Methodology of a discussion...

Well the data was analyzed and I must say this business of data, those unemotional sets of numbers, has surprised me a lot. Some of the more pertinent things I found in the questionnaire and from Moodle.

• Nursing students have finished the course quicker
• Nursing students have only scored 1 mark less than nurses
• The distribution of time spent in the course is very similar for nursing staff and students!
• When there is little difference it gives my LMS more weight as the more experienced staff not running away with the show tells me the LMS has played a part in educating both groups.

And thus the results had a lot of charts and tables and then we went on to the discussion.

In the discussion I tried to be as unemotional as the data that I possessed. No airy fairy words of self congratulation. In fact I tried to state to the reader not too take too much 'notice' of the feedback I had received and suggested there is more to it than meets the eye! Problems in the help section, deficiencies in the human computer interaction were shamelessly exposed by this budding researcher!

And all with good reason. A discussion is meant to tell the reader things beyond the simple result. And this I feel will always be appreciated. In fact its a reference point for myself when I take it to the next level انشالله!

Acknowledgement were for all who had helped me. My supervisors Professor Jayantha Weerasinghe, Dr Gominda Ponnamperuma led the parade of thanks from lecturers to laymans.

References were in the Vancouver Style which were available in Word 2007 via the ISO 690 reference tool in the Reference section in Word 2007. Hope it is adequate.

Appendix had my questionnaires.

It also had a picture of a rather interesting blog...

Questions on Questionnaires

Right so its about that time to see what sort of output I can get. I should be able to get two types of result sets:

1. From the feedback form itself
2. From Moodle's built-in activity log

Removing the seal

 So lets do the questionnaires first. The general information I have is:

• Number of questionnaires completed: 21
• Number of questionnaires with no errors in the answering of the questionnaire: 10 (Category I or C1)
  
• Number of questionnaires with errors in the answering of the questionnaire: 11 (Category 2 or C2)
• Types of errors:
• Unclear whether student or staff
• Said they understood the lesson (Question 17) but then gave reasons why they did not understand the lesson (Question 18)
• Said they fully completed the course (Question 6) but then gave reasons why they did not complete the course (Question 7)
• Average number of errors in a C2 form : 1 - 2
• In addition there is a inherent error in Question 14 which means I have to discard this

There are errors but  is not unusual

 Now what can I gain from Moodle?

1. Percentage of Students vs Staff (Prof Jayantha feels as both are low knowledge this is not an issue) [Student/Staff breakdown answered]
2. Their duration in the course
3. Details of what they participated in and ~ how long
4. Whether all parts of the course were covered (Q6 answered)

So how do I work around the problem of the questionnaire. Some ideas from my supervisors:

• Have 2 result sets
1. From the Feedback form
2. From Moodle's monitoring system
• Remove Questions 2 - 5, 14, 17 & 18 from the analysis
• Try as best as possible to get information lost from the Question from Moodle.
• Discuss the value of Moodle as a more reliable method of surveying.

As a pleasant surprise it seems a lot of nurses want the next survey online! Puts a bit of a dampener on why I used a form but yet its good news that these low knowledge learners are willing to change their habits so readily particularly as not even 33% in the pre-questionnaire knew hot to use the internet and probably still don't have a very good idea!

Hopefully I should have a better idea in a few days time.

Day 3: Another day in cyberschool

As in days 1 and 2 the nurses came with great interest about this course which by now had spread among the staff.

• I think overall (until I see the results of the questionnaire of course) I think students liked the real time interaction of the 'chat' feature the most although their English limited them to short conversations.

Student in a chat session

• Today again I realized I have to study human computer interaction a lot more. I found many students searching for the login and lesson in the shortcut section; no doubt after the lesson I shall change this as I cannot alter the lesson environment during the experiment as that shortcut area is part of the questionnaire data. Shneiderman's 2nd rule is wanting!
• Today we had a nursing sister who joined the course as well.

The Sister in action!

As of this post I am nearing to get about 20 questionnaires filled and I hope I get more. Tomorrow I have to give 1 computer station away and my technician will not be available so I dont know if this is the last day. It has certainly been a learning experience.

