Primary Research Report
The topic of the research is to find the effect of a Gap Year on the performance of the student. The research question that is being used for this essay is, “what is the relationship between a gap year and performance of students?” and, “what is the relationship between a gap year and performance of students in PSU Abington?”
The research method that will be used is text analysis because the topic is fitting in qualitative research rather than quantitative. The method was initially intended to be an interview, but because of the current predicament caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, it would be challenging to do it in person. The text analysis method will analyze the response of the students that will be answering the questions posted online. It is not like a survey because in a survey there is a very limited range of answers. On the other hand, the post would allow the students to answer the question and comment on their perspective on the questions asked from them. I want to know about the effects and consequences of taking a gap year in PSU Abington. I want to know the relationship between a gap year and the performance of the students in PSU Abington. It would also be used to understand if gap years are productive or not for the performance and confidence of all students, and should the idea be promoted or not.
The targeted participants of the research will only be university students. This will allow my research to have an experimental variable; students who took a gap year, and also a controlled variable; students who did not take a gap year. They are specifically chosen because they directly relate to the topic. I will be creating a blog with all the questions and would allow the students to answer those questions with any additional comments. The following are the questions; why did you take a gap year in PSU Abington? Was it your decision or not? What did you do during your gap year in PSU Abington? Has it been helpful? Do you think, the gap year changed something about you? How is your performance different from before in PSU Abington? Are you more prepared for your practical life now? Would you recommend a gap year to others in PSU Abington? How do you think it is your academic performance compared to others who didn’t take a break? What do college admissions officials think of gap years in PSU Abington? Was it hard to transition to college after a gap year? in PSU Abington?
To analyses the responses of the questions and data collected, I will be using the inductive method: Data are collected relevant to some topic and are grouped into appropriate and meaningful categories; explanations emerge from the data. This will allow the research to have more clarity in its content analysis, as the categories will most likely be shown as a table. A good number of participants for a more authentic result would be a hundred. Out of each of the hundred responses, the top 5 questions will be analyzed and portrayed in the table for data analysis. The categories will include, number of students who are have taken a gap year, number of students who were forced to take a gap year, number of students who consider the gap year to be helpful, number of students who regret taking a gap year, and number of students who would recommend their juniors to take a gap year. To show the trends of the answer, the content of the table will be further discussed and analyzed in forms of percentages of answers to the most relevant questions of the text analysis.
Research Debrief
A
debrief
is a discussion after the completion of a mission or activity, in this case, your data collection. The goal is to reflect on the process and what can be improved for next time.
STEPS
1. Make sure your data collection is finished.
· Your interviews (or most of them) should be completed.
· Your survey responses (or most of them) should be collected.
· Your texts for text analysis should be gathered and ready to analyze.
2. Look at your data or texts to get an initial overview of the results. I just want you to have a general idea of the kinds of data you collected. You don’t have to analyze everything at this point.
3. Answer the questions on the pages below. As for your Project 2 Idea Proposal, answer ONLY the questions that apply to your research methods and DELETE the other sections.
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INTERVIEW
1. In 3-4 sentences, give me an overview of what you did. What was this process like for you?
2. What was the most challenging part of collecting your data? Why?
3. What was the easiest part of collecting your data? Why?
4. Use the table below to list the details of your interview(s):
Interviewee Make a fake name for them and list their role or relationship with you |
Format of Interview Email, face-to-face, Zoom, etc. |
Length of Interview This number doesn’t have to be precise, just an estimate |
Most Helpful Aspect of This Interview What useful information did you get? What mistakes did you make and learn from for future interviews? |
5. It’s important to
transcribe
your interviews so you have a text to easily analyze. Transcribe a 5-minute excerpt from one of your interviews and include it here. You should make a fake name for your participant to protect their identity. Ideas for transcription software can be found on the tips page of the
Project 2 prompt
.
6. After an initial overview of your data, where do you feel you need more information? How do you plan to get this additional data (follow-up interview, etc.)?
7. After seeing the data you collected, what will you focus on in your analysis? What patterns did you notice in the responses of your participant(s)? (You don’t need to have completed your analysis. The goal here is to start thinking about it!)
8. If you had to do this research project again, what would you do differently?
SURVEY
1. In 3-4 sentences, give me an overview of what you did. What was this process like for you?
2. What was the most challenging part of collecting your data? Why?
3. What was the easiest part of collecting your data? Why?
4. How many participants responded to your survey and who are they (age, nationality, gender, etc.)?
5. Which of your survey questions got the most helpful or surprising results? Why do you think that is?
6. Which of your survey questions did you discover weren’t very useful after all? Why do you think that is?
7. I’m excited to see what data you collected! Open your survey results in a spreadsheet (you can easily do this through Google or Microsoft forms after clicking on Results). Provide a screenshot of some of your survey results (you don’t have to include every single answer for every single question… that’s too much!).
8. After an initial overview of your data, where do you feel you need more information? How do you plan to get this additional data (follow-up interview, etc.)?
9. After seeing the data you collected, what will you focus on in your analysis? What patterns did you notice in the responses of your participant(s)? How will you connect the answers to different questions? (You don’t need to have completed your analysis. The goal here is to start thinking about it!)
10. If you had to do this research project again, what would you do differently?
TEXT ANALYSIS
1. In 3-4 sentences, give me an overview of what you did. What was this process like for you?
2. What was the most challenging part of collecting your texts? Why?
3. What was the easiest part of collecting your texts? Why?
4. Use the table below to list the details of your texts:
Text What kind of text is this? What is its name? |
Source of Text Where did this text come from? Which newspaper, website, etc.? |
Length of Text This number of words doesn’t have to be precise, just an estimate |
Why This Text Why did you choose this text? How do you think it will help your analysis? |
5. It will help me to see the texts you’re analyzing. Either provide links to them in the chart above or provide screenshots below.
6. After an initial look at your texts, do you feel you have enough data to analyze? If not, how/where will you get more texts to analyze?
7. After seeing the texts, what will you focus on in your analysis? What general patterns do you notice in the texts? (You don’t need to have completed your analysis. The goal here is to start thinking about it!)
8. Before you analyze your texts, you need to create a framework so you know what to look for. What features of the text are you going to look for or count? First-person pronouns, passive voice, connotations of words, number of words dedicated to a certain topic, etc.? Refer to
this doc
for more examples. Why these features?
Feature to Analyze |
Why This Feature? |
9. How are you going to analyze your texts? Print them and highlight by hand? Make annotations in a pdf editor? Take excerpts and put into a spreadsheet?
10. If you had to do this research project again, what would you do differently?