Skip to content
Skip to main content
header search
ahihi OpenLearn
OpenLearn
Menu
sticky search

About this free course

Author

Become an OU student

Share this free course

Course content Course content
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in STEM
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in STEM

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

More free courses

2.2.4 Mixed methods research design

In this section, examples of two eSTEeM-funded SoTL projects (eSTEeM [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] is OU’s Centre for STEM pedagogy) are given to demonstrate the use of mixed methods research design.

Activity 5 Investigating student perceptions about online practical science

Timing: Allow approximately 10 minutes

As you are watching this 4 minutes 52 seconds video featuring Victoria Nicholas, an Open University STEM educator, make notes on how she has combined research methods in her SoTL project when investigating student perceptions about online practical science for two modules at Level 1.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 4
Copy this transcript to the clipboard
Print this transcript
Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4 Students’ perceptions of practical science at Level 1

VICTORIA NICHOLAS
Practical science is a key part of any science study. And at The Open University, we deliver a lot of our modules online. Therefore, we need to be able to do practical science online.
Anecdotally, students were not entirely positive about doing practical science online. They didn't necessarily see the value of it. They felt that it wouldn't be real practical science compared to a laboratory setting.
However, when they studied one of the STEM modules involving online practical science, we found that students were keen. They saw the value of the practical work that they had done. And they wanted to do more of it.
The aim of that eSTEeM project was to capture that shift in perception from being uncertain and not really fully signed up to it to being enthusiastic and wanting to do more. The eSTEeM project was primarily focused on capturing that shift in perception from being not fully signed up to doing practical work online, not seeing the benefit of it, and then being keen, seeing value, and wanting to do more of it.
There were two main phases of the project. The first was a small-scale telephone interview. There were tutors and other people involved with the module who were familiar with the module who telephoned students, about 20 students, before and after studying.
So we were able to have conversations that were structured, but quite free flowing about how the students were feeling about doing practical science, how they're feeling about online work and doing practical science online. So three aspects there. And the interviewers asked them about this before and after they studied the module.
Then the second phase was to take information from those telephone interviews. And we constructed an online questionnaire, then we put this online questionnaire out to about a thousand students, a much larger population. And it was quite a short questionnaire, but it gave us lots of valuable information. Again, this was carried out before and after study.
The main findings of both phases of the research were to confirm what we had known anecdotally, which was that there was a shift in perception of the students started off not feeling very positive about doing practical science online, not thinking it would be very real, and then they ended up feeling much more positive about it. They could see real benefits to the work. It felt like real science to them. And they wanted to do more practical science online.
One of the main impacts of this research is that the STEM faculty now has a much better idea, a quantitative idea, of how students feel when they're studying practical science online. We can see from this research that students have got that shift in perception. And because of that module teams and tutors can encourage students to say, we know you might not be feeling enthusiastic about it at the beginning, but we also know that most people tend to feel enthusiastic about it at the end and they see the value in this work.
One of the physical outputs of this research project has been a book chapter in this book all about Mobile Learning and STEM subjects. And this shows some of the wider interest in the higher education sector about looking at how we deliver STEM subjects in using mobile learning. In The Open University, we will certainly, as a result this project, certainly be able to include lots more practical online science in our future modules because we know that students value it and we know they enjoy doing the work. And we know that that's therefore valuable for them learning science in STEM subjects online.
End transcript: Video 4 Students’ perceptions of practical science at Level 1
Download
Video 4 Students’ perceptions of practical science at Level 1
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Discussion

Students were interviewed and completed online questionnaires before and after studying the modules in this SoTL project. First the interviews were conducted and the responses to the telephone interviews were used to assist in the design of the ‘before study’ and ‘after study’ online questionnaires. Victoria used the ‘Sequential Qual → Quan design’ of combining methods in a mixed method research design discussed earlier in this section.

In the video, Victoria discusses the research design, the outcomes of her SoTL inquiry, dissemination via a book chapter and the possible impact of the findings within the institution and in the wider STEM Higher Education sector.

The various resources related to this project including the end-of-project report are available on the project’s webpage: Gathering student perception about online/ distance practical science at level 1

The next activity has an example of a SoTL project that has a mixed methods research design for evaluating the efficacy of fieldcasts for teaching fieldwork in environmental sciences.

