Following the CCK08 Massive online course, we are keen to further explore and research the blogging experience, both from our own perspective as learners on the course and yours.
We warmly invite you to participate in this research. By filling in this survey or agreeing to participate in interviews, you are giving us permission to use this data for research purposes. We take full responsibility for using the data ethically and in a way that conforms with the UK Data Protection Act. You are free to withdraw from the research at any time. We can assure you that all information will be fully confidential and that you will not be named or identified. No report, written or otherwise, will allow for an individual to be identified, unless we have specifically gained your permission to do so. Our research will use an iterative methodology and be participatory in that we undertake to feed back findings from the research to the CCK08 community.
The Questionnaire is in two parts which will need to be completed separately. The focus of the first part is on your blog and blog statistics. The focus of the second part is on your blogging experiences in the CCK08 course. The first part includes 19 multi-choice questions. The second part will take longer than the first part as it asks for a comment following each question.
Jenny Mackness, Sui Fai John Mak, Matthias Melcher and Roy Williams (Course participants Sept - December 2008)
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Please provide us with the following demographic information. This is for follow up purposes only. The anonymity of your responses will be preserved.
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ZIP/Postal Code:
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Email Address:
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Phone Number:
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What is your gender?
___Male ___Female
What is your age?
___Less than 30 years
___31 - 40 years
___41- 50 years s
___51 - 60 years
___61 years or more
Type of participant:
Were you registered as a credit-based participant in CCK08?
____ Yes____No
Part 1: Your use of blogs and forums for communication on the CCK08 Course
It occurred to me that if we want to answer the question 'Why did people choose to blog rather than post to forums on the CCK08 course or vice versa (or both), then the questionniare will need to address all three groups - so I have had a go at amending the questionnaire to cover this. See what you think
<br> These questions are for all CCK08 participants.
1. Did you blog about the CCK08 experience during the CCK08 course?
___Yes ___No
2. Did you post to the Moodle forums during the CCK08 course?
___Yes ___No
3. Which method of communication did you prefer during the CCKO8 course?
___Blogging
___Moodle discussion forums
___No preference between blogging and Moodle discussion forums
___Other
4. Please specify the 'other' item you entered above. __________
If you blogged during the CCK08 course, please continue to Part 2 of this questionnaire. Part 2 questions are for all participants who set up a CCK08 blog and posted about the CCK08 course, however infrequently.
If you did not blog during the CCK08 course, but posted to the Moodle forums, please continue to Part 3 of this questionnaire. Part 3 questions are for all participants who posted to the CCK08 Moodle discussion forums, however infrequently.
Part 2: Your Blog on the CCK08 Course
In these questions I have tried to find out more about the characteristics of the people who blogged and whether their blogging was successful/productive.
These questions are for participants who blogged during the CCK08 course, however infrequently. You will need access to your blog statistics whilst answering these questions.
1. How many blogs do you author? ___
2. Did you use one of your existing blogs for the CCK08 course?
___Yes ___No
3. Did you set up a new blog for the CCK08 course?
___Yes ___No
4. How long have you been blogging?
This was my first experience of blogging
___Less than 3 months
___3 - 6 months
___7 - 12 months
___1 - 2 years
___3 - 4 years
___5 years or more
5. How many blog entries did you make during the CCK08 course?
Less than 50 (Do we need smaller numbers here? It is possible that some set up a blog but never posted) (How about 0, 1-10, 11-30, 31-50?)
___51 - 100
___101 - 200
___201 - 300
___301 -500
___501 or more
6. How frequently did you blog during the CCK08 course?
___Several times a day
___About once a day
___3-5 times a week
___1-2 times a week
___Every few weeks
___Less often
7. If you were blogging at the beginning of the CCK08 course, but didn’t continue blogging to the end of the course, at what point did you stop blogging?
