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).

PhD Skills
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver)
Topic: PhD Skills
Well had my meeting with Doug yesterday on mostly the PhD skills. James couldn't make it since he had a problem with his eyes, and John didn't turn up.

The PhD skills are a bit tedious to go through, but Doug and I did well to plough through the first three sets and decided what I should prepare and how to identify what I can do to accomplish these skills.

In some sense, I'm not sure what the use of it is but I guess they want to ensure everyone's PhD is standardized and the students come out as a functioning 'person' when they graduate rather than being stuck only as a researcher.

In some sense, it was good since there were some stuff I hadn't considered such as a publication plan and a publication agreement. I think my publication agreement is just going to be everybody names are included unless they want to opt out :).

For some reason they want to ensure that we know about how projects are funding and how funding is acquired. I can't see the use of it right now, but reckon if I want to go teach and research in a higher education institution it might be useful to know. Perhaps even if I want to do third world development that will be a plus since most of the projects for third world usually have to bid funds from IDB, IMF or one of the UN organisations such as UNDP or UNESCO. So, that might be useful.

Some things to consider when analysing and writing up
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Can't Think Straight - Gilbert O'Sullivan
Topic: Data Analysis
Well these are little juttings I made whilst doing some things - so what to make sure I keep them in consideration:

(i) I have to look up some plausible reasons for using a 5 point Likert scale versus a 7 point scale like Albritton et al. Hmm ... can't find any good papers to say why I shouldn't except one that says I should sort of use the 7 point - but they were actually trying to support their use of the 7 point scale (some people Wyrwich and Tandino). However, I could indicate that since the analysis was intended for chi-square and there were so few intended respondents, there was a higher likelihood of having empty cells and hence the reason to making it a 5 point scale. Also, we used 'fence sitting' to ensure a response and minimize the middle point as there is a tendency to use the middle point more in a 5 point scale.

(ii) Now we have a low response rate in the email questionnaire. Doug was saying that this is always true in comparison with a paper questionnaire but got to check this out. The problem with comparing with known data is that most people knew the list they were sending too - that the questionnaire had direct relevance to them - there was some uncertainty about relevance regarding my list. Anyway, found some literature that says the average response for email questionnaires is in the 20s to the 30s %. So, we'll see.

(iii) It might be also useful to compare level of courses with responses that I received for the ATI to check if there is any difference in the way the courses are delivered

(iv) I also have to consider what I would have done differently if I had to do it all over again (simple send it during the course term!!!)

(v) I'll also have to compare the distribution of the responses to the list I have to see if the absent responses were random - and how the distribution is towards discipline.

(vi) Persons might have seen the stuff on simplex algorithm, graphical solution etc. and thought that is what I meant by coverage and may have said they didn't cover the solution - not sure if that will influence the outcome.

Seminar with Mike Prosser
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: The Return of The King (James Galway - The Lord of the Rings)
Topic: Seminars
So, last week for my birthday I had the opportunity of going to the talk by Mike Prosser. John told me to stick around and he would have given me and introduction to him, so I did, unfortunately, John was called away for a couple of minutes (and since they were going for lunch soon after), I made myself known to him and told him about my research into looking at disciplines using the Intentions and Beliefs Approaches to Teaching - I think he was a bit flustered since at first I don't think he caught on what I was saying (or I probably didn't explain it too well) - well, he kept repeating there were many avenues to explore with the ATI (his he meant) as yet. He did say he looked forward to seeing me in some future conference.

Well, he presented two sessions: the first was on the understanding and improving student learning experiences which I was not too keen on - but the point of that according to him (and since he was working with Higher Education Academy (HEA)- the point of them too)was to enhance their theoretical and or conceptual understanding of teaching and learning, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. They did some work using the survey research students experience questionnaire which I think may be similar to the CEQ but instead geared for research students. He indicated that paper will soon be coming out in the Instruction Science Journal.

He also explained that in their recent research they found that courses that were teacher focussed tended to have teacher-type activities or student-activities where the teacher imposed their ideas into the student's activity. Whilst on student-focussed courses there was student activities.

He also did work on student learning in disciplines. I did ask if they were doing any work in the comparison of students across disciplines. But indicated that there was no work on that presently. However, his research has concentrated on first year classes unlike mine which is a mixture of classes - so not sure if that could influence the data. Also, he was looking at biochemistry - so my question to him was whether health students and biology students approach learning to biochemistry differently (it seems to be work parallel to my linear programming so was checking that hypothesis out).

He did share with us some anecdotes about his house in Australia being broken in and his wife still being back there (and that perhaps may the reason for his frazzled appearance) and also the whole moving experience to the UK (and of course the laments of everyone moving here - how expensive it is if you have a different currency to the pound!)