Day 2: More to learn!

Day two was busier than the first and I cant remember how many nurses have come. Word has spread about the course and we found even nurses who were on duty taking short leave to attend the course. The highlights for today.

• Could not keep track of nurses count today...

Some came off duty...

Some even took short leave!

• I had to demo the system for my Managing Director who is also the secretary for the Association of Private Hospitals & Nursing Homes. It was a pleasant visit and he seemed to think this PBL lesson method would serve training nursing assitants well. 

Demo for Secretary, APHNH

• A lot of interesting things to note about the human computer interaction

1. User had a tendency to search for the lesson link near the help center / shortcut area.
2. Clear color differentiation in the flash lesson helped these learner as I did not find any with a problem using the lesson after having gone through the available audio help.
3. The help section could have done with audio as nurses tried to 'listen' to the help which was in visual form. Perhaps this generation is used to hearing instruction.
4. I felt the help section needs to be very comprehensive for a online session with 'no' technician. I dont think with this level of learner it will be possible to hold classes without any technical help.
5. Exploratory learning of the students were there but they needed to be coaxed into pressing buttons as if something wrong would happen if they did. I dont think this will be a problem with a more advanced learner.
6. The fact that a Sinhalese dictionary was linked to the lesson was a thoroughly used by the students from my observation.
7. Chat function was met with enthusiasm by the students but I felt they were hesitant to type wrong English due to their language difficulties and thus chats were short.
8. Exam area was handled well by most students with a few hiccups here and there. The fact that I had put a time challenge was not well understood although the instructions were given.
9. Not only were all students taught to log in but they were taught to be polite and safe and log out as well. A bit of netiquette!

• My technician and I caught 3 minor errors in the LMS and corrected them.
• On a more comical note I had a nurse who came away from her private feedback form answering area and asked if she should put 8 for everything! I laughed and sent her back and told her that pass or fail the data would always be good and useful.

So although still not finished day 2 is also looking decent.

Slow and steady...

A refreshing first day of deployment!

I felt good about today when it started and my feelings were correct! The highlights...

• I and my marketing officer setup the system in the morning of two computers with data dongles.

Testing the system before the class

• Upto this blog post I have had the pleasure of three nurses come into the course

• A student who had not used computers before was able to grasp the concept of the internet...

30 mins before only one had IT skills

30 min later both were into the lesson

• Although they had difficulties in English and technical hitches here and there they really interacted well with the lesson. The lesson had links to an English-sinhala dictionary and they were well used throughout the course from my observation. We merely played the role as facilitator!

Students in the lesson

Taking notes! Must have bee useful!

Engaged in a chat with a virtual 'ලෙඩා'

• Finally we explained about the questionnaire and the students filled them up privately and placed them in a ballot box to be opened on the 26th evening!

Student putting a form into the 'box'

Although I had beta tested the system with some technical people still there were a few errors in the hyperlinks. But all in all it was a very satisfying day and gave me insight how big the words 'quality assurance managers' are not to mention the technical difficulties of running a small course like this let alone a big one.

One small step...

LMS finished but deployment is pending!

Another opportunity to overcome an obstacle!

Finally I managed to setup the LMS and feel satisfied I followed all the principles I have mentioned in my mock methodology. The course is small but sweet and already Prof Jayantha feels it has some merit which is a boost for me! Unfortunately I have now hit a roadblock in the form of networking problem with the internet. I now have two options:

1. Reduce the course to two computers as I can use my data dongle and the hospital data dongle
2. Or work for the next day and put the LMS on a LAN as was planned in my alternative system

I still feel option 1 is better as I don't see each person taking more than 2 hours to go through this short lessons and keeping the course open from Today till Wednseday 9 - 9 means I should be able to get at least 20 students through.

Stuck with lesson development

Unfortunately nobody to help with the lesson development!

• Storyboard
• Content
• Building up the PBL to reveal TB

I have a bad feeling about this but I am sure this is a point to be talked about in the limitation!