:  blue
Now Playing: Dreaming of You (Selena)
Topic: Seminars
Well, I have to create a poster for the Research Day coming up on the 29th and I have no clue what to produce. Never mind that I'm suppose to be sending a draft of it to my supervisors tomorrow :). So, I'm going to be brainstorming in this little section right now (an also fulfilling my requirements of updating my blog :D).

So, according to Doug I should have about 12 or 13 slides. Right, so Slide 1 is going to be easy. Slide 1: The Benefits of Mathematical Intermediate Steps in Education Software by Anesa Hosein IET/CSET/CALRG. Supervisors: James, Doug and John.

Right Slide 1 is finished.

Onto Slide 2: I think something about linear programming - but I note that my title has absolutely nothing on linear programming ... so big problem :). Ok, so something with a title like Which Maths? and then answer "Linear Programming" and then put a little information what is linear programming (copy it from U500 presentation :D).

Alright Slide 3: Previous Research in Linear Programming (quote our research here), so which part of the research? Three major sub-areas in linear programming: Formulation of the problem, Solution of the problem and Interpretation of the sensitivity analysis. (Not liking how this slide is shaping up! - hmm I think the problem is with the title - change that and you can change these slides)

(Hmm slight idea: if able draw a diagram of a black-box/ calculator/ computer with the problem one side going into the computer/software with the answer coming out on the other side. And a next diagram with problem going into the computer and solution coming out with the steps - probably could use something easy like algebra - so everyone can understand).

Going to post this and do it from scratch in powerpoint :) and see what I churn out.

Keeping this research blog up-to-date
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: You Raise Me Up (Josh Groban)
Topic: PhD Skills
I've decided to ensure that I at least place one entry in this blog a week - so, going to make it every Wednesday. This is to fulfill one of the PhD skills which requires that I keep a research journal/ blog and keep an updated personal-research page ... so, got to do that. The blog is easier though :) ... but will have to update my personal-research page since it is looking a bit bland.

BSRLM Conference in Lancaster
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys)
Topic: Seminars
Well, there is a BSRLM Conference coming up on the 19th November and James suggested I attended it. The abstracts and the programme have now been uploaded to the Internet. I am not quite sure how useful it will upon looking at the abstracts although it will help me to network (one of the requirements of the PhD Skills!) - there are a few abstracts that look somewhat interesting not sure if it is quite up my alley. But saying that, I won't mind going up to Lancaster!!

Just wondering if it is worth it ... probably should just go and see what kind of work and presentations people are doing so I can broaden my scope when I come to think about my methods and research questions. Besides the conference charge is quite cheap (25 pounds before the day or 30 on the day). The train ticket might cost most of the money and I might have to spend overnight. Anyways, I'm meeting with James today, will carry the programme and abstracts when I meet him and see what he thinks.

Come to think of it, not really sure if I'm meeting James, but hopefully I will, since wanted to wait on his input before I sent off the meeting notes (with Doug).