___Within the first 2 weeks of the course
___Within the first month of the course
___Within the second month of the course
___Within the third month of the course
___I didn’t stop blogging
8. What were your reasons for stopping?
___Lack of time for the course
___Lack of interest in the course
___Lack of motivation to work on the course
___Feelings of isolation
___Frustrations with the technology
___Insufficient comments on my blog
___Insufficient views of my blog
___Other
9. Please specify the 'other' item you entered above. __________
10. On average, how much time did you spend writing a blog post during the CCK08 course?
___Less than 30 minutes
___0.5 - 1 hour
___1 - 2 hours
___3 - 4 hours
___5 hours or more
11. What name did you use to identify yourself on your CCK08 blog?
___Real name
___Variant of real name
___Pseudonym
___Not available
12. Did you post a representative photograph of yourself on your CCK08 blog?
___Yes ___No
13. Did you post an avatar instead of a representative photo of yourself on your CCK08 blog?
___Yes ___No
14. Did you make your CCK08 blog public?
___Yes ___No
15. Did you tag your CCK08 blog posts with the tag - CCK08?
___Yes ___No
16. When you wrote posts for your CCK08 blog, how often did you provide links to other bloggers on the course?
___Very often (These highlighted sections will have to be changed to more numerical, measurable values)
___Often
___Sometimes
___Rarely
___Never
17. When you wrote posts for your CCK08 blog, how often did you refer to the discussion in the CCK08 Moodle forums?
___Very often
___Often
___Sometimes
___Rarely
___Never
18. Did you use an RSS feed to connect with CCK08 blogs?
___Yes ___No
19. Did you have links to other CCK08 blogs on your CCK08 blogsite (for example in the sidebar)?
___Yes ___No
20. How many links to other CCK08 blogs did you have on your CCK08 blog?
Less than 5
___6 - 10
___11 – 20
___21 -30
___31- 40
___41-50
___51 or more
21. How many views did your blog receive during the CCK08 course?
Less than 100
___101 - 500
___501 - 1000
___1001 - 1500
___1501 - 2500
___2501 – 3500
___3501 – 4000
___4001 or more
22. How many comments did you receive on your CCK08 blog during the CCK08 course? (Exclude your own comments from this number)
Less than 5
___6 - 20
___21 - 50
___51 - 100
___101 - 150
___151 - 200
___201 or more
23. How many bloggers have you continued to communicate with since the CCK08 course ended?
Less than 5
___6 - 10
___11 -15
___16 - 20
___21 or more
24. Do you have any further comments? If so, please addthem here.
Please insert the URL of your blog here
__
Part 3: Your Participation in the CCK08 Moodle Forums
I
have not included people who only read the blogs or forums, i.e. the lurkers
Are there enough parallels between the \part 2 and Part 3 questions for us to be able to make valid comparisons when analysing the data?
These questions are for participants who posted to the Moodle Forums during the CCK08 course, however infrequently. You may need to access the forums whilst answering these questions. You can see your forum activity by logging into the CCK08 Moodle site and clicking on ‘Participants’ (top left of your screen), and then on your name.
1. Was this your first experience of Moodle discussion forums?
Yes ___No
2. Was this your first experience of posting to a discussion forum?
Yes ___No
3. For how many years have you been posting to discussion forums?
Less than 1 year
___1 - 6 years
___2 - 3 years
___3 - 4 years
___4 - 5 years
___5 years or more
4. Did you post to the Introductions forum?
___Yes ___No
5. How many people in the Introductions forum did you already know, from prior to the course ?
___None
___less than 5
___6 - 10
___11 - 20
6. How many Moodle forums did you post to? (There were 12 weekly forums, an introductions forum and a general forum).
___One
___1 - 3
___4 - 6
___7 - 9
___10 - 11
___12
7. How frequently did you post to the Moodle forums during the CCK08 course?
___Several times a day
___About once a day
___3-5 times a week
___1-2 times a week
___Every few weeks
___Less often
8. How frequently did you initiate threads in the CCK08 Moodle forums?
___Several times a day
___About once a day
___3-5 times a week
___1-2 times a week
___Every few weeks
___Less often
___Never
9. If you were posting to the Moodle forums at the beginning of the CCK08 course, but didn’t continue to post to the end of the course, at what point did you stop participating in the Moodle forums?
