Motivation of Students Taking In-Person Classes than Those Attending Virtual Classes

please read the research project, and write the abstract and introduction, discussion 4.1 4.2, and 4.3.

The Final Project Report

New hypothesis: We hypothesize that more ECS students at Ryerson who are taking in-person classes are at higher motivation levels than students who are attending virtual classes.

Method                                  

(This section tells the reader how the project was conducted. It specifies exactly what was done and how it was done. You should provide sufficient detail so that the appropriateness and merits of the methodology can be assessed and so that the reader could replicate your study. Overall, the methodology should allow the hypothesis to be tested in an unbiased way.)                         

The method section contains three subsections: (N.B. Not all projects will fit this model. If you believe your project does not, please see me to discuss an alternate model.)                                            

Participants:                                                                                                                                    
2.1  In one or two sentences, provide the necessary descriptive information regarding the participants in the study (how many participants, where they come from, age, number of participants per group), and any other characteristics important for your study. [There should be a sufficiently large number of participants.]

The participants were 51 Ryerson students in the Early Childhood Studies Program and there were 4 first-year students, 7 second-year students, 27 third-year students (8 direct-entry students), and 13 fourth-year students. Participants were self-selected to take part in our study and placed in four groups by answering the questions in the questionnaire sent by email.

2.2  In one sentence, describe how you got your sample.

We used the voluntary response sampling technique to gather our sample because we created and sent a questionnaire to all ECS students at Ryerson through email, with students voluntarily participating in the questionnaire and answering questions.

2.3  In one sentence, describe the way in which participants were selected for and assigned to different groups, if appropriate. E.g., “participants were assigned to groups based on their year in the ECS program.”

The participants were assigned to groups according to their year of study in the Early Childhood Studies program at Ryerson University. There are a total of 4 groups, year 1, year 2, year 3 (including direct-entry), and year 4.

Apparatus (or Materials):

(This subsection should include the necessary descriptive information regarding materials, tests, measures, questionnaires, etc. and their function in the project.)

2.4  In one paragraph, define the variables involved in your hypothesis, include your operational definitions of these variables, and state the rationale for your choices.

According to the hypothesis, there is one independent variable and one dependent variable. The teaching method is the independent variable, and it has two levels. The first level is ECS students at Ryerson who take in-person classes, and the second level is ECS students at Ryerson who take virtual classes. Meanwhile, the dependent variable is the number of participants’ choices of different motivation levels, and the selections are from 0-20% less motivated to 81-100% very motivated. We define these variables because the hypothesis shows learning method is the factor that can impact students’ learning motivation level. Regarding the operational definitions, we decide to operate two teaching methods for ECS students to provide feedback based on their personal learning experience. Therefore, based on the bias of choices against different learning motivation levels, we can infer which learning method for Ryerson ECS students is more motivated because motivated learning is defined operationally to represent the method that ECS students feel involved and engaged.

2.5  In one paragraph, describe your apparatus. For example, provide information regarding the types of questions asked. Give specific examples of questions. (Your apparatus or measure should clearly link to your hypothesis. In addition, ideally, each question or aspect of your measure should be analyzed in the Results section.)          

Our questionnaire consists of both quantitative and qualitative questions that require participants of our study to provide feedback and response regarding their learning experiences during virtual online classes and in-person classes. We included questions asking participants about how/what has influenced their learning motivation during virtual online classes and online classes.  An example of a quantitative question is, How will you rate the current virtual learning experience?  The answers for this question are arranged as a percentile rating from 0% (less motivated) to 100% (very motivated). An example of a qualitative question is, Can you give one or more examples that affect your learning motivation? Answers can include, no immediate responses, unclear instructions, etc.

2.6  In this section, use one sentence to state that reference copies of (a) any email you have sent requesting participants (if you sent one) and (b) your questionnaire, or data collection instrument, along with any Consent Information that is part of your questionnaire, can be found in Appendix A. (Provide one reference copy of each of your materials in Appendix A.)

The consent form and online questionnaire can be found in Appendix A.                                                   
Procedure:

2.7  In one paragraph, specify step-by-step how and why you conducted each part of the data collection.

Firstly, we created our questionnaire and consent form using the google form platform, we then sent our questionnaire to Professor Rinkoff for approval. Our consent form was sent to ensure confidentiality, we stated in our consent form that this was an anonymous study.  Secondly, after approval, our questionnaire and consent form is forwarded to Monica to be distributed to Ryerson Early Childhood Studies students through email. Thirdly, we received responses from participants after they completed our questionnaire. There were a total of 51 responses. Our group members then interpreted and analyzed the data we collected. Finally, we followed the SPSS software instructions provided by Professor Rinkoff to input all of our collected data onto the data summary sheet to create a graph and chart to illustrate our research project.

2.8  In one sentence, name a proper research design for your project and your rationale for choosing it. In addition, provide an illustration of the design. Make it clear what each aspect of the illustration represents.

The research design for this research project is the Posttest Comparison Group Design because participants are not signed in random groups as all participants are students who major in Early Childhood Studies, and there is a pre-existing group for us to compare.

X1          O1

---------------

X2          O2

X1: treatment (in-person classes)                   X2: treatment (virtual classes)

O1: Observed numbers of ECS students’ motivation level of in-person classes from the questionnaire result

O2: Observed numbers of ECS students’ motivation level of virtual classes from the questionnaire result

---: Pre-existing groups

Results

3.1 The results section should begin with a clear and appropriate one-sentence statement regarding how the data were analyzed quantitatively (which statistical procedure was used) and qualitatively. (At least one of the statistical tests on the Statistical Test Decision Tree should be conducted in each project.)

The data was analyzed quantitatively by using the statistical test decision tree of Chi Sq. Test of Association; data was also analyzed qualitatively through questionnaire responses of short answers and multiple-choice questions.

3.2 Justify the use of your statistical procedure in one sentence. Justify your use of your qualitative method using a second sentence.

The dependent variable is the number of ECS students’ choices of different motivation levels, which is the number of participants; there are two sets of choices: the learning method and the percentiles of students’ learning motivation levels. The qualitative method used in this study is questionnaire responses,  observation/questionnaire and the researchers’ roles were data collectors and data analyzers.

3.3 In one sentence state whether your hypothesis was supported or not and include the significance level from your statistical test.

The significance level is 0.000, which is lesser than 0.05, so our hypothesis was supported.