Pilot Study yet again!
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Teahouse on the Tracks (Donald Fagen) - where do they get these titles from??
Topic: Data Analysis

So, back to my pilot study - still have no clue what my data is saying - got too much factors that's all I could figure ... getting more confused by the moment - at first thought to do covariate analysis but that has got me even more confused - I think I'm going to go simple and build from that.

 Wish me luck :D.

Feeling a bit on the slump
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Another Pot O' Tea (Anne Murray)
Topic: Data Analysis

I don't think I've made any real progress with my work thus far ... when it comes to my data analysis, John as suggested I ignore the non-normality (well not ignore exactly!) - and find literature that suggest that ANOVA's are robust against the non-normality and heterogeneity of variance assumptions (he suggested I read Box's paper) ... my problem - I'm not sure if you can actually mix both - so, what I'm going to do is pretend there is not a large violation of either, and continue with ANOVA's but might use Brown & Forsythe's F instead for the heterogeneity - since there are unequal sample size - oh well still deciding.

Anyway, got to decide quick since got to send in a report on this by next Friday!

 

Pilot Study: Data Analysis
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Melody of You (Sixpence None the Richer)
Topic: Data Analysis

So, I have the data for my pilot study using the SPQ and the maths-computing inventory. I've begun to try an analyse it but seem to be hitting brick walls everytime I try!

Well, the first brickwall was when I realised that I had grouped Environmental Sciences and Biology together in the questionnaire, this meant I had a Hard-Applied-Life and a Hard-Pure-Life discipline in the same grouping - and I was stuck with how to separate out the students belonging to the Env. Sci. and Biology. Thankfully I had the students intended degree they wanted to complete from when they entered the OU and was able to pick out somewhat those who were from the Env. Sci.

The next problem (well more my fault!) - I had started doing analysis when I realised that for the maths-computing inventory I had negative-marked questions and I had forgot to account for those when I had calculated the scores for the scales - so had to go back and do those and then start back the analysis.

Well, after doing several ANOVAs etc. (again my fault!) - I then decided to check and see whether my data was normal and had homogeneous variances between the groups (the disciplines, gender and software) - well, whadya know ... they weren't!!! All the scores I had calculated from both the SPQ and the Maths-Computing Inventory were all non-normal (Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test) - that did got me frustrated because then tried to see if I can transform it into being normal (log, square, squareroot, arcsin, reciprocal - and various combinations of those) - but no go ... as the kurtosis and skewness were both less than 1, I guess that is why there were no improvement by transforming. Anyway, then proceeded to trim the samples, by taking out the outliers (well only did it for the surface approach score - haven't really tried the others) - and that didn't improve it one bit - same sort of results .... so, gave up on that and accepted that my data was non-normal.

Then came the other brickwall ... test of homogeneity of variance (Levene's test) - well some groups were homogeneous whilst others weren't - only gender was homogeneous between all scores. The rest were at least heterogeneous for one variable, for example in the Hard/Soft discipline group it was heterogeneous for the mathematics motivation scale. Well, I know I can apply Kruskal-Wallis Test for the non-normal data but has to have homogeneous variance - so have done that for gender - which I got most everything being not significant except computer confidence. What is interesting, was I wanted to check and see if that was influence by age (age was related to computer confidence as well - using spearman rank correlation coefficient) - now in normal parametric statistics you can control that variable (perhaps as a covariate) - but in nonparametric statistics wasn't certain, so decided to employ spearman rank correlation to test the correlation between age and computer confidence by controlling gender (i.e. just for males and then for females) - to see what will happen ... and there seems to be some correlation between age and computer confidence when gender is controlled (well for females there is a correlation - but for males no).

Anyway, I've moved away from the point, I now have data that is non-normal and heterogeneous variances - and don't know what tests I can use in SPSS for comparing across groups - I have looked up the stuff on the internet and it seems that there is a new statistic called MOM-H statistic  which uses Wilcox and Keselman MOM (Modified One-Step M-estimator) for deciding how much should be trimmed and then combining this with Schrader and Hettmansperger's H statistic (all of this developed by Othman et al, 2004) can be used for non-normal and heterogeneous variances - still got to look up the paper ... but my problem is that I'm wondering if I even want to venture into that realm of deep statistics - I mean, I'm not sure how important these pilot study results will be to my main study ... should I go through doing all that data analysis for nothing?? Can my simple descriptive statistics suffice? I've got to decide, because it will take me awhile to decipher what all the symbols mean etc. in those papers and how it relates to my data before I can even begin to use it and that might take up more time than I really have.