Meeting with John about data analysis
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Surfin' USA (The Beach Boys)
Topic: Data Analysis
So, had my meeting with John this afternoon and James came along to the meeting as well. Well, I discussed with John my idea of converting the disciplines into soft and hard, pure and applied, life and non-life. He indicated that they were doing something similar in the the SOMUL project and that the person's work they were using was Tony Becher for decided the disciplines (he only told me this since I was using Biglan's categorization) - I think it might be similar or Becher using Biglan's work for his classification. I remember the name Tony Becher though because I have a paper by Neumann et al which Becher co-authored concerning disciplines.

Anyway, James have some reservations of using this classification since he doesn't think a lecturer think of themselves as being applied or pure at all -that name only comes because the department chooses to use the name applied in their title. Well ... to some extent I think that is true - but that doesn't prevent the shaping of course to reflect its applied nature and teachers conforming to that situation. I think there is literature (can't remember where) that indicates that lecturers do change their position of lecturing a course depending on its department or discipline (or something like that) - I think that was in the Lindblom-Ylanne et al paper.

Well, I think John is pretty much sold on the idea of the disciplines - so he decided to give me some ammunition to combat James opposition by recommended that I speak to a Yann Lebeau who worked with him in the SOMUL project to help provide me with literature concerning the choice of how subjects are placed into which kind of discipline (i.e. soft or hard etc).

Well ... with respect to the logistic regression ... John wasn't too certain what is the best road to take since he haven't done logistic regressions in quite awhile. He suggested for those questions that have a small number of answers with 'not sure' to treat it as missing data (such as for the coverage and the delivery questions) and then I can treat the other 4 options as ordinal and hence can use ordinal logistic regressions. He, however, cautions I must check and see what the assumptions of logistic regressions are upheld and even if it isn't and I go ahead and use it to remember to include in my discussion that I am treating this data as being normally distributed etc. when it is know it is and the results may not be quite correct.

Further, he suggested that I look up some non-parametric tests to check and see if I can use this for testing my data - he mentioned some kind of non-parametric one-way ANOVA which I can't remember. Oh I've found it on the net - its called the Kruskal-Wallis One Way ANOVA . However, the problem with this is that it can only deal with factor I believe ... wait let me check my facts ... oh no that is not true since you can have a two way Kruskal-Wallis, well at least according to that website. However, I think it becomes more complicated than that - John did suggest using multivariate analysis ... but that will assume that the scales were continuous - now John said for him the ATI they used (Intentions and Beliefs), that they were using underlying continuous scale and hence the values were continuous. I'm not sure if I am up to that point to believe it is continuous so will stick to it being ordinal at this point. In that case the ordinal logistic regression (well at least for the LP part)should be best ... I can't remember - but I have a feeling that the logistic regressions are non-parametric test since it uses chi-square values - if I remember carefully. Well, it does use Chi-square - so it is indeed non-parametric in nature and there is no need to uphold the assumptions of normality etc. But one website indicates that I should have at least 50 cases for each independent variable - sheesh - I don't have that - so not sure what I am going to do in that case. However, there is a suggestion to use discriminant analysis instead but I think in that case I will lose the ordinality - plus need to be normally distributed and equal variances etc. Anyway, will have to examine normality and if it upholds might go with discriminant analysis because according to the website it is more powerful - but I'm more comfortable with logistic regression ... we'll see what I use.

Anyway, John also suggested in the case of ATI where persons left out about two or three questions we can assume it is not sure (but in order to this - you must do a missing value analysis and then decide where the cut off point is!). John also suggested that I can combine the values for Intentions and Beliefs and do a two part multivariate analysis (or was it called a double multivariate analysis) - since he said essentially they were the same thing (well got to base this on literature since he was basing his talk on that Norton et al, didn't find any difference between them).

Further, in particular with respect to the questions on the delivery simplex algorithm etc. - John suggested (since I have the 'not sure' and the 'not taught' options and which might well be answered alot and cannot be treated as missing values) to combine the values and try to get an ICT variable - i.e. the amount that ICT is used in different disciplines.

Not sure about my data analysis!
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Time Marches on (Tracey Lawrence)
Topic: Data Analysis
I'm looking at my analysis of my data for my LP section. So, what I did, I got Biglan (1973) paper (both of them) and decided to categorized my disciplines according to his methodology that is into hard vs soft; pure vs applied; and life systems vs non-life system. Well, I had some problems in decided which category the disciplines fitted into. For example computer science I felt it should be hard, applied and non-life system. But is computer science considered a pure or applied subject. I wasn't certain about that. Anyway, he had some categories of disciplines in a table so follow that to some extent. What I did too, was that I went to the course websites and see what it is about and what department they were in to fit it in better if I was unsure - such as things that had built and natural environments (just to tell you - I decided those were life systems).

Well, after I did ... decided to look at how the responses were distributed for the coverage and delivery for formulation, solution and sensitivity analysis. Well, I decided to do ANOVAs but something just wasn't going so right with it - because you know this is ordinal and nominal data rather than continuous. So, looked at a bit how to do analysis with that - at first tried some loglinear analysis - wasn't sure what results I got ... well, finally decided to do logistic regression - which seems to be the way to go. I'm doing ordinal logistic regression using the PLUM module in SPSS and it seems to be working out to some extent ... except I've discovered one problem with my logic ... my ordinal variables (i.e. my responses to delivery and formulation) may not be truly ordinal since I have the 'not sure' variable at '5' ... so, I was wondering what to do with that!