___Within the first 2 weeks of the course
___Within the first month of the course
___Within the second month of the course
___Within the third month of the course
___I didn’t stop blogging
10. What were your reasons for stopping?
___Lack of time for the course
___Lack of interest in the course
___Lack of motivation to work on the course
___Feelings of isolation
___Frustrations with the technology
___Insufficient responses to my posts
___Other
11. Please specify the 'other' item you entered above. __________
12. On average, how much time did you spend writing a forum post during the CCK08 course?
___Less than 30 minutes
___0.5 - 1 hour
___1 - 2 hours
___3 - 4 hours
___5 hours or more
13. What name did you use to identify yourself on the Moodle forums?
___Real name
___Variant of real name
___Pseudonym
___Not available
14. Did you post a representative photograph of yourself on the Moodle forums?
___Yes ___No
15. Did you post an avatar instead of a representative photo of yourself on your CCK08 blog?
___Yes ___No
16. When you posted to the Moodle forums, how often did you refer to the posts of other participants in the forum? highlighted sections need numerical measurable values
___Very often
___Often
___Sometimes
___Rarely
Never
17. When you posted to the Moodle forums, how often did you refer to the posts of bloggers?
___Very often
___Often
___Sometimes
___Rarely
___Never
18. How frequently did you receive responses to your CCK08 Moodle forum posts?
___Several times a day
___About once a day
___3-5 times a week
___1-2 times a week
___Every few weeks
___Less often
___Never
19. How many participants of the Moodle forums have you continued to communicate with since the CCK08 course ended?
Less than 5
___6 - 10
___11 -15
___16 - 20
___21 or more
20. What communication means do you use to keep connected with Moodle forum participants?
Email
Blog
Community website (e.g. Ning or alternatives)
Online group
Other
21. Please specify the 'other' item you entered above. __________
22. Do you have any further comments? If so, please addthem here.
Part 4: Your Blogging and Discussion Forum Experiences on the CCK08 Course
I'm going to move to another page for this bit
Would you be willing to take part in a Skype or email interview about your CCK08 blog and blogging experience?
___Yes ___No ___Not sure
Comments (4)
Jenny Mackness said
at 4:54 am on Mar 1, 2009
Sorry about the terrible formatting on this. I have amended the questionnaire to:
- include a Part 1: which addresses both forum and blog users
- add one or two questions to the original questionnaire (now Part 2) to bring it more in line with Part 3
- add Part 3 which is aimed at forum users
The questionnaire is now probably far too long - particularly since we still need a Part 4 to explore learning preferences/experiences.
Please critique - amend, cut, edit, refine etc. - or reject completely
suifaijohnmak said
at 11:06 pm on Mar 16, 2009
I think it is critical to distinguish between credit from non-credit participants in the survey and analysis. This will also be the major difference between our research and other researches on on-line courses (as we have credit and non-credit groups for comparison in a MOOC), which also made our research UNIQUE.
We will need to check if there were significant differences in the learning and communication preferences in the Web 2.0 tools (Blog versus Moodle Discussion Forums).
Based on my observation, we could test the validity of the following hypothesis:
1. Credit participants were expected to participate and engage in the discussion and connections (as part of the assessment requirements), and so they were more inclined to demonstrate such competence through blogs (deeper reflections and the posting of assessments or assignments) than forum discussion. Since some forum discussions amongst credit participants were expected, these credit participants would try to comply with the requirements to gain credits in Forum Posting (as Moderator) at least once. As hinted by Stephen, he was expecting a higher "quality" of discussion in the forum for both credit and non-credit ACTIVE participants. Credit participants were more reserved in raising ideas (and more reflective? that were at odds (or in disagreement) with the principles or concepts of Connectivism in Moodle discussion, but they were more willing to raise such views in their blogs.
2. Non-credit ACTIVE participants were more open to exprees their views and perspectives than credit participants, especially in the blogs and Moodle Forum discussion, as they were not bound by the assessment requirements. Non-credit ACTIVE participants did not percive themselves merely as "learners", but might be co-participants only - as compared to credit participants (as learners). So the content of credit learners and non-credit learners had a significantly different "tone" in connections and communication.
suifaijohnmak said
at 11:06 pm on Mar 16, 2009
3. Non-credit ACTIVE participants were more inclined to choose their topics in the blogs and Moodle Forum discussion, whereas credit participants were more "restricted" and had "focused" mostly on the topics of the week if they were to blog or discuss in forum.
4. Credit participants tended to spend more time on their assignments as compared with Non-credit ACTIVE participants. So Credit participants used the blog as the principal (primary) learning and communication tool.
Comments? John 16/03/09
suifaijohnmak said
at 11:16 pm on Mar 16, 2009
Item 2. 3rd line - Should be "perceive" - not percive. John
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