Group Project: Result Analysis Part 1

My group was excited to get together to analyse the results for the preferred and actual WIHIC. However, after running SPSS, the reliability test 'failed' as it was far too low at 0.20+. Hence, another round of survey was conducted the next day for another group of students. We are currently waiting in anticipation for the next set of results. What will they be like?

This has been a great learning experience for the group. Although the cause for this was not known (as we're still waiting for the second set of data to be generated), we have already gathered that the number of supportive statements under each scale should not be too few. In fact, for one of the scales, we have only used two statements and this could possibly have contributed to the low realibility. Perhaps, the level of understanding of the respondents (primary 3 students for this case) is possibly another contributing factor.

I'm sure we would be able to surface other learning points from this situation soon. Meanwhile, since we have also modified our research area, we would be looking out for new literature in the area of Science. That's all for the moment!

Catching Up On The Readings

While searching for articles for our group's literature review, I realised that I need to do a lot of cross-referencing to the articles that have been printed for us. For example, I have to read through articles by Gloria, Barry Fraser, Scott and Huang again. In fact, this time round, I tried to read specific parts such as rationale of study, research methods, literature review etc. instead of reading each article as a whole. This help me to stay focused for better understanding.

One area that I'm particularly weak in is results analysis and interpretation. Being trained in the area of business studies, I'm somehow more familiar with business statistics than social research statistics. Hence, I tried my best to read up in this area. After all, I need this knowledge and understanding to understand the articles I'm reading and completing the projects, both current and future ones in this course. As an educator, it's definitely important to understand these as I will be engaged in educational research, at least to a certain extent for this course.

Online readings help a lot too! I'll just 'google' on terms that I'm not quite clear or confuse me totally. In fact, some weblinks that my coursemate, Gina, has recommended are pretty useful for referencing. There's one particular site that I like very much because of its extensive and clear explanation. It's found in:
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html?stbasic.html&1

Literature Review

We have chosen an evergreen journal article for the group presentation of literature review. The article is entitled "Classroom Social Climate and Student Absences and Grades" by Rudolf H. Moos and Bernice S. Moos. This article was surfaced when we did our research on Rudolf Moos.

What I notice about this article, which was published in 1978, is that it doesn't make use of many types of statistical analysis but focuses mainly on correlation. In comparison with the other group presentations, the recent journal articles tend to use various types of statistical anyalysis to support the study. This also surfaces the point that over the years, more types of statistical analyses have been developed to enable researchers to conduct more in-depth study of their research questions.

Though the article is old, there is value in studying it as it is linked to Moos' development of the Classroom Environment Scale (CES) which gave rise to the development of other related tools and studies. In fact, in many research articles on classroom environment, there is often some links to Moos' studies on CES.

The preparation of the literature review and participation in my classmates' presentations have also led me to understand the flow in research articles, particularly in the area of statistical interpretation and implications of the studies. The hands-on and discussion with group members help a lot!