Well ... I thought maybe I should make it a missing variable (I've given the value of 999 for my missing variables) - well, I am seriously considering doing that - well, I meet John tomorrow so we'll see what he says.

Well some ideas for my Ph.D
Mood:  blue
Now Playing: Kuch Naa Kaho (Sadhna Sargam and Shaan: Kuch Naa Kaho)
Topic: Methodology
Well, I was discussing some things with Shannon yesterday about my research for my Ph.D in linear programming ... and I was telling her that it might be useful for me to use an eye-tracking device to check and see when students use the software whether they just check the answer and run over briefly the iterations.

Then she said something curiously, she said perhaps they may first watched the answer and then check and see how it was done - which will be interesting to know - since that might be showing some kind of learning process ... probably could check if it kind of promotes a trial and error behaviour.

She was also telling me that in the music department that some guy called Clayton was using some software to check and see how musicians check their music sheets and their body movement - it might be interesting to check out him and the software to see how it works to keep track of body movement - not sure if that might be needed - but you may never know.

Anyway, went to Jonathan's presentation today on "'What are learners saying, doing, writing and seeing?': A digital approach to analysing video data of student interactions with computers". It was interesting his methods and I might consider using some of them. He had tablets to check what people were writing down, as well as the eye tracking device as well as videoing their interactions with the computer.

I particularly like the eye tracking device thing since you can see the length and the intensity that people are looking at things. Like the tablet too, so people can write and see what they can do. Not sure how I can compare disciplines with this kind of technology as yet - but I can compare the use of the software by students.

Data analysis
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: I like the way (Tommy James and the Shondells)
Topic: Data Analysis
Well, the data analysis is a bit tricky! I have a fair idea how I'll do the approaches to inventory and the ASI.

Well first up, I'm going to get overall scores for lecturers on the beliefs and intentions scales, and check to see if these differ from discipline. Then check and see if there is any difference on the knowledge transmission and learning facilitation scales. I do however realise I have no data to check if there is change to contextual factors such as age, gender, time in teaching - but, we'll see if it still holds across disciplines - and it gives impetus for further research perhaps.

As I said before one of the problems is in determining which discipline fits in where. Now Lueddeke (2003) looked at soft and hard disciplines whilst Lindblom-Ylanne et al (2005)looked at the four categories of soft, hard, and its pure and applied forms. Now, I wish to compare with these results, so, I think it will be best to select these headings for comparison rather than engineering, business and mathematics ... since, I may have a mixture of different disciplines. I think depending on the courses I should classified them rather than the discipline they belong too ... for example, something with a course name such as "Operations Research" - that should be classified hard ... but if applied or pure - not sure ... well ... it might do the 'pure' work of operations research and should be 'hard pure'. I reckon if its 'operations research' and based in business I might think it is 'pure applied' but that doesn't make sense - since business is soft .. isn't it? Maybe should stick to where the course is based on and their target students.

But you know what I'm thinking - I'm looking at the comparison of the UWI courses engineering management (for the pure mech eng. students) and the operations research course for the industrial engineering students. Now the engineering management, I'll have to call that soft applied - I'm sorry - it seems more like a course in the business school ... whilst the operations research course seemed more like a hard pure course - so, I'm afraid of the conflicts that might come about if I did the disciplines, since both these courses would have been assigned as hard applied because they were in the engineering faculty ... this is getting difficult to decipher - so, I have to make a framework for establishing where each course goes. I think what I might do - is first compare across soft, hard disciplines and then compare across the courses which I think are hard or pure.

It might be difficult to explain this and make sure that this doesn't get too confusing to the reader - so, got to make the explanation and the headings very clear as to why I have chosen to compare this way - well, might be very well that I don't find anything - so might just ignore the reason for classifying like this (but then all that post-hoc analysis problems comes i.e. searching for results and hence increasing your Type II errors - never mind that!).

Well, not sure how much I can get out of the ASI, but might decide to check and see what their overall ASI scores, I've only got 5 lecturers so not much to do any comparison unless they are all in different disciplines it might make more sense. Well, let's see we got one engineering, two computing and two maths. This is interesting. Well, they are all pure in that sense, so best I can do, is check and see if there is any relationship between them and their teachers - not sure how much that'll tell me - can divide into hard pure and hard applied - it is the best I can do at this point. I'm guessing that statistics won't be sufficient to explain any relationship so, will have to use almost inductive explanations and looking for relationships - this is terrible work - terrible - wish I had more lecturers and students. Doubt we can do much factor analysis with this kind of data - but we shall see ... all, I can conclude if I do the factor analysis is say that this gives an indication but no conclusive remarks can be made unless there is a larger study.