Activity 6 Evaluating ‘The Open Field Lab’ initiative

Timing: Allow approximately 10 minutes

As you are watching this 5 minutes 20 seconds video featuring Julia Cooke, Phil Wheeler and their colleagues in the Faculty of STEM at The Open University, make notes on how they are evaluating the initiative of ‘The Open Field Lab’ that they set up.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 5
Copy this transcript to the clipboard
Print this transcript
Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 5 Assessing ‘The Open Field Lab’

JULIA COOKE
Fieldwork is a fundamental component of ecology and environmental curriculum. Here at the Open University, we’ve been taking students into the field for decades. But some students can lack confidence to begin field studies or maybe find getting into the field difficult. So we’ve developed field cast.
Using a system called OU Live, we’re able to webcast to students literally live from the field. Using these interactive widgets, students are able to drive the investigation. They’re able to choose the topics we study, develop hypotheses, methods, right through to the analysis. We use this to develop an investigation into a species-rich meadow.
We wanted to make the field experience as authentic as possible, so we broadcast rain or shine. As presenters, we give the students the information they need to make an informed decision, but the decision belongs to the students. That means we have a student-led project in a tutor-led structure. As presenters, we don't know what decision the student is going to make, so we don't know what's going to happen. That keeps us on our toes, but that's the way fieldwork works.
PHIL WHEELER
Fieldwork is really important because you can't understand the environment without actually getting out there and seeing how it works. There’s also some formal requirements that students studying environmental science need to do fieldwork, otherwise their degree doesn’t count in environmental science degree. But of course, if you’re doing that remotely, then the ability to sort of really interact and to feel that you're in the environment is a challenge.
So we try and make it interactive- we do make it interactive – with a series of interactive widgets that are designed into the system that the student looks at. So we have a sort of framework that we use, we know generally what we want the students to get from the activity, but we don't have anything pinning us down as to what we’re going to do. So the students choose their way through the exercise. We’ve got choices for them to make but they come up with the things that go in those choices, and they decide what from those choices they're going to do.
JULIA COOKE
We’re going to assess the field cast by surveying students. We’re going to survey them before the field casts, after the field casts, and then compare that to how students learn on the tutor-led field course. We’re going to follow that up with some semi-structured interviews.
KADMIEL MASEYK
It’s nice to be part of this innovative project, this innovative teaching project, and having this real-time interaction with feedback from our students. This is really, really cool. And yeah, I just enjoy being in the field. So, no, I don't find it daunting presenting from the field any more than I do from any other situation, really.
We have three presenters mainly because there’s quite a lot going on in the live situation. We have the widgets we have to be checking. Of course, there’s someone talking and presenting, and then someone else who might be saying things that they might have forgotten to say and holding up the equipment to show the equipment. So there's just these quite a lot of things going on that we have to juggle. But also, because fieldwork tends to be a sort of interactive and collaborative process, and we’re good friends as well as colleagues, so we enjoy working with each other, and we want to sort of convey this aspect of the fieldwork process to the students.
KATE BRADSHAW
Everything is battery powered. So the feed comes from the cameras and the mikes, and it’s mixed using a web broadcasting application. That's then sent out via a 4G broadband connection via web streaming service so that students can pick it up in their browsers. And the biggest challenge is always going to be the weather. Hopefully it's dry, and then we can run in a very straightforward manner.
The next biggest challenge, really, is getting everybody to work together. We all have our own strengths and aims and objectives, and so a sound script and rehearsals are incredibly important. But once those are planned in and working, generally everything runs smoothly, and everybody works together extremely well.
JULIA COOKE
We’re working on a project supported by the eSTEeM program to evaluate the effectiveness of these field casts. Do students enjoy them? Do they develop their confidence? And does the student led structure deepen learning doing field work? Field work is a fundamental part of our own research, and it allows the students to consolidate their learning and put what they've learnt in the course material into practice. And also, by developing their practical skills, we can increase their employability.
End transcript: Video 5 Assessing ‘The Open Field Lab’
Download
Video 5 Assessing ‘The Open Field Lab’
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Discussion

In this project, Julia, Phil and their colleagues are investigating whether and how interactive fieldcasts can be used to support, enhance and widen access to authentic fieldwork experiences. They are using the ‘Sequential Quan → Qual design’ of combining methods in a mixed methods research. They mention the use of surveys before and after the fieldcast, followed by semi-structured interviews with a smaller set of students.

The project description and resources are available on the project’s webpage: Assessing The ‘Open Field Lab’: Evaluating Interactive Fieldcasts for Enhancing Access to Fieldwork.