Trouche's paper
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: O Holy Night (Josh Groban) - Christmas music in July!
Topic: Analytical Frameworks
Well, I went and looked for Trouche's paper and found it - unfortunately it is in French! My high school french couldn't really do justice to the paper, but got Google to help me translate some stuff. I don't think there was anything too different what I got from Artigue's paper, except got all 5 of the profiles and how he categorised these students.

He did mention that these profiles are for the extreme cases of the students, and it is not likely you can peg students with one profile.

However, he was using the TI-82 and TI-92 calculators (one for symbolic representation and the other for graphical presentation) and he seemed more to deal with how students interact with the software such as the zooming function and the commands and switching between windows etc. i.e. things that were specific to these calculators rather than looking how students use technology to learn, I was hoping for something more like the exploration of numbers etc., but he tended to look at the time they used the calculator for a task and also when they did collaborative work with a partner or use pen and paper. Can't remember he mentioning much about the pen/paper (then again my french - il est terrible!) So, probably skipped it over somewhere.

Anyway, so don't think I'll be using those strategies.

I've tried to find the one by Goos et al, unfortunately we don't subscribe to that journal (Mathematics Education Research Journal its published in Australia)- so means I've got to order it - but will only order it if I think it is necessary, the information provided by Galbraith seems sufficient.

ICTM Conference
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Draw of the Cards (Kim Carnes)
Topic: Seminars
So, came back from Turkey yesterday (arrived home at 7pm) ... the conference in Istanbul was great ... met a lot of people who I was able to network with - particularly people from Australia from a range of universities - so that was good.

Hung out with some of the Turkish people as well and some people from the US (mainly from Tuscon!).

I'm not sure how great all the seminars were but was able to meet some of the researchers whose papers I've read, particularly Pat Cretchley and Leigh Wood. It just so nice to actually meet these people. Love these international conferences - because most of the work that is being done on CAS is occuring in Australia and you really don't meet much of these people in the UK.

Critical Reader
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: My Eyes Can Only See As Far As You (Charley Pride)
Topic: Meetings
So, Hossein Z. just came into my office and showed me my probation report and asked me if I sent it to him, and I said probably Anne F. did, and then he asked me do I know why she would have sent that to him .. and I looked a bit confused and said "Didn't James asked you to be a critical reader?" ... and then he said oh yes but that was such a long time ago.

So, then he asked me if there was anything I wanted him to look at in particular (and then my mind went blank - I was like a deer caught in the headlights - I had no clue!) - so then, told him perhaps my methodology (because I thought that seem reasonable and it was my weakest chapter)... and then he asks me what in my methodology (well he got me there!) - so I said my tasks for linear programming (and I think he was going to say that no one does linear programming but then he taught better of saying that :P) ... and asked me what kind of students it was suppose to be and I said university students and he wanted to know if it was at the OU and I said no it could be students at universities and told me about a LP component he was writing for the business school and asked him if that was BM240 and told him about BM240 ... and I also told him about the tasks I need to create which I have no idea about as yet (its a bit difficult to explain something where I don't even know what his frame of reference is i.e. where I should begin) - he looked a bit confused and ask me if it was for data collection and I said yes - I guess my interpretation of methodology was methods :D and his was more theoretical (big problem already!).

Anyway, there goes my first impression to my critical reader - not a very good one ... :D ... hope he doesn't hold it against me. But Rebecca said the least CREET could have done was send a covering letter indicating what it was and what was expected from them. Well ... I thought that would have been standard operating procedure because how do they know how to be a critical reader?

Supervision meeting
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: Wild Child (Enya)
Topic: Meetings
Yesterday afternoon I had my supervision meeting, and strangely enough all three of them were there. Now that was surprising since I only expected Doug and James.

