Session 5 - Our Research Project

Today's lesson was truly a hands-on one that invloved everybody. In the beginning of the lesson, we were asked to calculate the Cronbach's Alpha Reliability for each set of the 6 scales in the survey. It was an experience that I will never forget because the learning experience is really useful for myself. Actually, yesterday, my coursemate, Bel and I were already trying out the SPSS software and we had thought that we were doing the correct thing by calculating for all the items at once. But, it turned out that we were wrong of course, and we had to calculate in 6 different sets (according to how the items were categorised). After awhile, I felt that the taks became rather repetitive and I had the hang of it.

From a teacher- researcher's point of view, I feel that I have been given a comprehensive coverage on how to administer a survey, collate the data collected, analyse them using SPSS software (which is very new to me) to determine if the items in the questionnaire used are reliable and if there are any significant differences between students’ preferred and actual perceptions. After we had calculated all the figures, I felt that Dr Quek was being very informative in telling us how to interprete the analysis. She mentioned that the significant figures is to be set at 95% and from the results of the means generated, we had to address the scales if the significant level is less than 0.05. This means that there is a disparity between students' preferred and actual responses and hence, this means that we must come up with intervention measures to improve students' learning envionment.

One of the major highlights of today's lecture was that certain statistical concepts were explained to the class:

1) Cronbach Alpha Reliability
This measurement is to find out how reliable a questionnaire is. For an item to be reliable, a scale of at least 0.7 is considered good while a scale of 0.6 is rated as fairly good. A low reliability measurement could mean that respondents misinterpreted the sentences, or due to the phrasing of the sentences.

2) Paired Sample T-Test
First of all, we were told to calculate the means for the items. Next, we transferred the data to SPSS and we paired up the items. For example, we paired Pref_1 with Act_1, Pref_2 with Act_2, etc. Then, we had to check that all the decimal places are the same and followed the steps - click on 'analyse', followed by 'compare means', choose 'paired sample T-test, key in all the pairs and set the confidence level to 95%.

I feel that the main learning point for today is how to write a research paper. Below are the skeletal outline that Dr Quek gave which we had to follow when we write our group report.

1) Abstract
2) Introduction
3) Literature Review
4) Rationale
5) Research Questions
6) Methodology - Sample, Procedures, Data Analysis - please put in tables and graphs
7) Findings and discussions
8) Conclusions - recommendations