Squeezing More Juice Out of USE

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Squeezing More JuiceOut of USE
R2K

• James Rathmell Electrical
  Engineering
• Stuart Reid Civil
  Engineering
• Irena Koprinska Information Technologies

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Disciplinary Context

• Engineering and Science
• Units contain students from several degrees
• Single and combined BE BE/BCom
• Regular and advanced BCST and BCST(Adv.)
• Influence of degree on USE not analysed
• combined degrees have broader exposure
• better academic record

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Relevant Literature

• Marsh (1987) for background of unit evaluation
• Ramsden (1991) for degree evaluation
• Wilson, Lizzio Ramsden (1997)
• Ginns and Barrie (2002) for single-item rating
• Lizzio, Wilson Simons (2002) on analysis
• Richardson (2005) for review of evaluation

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Aims and Questions

• General aim Extract more information from USE
• Initial question
• Is there a difference in evaluation between
  different degrees doing the same unit?
• Subsidiary questions
• Does wider exposure to other Faculties affect
  USE scores?
• Do academically-better students give
  different evaluations?

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Significance and Innovation

• Significance an important problem
• How to use USE to improve TL
• Results important for - students -
  teachers - management
• Innovation has not been done before
• Advantage low cost solution

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Methods of Investigation

• Method statistical analysis
• Procedure (multiple stages)
• Identify/code USE field and analyse
• If this shows interesting results - code open
  comments and analyse
• If this shows interesting results - form focus
  groups and analyse

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Methodologies and Theoretical Approaches

• Epistemology Objectivism
• Theoretical perspective Positivism
• Methodology Surveys
• Methods Statistical analysis

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Ethical Issues

• USE (pre-approved)
• individual students not identified
• Focus groups
• no artificial teaching intervention
• identification of students, requiring
• approval/permission/protection

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Timeline

• Stage 1 2 months
• Sort USE by degree
• Statistical analysis and discussion
• Stage 2 4 months
• Code open comments
• Analysis, discussion feedback
• Stage 3 6 months
• Construct conduct focus groups
• Analysis, discussion feedback
• Stage 4 Dissemination
• Conference and journal articles
• Talk at the ITL seminar

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R2K
Squeezing More JuiceOut of USE

• Questions?
• Comments?