Anyway, we got to talking about how to developed the mathematical tasks to see what occurs when using the black-box and white-box software. I told them, I had spoken to Jonathan and he had suggested checking for the strategies that student's may employed. James was all so pleased to hear this, he was going to say something I imagine on strategies but I pre-empted him because he was saying probably it might not be sufficient just to check and see if students get these tasks right or wrong ... so just jumped straight in and told him about the strategies.

So, told them about the article I was reading by Artigue (2003) about the profiling of strategies she spoked off by a doctoral student. There are five profiles that a student may undertake when using software and mathematics. These profiles were theorist (references, interpretation and analogy), rationalist (paper&pen, inference and proof), scholastic, tinkerer (calculator, investigation and accumulation) and experimentalist. Got to find the original work by Trouche (2000) to further understand these profiles. But thought these might something be good to look at - although James suggested I could develop and determine my own strategies.

I was also reading a paper by Galbraith (2002) this morning and there is also a profiling of attitudes of students towards technology and he reported on some of these - originally done by Goos et al (2000) - I've got to find that paper. There is four: technology is considered as the master, servant, partner and extension of yourself. Like this idea as well but think it is two different approaches need to see how they can be combined.
(Anyway got to go now - its my birthday and meeting Tina in 6 mins - got to run!)

Probation Report
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: You Needed Me (Anne Murray)
Topic: Thesis writing
So, the probation report is off!!! I submitted it on Friday - so have no reason to think about it until July 17th comes my way. Unfortunately, not very proud of it, don't think I have any clear argument or rather a very critical literature review. It is lacking severely in those areas - but needed to get it off - so not too proud of it. I think I might cringe when I read the final version before my mini-viva.

Anyway, got the CALRG and the ICTM conference coming up and I have to prepare the presentations for those.

Probation Proposal again :D
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Kasto Mazza (Parineeta)
Topic: Thesis writing
So, have a supervisory meeting this afternoon - don't think I'm going to have much favorable comments on it - it was bit of a rushed job. I'm still hoping it would come together - but it is taking forever to gel in my head exactly what I'm doing - but I think with each of the patchy jobs I keep doing it seems to get better and better ... not great as yet. I'm still not sure about my rationale and purpose and whether the literature review is critical enough and helps support my argument. I think one of my problems is that I loathe to drop out any of my literature since I spent so much time writing it up ... but I think I have to make the decision and drop the unnecessary bits that are no adding to my argument but still uncertain what my argument is at the moment - I think perhaps that is why it is so patchy.

Let's see if I can identify my argument clearly here. I think my argument is although there have been studies into how students learn with mathematical software, there hasn't been much work done on how students learn with black-box and white-box software. Right got that. So, that is one part of the argument. The other part is that the belief that how students learn with software differ between disciplines. Yeah that is one other thing. I think I further want to establish that the use of a software in the learning and teaching process may also vary between the disciplines. And that some software may be used in a white-box or black-box manner.

So, probably I think I want to establish how is software used in the teaching and learning linear programming, that is, how it is transformed into a learning tool in the different disciplines ... yeah something like that - and what this transformation entails (i.e. going from black-box to white-box etc - any exploration). Also, whether this transformation impacts on the learning of the student.

My problem how are you going to see the transformation of these learning tools as it is by remote observation and only one student? Would I have to take into account the collaborative aspect? I'm not quite sure what kind of data I will get to see this data - what is the transformation going to be shown? Getting more confused by the minute.

Probation Proposal
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Poor Shirley (Christopher Cross)
Topic: Methodology
Well, had a meeting with Doug yesterday about my probation report and it went surprisingly much better than I expected. But he did say my methodology was a bit thin. I need to improve that and decide my sample size etc.

Well what I did say was that I wanted to have some students and give them some tasks and interview some students ... but not sure how that would actually occur ... :)

However, I did say I had three pilot studies ... the 1st hopefully would be sent out next week if I can get one of the courses to agree with me to send of the questionnaire!!! I have no idea about numbers ... was thinking if I can get about 10-20 students to test each of the second pilot I might have something there. Well, got to think about tomorrow - just realise I have to send a place holder abstract for the CALRG conference!