Data analysis methods

Quantitative data of learners’ experiences of virtual worlds

The quantitative data gathered from the questionnaires are contained in the appendices and the analysis is contained in section 5.1. When analysing the set of quantitative data from the first case study, it was noted that those students who tended to confirm that they had experienced presence tended to also be those students who claimed to find the learning activity useful, and those who reported few experiences of presence reported dissatisfaction with the learning activity. In order to analyse the correspondence between these two factors, the students were grouped across two dimensions, dissatisfaction/satisfaction with learning activity and experience/lack of experience of presence. In order to create the groupings, marks were assigned to the four statements to which students responded regarding their experience of the learning activity, these statements were:  I felt I learnt something about the theatrical spaces.

 It was a fun experience.  I’d like to try it again.  I couldn’t see the point of it.

Giving a mark of 1 to the first three statements if agreed with and 1 to the fourth statement if disagreed with would indicate the most satisfied students. Students were scored 0 for each of the responses that were opposite to those above and students that ticked the dividing line between the “yes” and “no” boxes were scored 0.5. These were then divided into two groups according to the scores they gave the activity; the criterion for dividing the groups was chosen to give as equal a division between these two groups as possible. Grouping those students who gave a total of 3 or 4 marks for these questions as “satisfied” and those who gave 0, 1, or 2 as “dissatisfied” gave groups of nine satisfied students and five dissatisfied ones for those students in the first case study.

In order to ascertain whether there was a correlation between this and experience of presence the responses to the statements on presence were also given marks. These statements were:

 I just felt too detached from the space.  I didn’t feel like I could relate to my avatar.

106  I felt like I was there.

 I felt like I was sharing a space with other people in the virtual world.

Responses were scored 1 for a “no” for the first two statements and 1 for a “yes” for the latter two statements. This resulted in scores of 0 to 4 for each respondent. Respondents with scores of 2 to 4 were classified as high presence; those with 0 or 1 as low presence. These divisions also were chosen to give as evenly a distributed grouping as possible (i.e. a division of eight students with high presence and six students with low presence) in the first case study. This initial analysis gave groupings as shown in table 3.1, shown here because, although these are findings, these informed the methodology of the overall study.

High presence

(2-4)

Low presence

(0-1)

Satisfied

(3-4)

8

1

Dissatisfied

(0-2)

0

5

Although these numbers were too small to provide a legitimate chi squared test (John Goodband, personal correspondence, 2008) when a chi squared test was conducted in order to indicate whether there may be some correlation between these variables, a p value of less than 0.001 was produced. This suggested a strong enough correlation to adopt this as a data analysis method. The numbers of students were too small to do any legitimate statistical analyses comparing satisfaction with presence for separate case studies. However, when added together, this gave a total of 35 respondents across all five case studies. The result of this analysis is given in section 5.2.

The data from the remaining statements in the questionnaires were also grouped into these two categories of satisfied students (scoring 3 or 4) and dissatisfied (scoring 0, 1 or 2) and differences identified between these two groups. The questionnaire was modified twice during the study and the breakdown of responses for each version, divided into satisfied and dissatisfied groups, are also given in section 5.2.

107 Qualitative data of learners’ experience of virtual worlds

The qualitative data on the student experience were obtained by going through transcripts of sessions, focus groups and interviews and coding the data. These codes were revised using a constant comparative method; the transcripts were then recoded according to these revised codes. The codes were then grouped into common themes to form categories and subcategories and the relevant quotes against these codes were placed within these groupings. This process was conducted separately in each of the “primary” case studies (i.e. Red, Green and Blue) to form a different “grounded” set of categories for each case study. The remaining case studies (Magenta and Yellow) did not produce enough data to justify this process. These data are presented in sections 4.2 to 4.6.

The data from these case studies were then drawn together and analysed in a cross-case synthesis (as described in Yin [2003; 133-134]) using the categories from the conceptual framework. Correspondences and differences between case studies and with the literature were noted. Other factors, not in the framework, such as the students’ difficulties with articulating aspects of the experience were also identified and included. This synthesis is presented in section 5.3.

Qualitative data of learners’ resistance to virtual worlds

The data for the analysis of the resistance of students, where this is derived from data collected in the case studies, are included in the relevant case studies. Other data, obtained from students who would not take part in case studies, or from planned learning activities that were only partially completed, are given in section 5.4, where these data are analysed.

For the first case study, these data were analysed by coding the data from the focus group. Codes were assigned based around whether the statement was positive or negative with respect to the virtual world, then a constant comparative method was used to develop subsidiary categories within these groupings that included all the data, but were distinct (Merriam, 1998; 18). These are shown in table 4.2. From this initial analysis two groups of categories of student resistance were identified, a value-based one concerning the appropriateness of virtual experience, and an experiential one concerning the experience of presence, which also manifested itself in an opinion about design.

108 Further sets of responses of resistance were analysed with respect to these. Where the existing categories did not describe these responses, the constant comparative method was used to add additional categories. In total, three additional categories were added throughout the study.