[TOS] Survey

[Mel Chua]

On 08/04/2011 07:03 PM, Matthew Jadud wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> At POSSE 2011, we began discussing the idea of running a pre/post
> survey of students engaged in FOSS participation in the classroom. We
> thought:
>
> 1. We should share that thought with everyone on the list,

So, attempting to expand this description a bit -- please correct me if 
I'm wrong, POSSE folks -- the thought was that a simple 4-question 
instrument gauging student *confidence*[0] (rather than specific skills 
learned) at the start/end of each term would allow TOS professors 
teaching a wide range of courses to participate, and the resulting 
aggregate sample size would be large enough to permit drawing some 
initial conclusions about the effect open source participation has on 
students (something to whet the appetite for SIGCSE, perhaps).

[0] There was a more specific and appropriate term for what's being 
measured, but I have forgotten it.

> 2. If we want to do that this year (we should), then some of us
> probably need to get on top of IRB, and

Yeah, my understanding was that each participating prof would have to 
clear things (probably expedited, since this would be an anonymized 
4-question[1] survey) via their own IRB.

[1] There would be 4 core questions everyone would ask and aggregate, 
but profs would be free to add their own individual course questions to 
give to just their students.

> 3. We should probably have a questionnaire.

Matt, what was the instrument you suggested as a starting point? It 
looked good to go with some slight modifications.

Side note: I've hit Purdue's campus and have started talking with my 
advisor and such sorts of things; if there are specific questions or 
searches people would like me to hit up the engineering education folks 
around me with, I'm happy to do so.

--Mel