Secondary Students Questionnaire(SSQ)
Guidelines for administering and preliminary data analysis
Introduction
Thank you for cooperating in Hope SSQ.
This SSQ is prepared to collect inspiring factors to study physics by secondary school students oriented to a physics degree. We are interested to compare data obtained by SSQ with data collected by means of QA questionnaire prepared by Gareth Jones for collecting inspiring factors of physics students in the first year of the university studies. The third part of SSQ is in fact coincident with QA.
We consider interesting, in addition, to collect information on talent students in physics who are considering different kind of studies at university level and the related reasons.
Data collection is supposed to be in special events for talent students in physics. To understand the context and the characteristics of the data, the event characteristics are important and we ask you to describe them carefully for a good quality data analysis.
The questionnaire is organized structured in three parts:
A)Relevance of selected aspects in inspiring to study physics: physics teaching in school, insights of a physicist’s work, physics research goals and role in society and work world, and personal engagement and information on research in physics (scoring by means of a 5 level Likert scale);
B)Open questions on: perceived inspiring factors to study physics, preferred topics in physics, identity of physicist, subjects’ main school outcomes.
C)The items of the QA questionnaire, submitted to physics students in the first year of the university (factor score in 5 level Likert scale).
Partners who for voluntary participate to SSQ study have to select the sample, administrate the SSQ and collect both quantitative and qualitative data in the provided database (Excel file). Rubric prepared for the open questions mother language qualitative analysis is prepared according with results of two pilot studies carried out in 2014.
For any need, please contact us
Gesche Pospiech, TU University of Dresden, Germany,
Marisa Michelini, Lorenzo Santi and Alberto Stefanel, University of Udine, Italy
, ,
Please send Excel file filled in to
Thank you one more!
1) Target students:
Please select the sample according with the main goal of the questionnaire, which is to collect the inspiring factors to study physics for talent secondary students oriented to apply to a physics degree course at university in 1-2 years.
Target students are therefore secondary students of the last two years of secondary school having good marks in physics, motivated for physics studies, participating to a demanding active learning activity in physics of some hours (about 3 hours).
2) Questionnaire submission
Each questionnaire willnumerated before submission.
The questionnaire willfilled in by students at the end of the activity.
Please, explain very clearly that we are asking to the students to collaborate in order to improve the university studies and that data collected will used only for this study and not in contexts different from the research context and will kept in a strictly anonymous form.
3) Data collection event description
Please describe the event during which the data are collected:
3.AKind of event.
A1 Cooperative school-university activity held in University/School (please describe it)
A2 Full immersion school of physics
A3 Physics Competition at: local level, regional level; national level
A4. Special activity: Masterclass; Olympiads
A5. Other (please specify) ______
3.B Periodicity of the event at the site where the data has been collected
3.C Duration
3. D Type of activity done by student (specify the percentage of time for each activity)
D1. Experimental laboratory
D2. Exercises, problems
D3. Lectures, conferences
D4. Interactive lecture demonstration
D5. Discussion/Seminars
D6. Group work
D7. Other (please specify)
3.E Eventually the adopted strategies (eg.:IBL) or other useful informations ______
4) Sample description
4.A Are students effectively oriented to apply to a physics degree course at university in 1-2 years?Y/N
What is different? Please explain ______
4.B Students:
of the same class; of different classes
from same school; from different schools
that partecipate to the event because:
voluntary choice
selected by:
-teacher
-competition a the level of (S: School; R: Region; C: Country; I: International)
-university
(please specify how the selection has been carried out) ______
are accompanied by their own teacher (PT); by other teacher (OT).
4C. Please, assure that there is no selection on gender, cultural diversity, level of satisfaction and type of secondary school.
4D. Please collect students free comments.______
E) Data analysis and handling of the filled in forms
We prepared some facilities for data analysis, taking into account the two pilot studies held for its validation (SSQ1-57 students participating to Masterclass in 14/3/14; SSQ2-29 students in 30/6/2014), presented and discussed in Helsinki Forum.
In the following suggestions for closed and open questions are given.
E1, Closed questions in Likert scale (part A and C):
•An Excel file, xls format, is provided with prepared columns: code of student, personal data of student, answer number for each close question;
•Each student gets a code (first column), with the following elements WG1-SSQ-(Partner code)-(questionnaire number), i.e.:WG1-SSQ-P03-1;
•The students’ answers will be transcribed and analysed according to the coding scheme reported in Appendix 1.
•Missing answers will have blank cell.
E2. Open questions(part B and C21-C28)
Qualitative data analysis is requested for the open questions.
•The students’ answers will be transcribed and analysed according to the coding scheme reported in Appendix 1, where are In Appendix 2 we reported the suggested categories, according with our data analysis in pilot studies.
Additional categories will be introduced by partners if proper and useful. The Excel file, xls format used for close question analysis is prepared to implement the qualitative data analysis too.
The finalcategorization of the answers to the open questions has to be shared and discussed within the group of researchers involved in the analysis (triangulation). The group has to identify the controversial issues (the data that are coded in different ways), to explore the issues, to reach a consensus and provide a common analysis template for each student answer.
After the analysis, each partner will declare the interest to be part of the global analysis or not, and produce:
1) A picture of the administered questionnaires, including: 1.1) number of questionnaires administered (out of the filled questionnaires and the total number of students); 1.2) Data collection event description, according to guidelines (template is provided); 1.3) Sample description, according to guidelines (template is provided);
2) Quantitative data collected in the first page of the excel sheet enclosed, specifying you partner number and the name(see the excel fileSSQ_P0xQuestionnaireDataCollection&analysis – please add rows and columns when needed);
3iii) A short report about the process of administration of the questionnaire, including notes on methodology used in the analysis, notes on the analysis process, discussion of the controversial issues and of the process that led to consensus on them, synthesis of data analysis (distribution of evaluation in Likert scale; average values indicators; qualitative categorization, extending the part C of the present document)
Appendix 1- Qualitative data analysis
The open questions will be coded according to the following categories (please add category if necessary).
Each answer will be divided when including more than one category. Because students often build up answers belonging to more than one category, it can be useful to perform an analysis of the number of categories involved in the answers.
For each category the number of occurrences is given
Part. B
B1. What are the factors that most inspire you to study Physics
Cod / Description of Factors / ExamplesA. Epistemic characteristics of Physics
A1 / Nature of Physics
A1.1 Interpretative and in depth view / “A profound vision and not abstract of phenomena”; “Physics interpret the real world”
A1.2 Rigorous, reliability of results / “The possibility to give objective and rigorous explanations”
A1.3 Critical approach / “the critical inquiry to nature”,
A1.4 Research of first principles and global vision / “It comes to the knowledge of the principles governing nature”
A2 / Wide spectra of phenomena investigated / “The very general of his research”, “It is the vastness of the natural phenomena that physics studies”
A3 / Methodological approach / “Its methodological/scientific approach to reality”
A4 / Integration of theory and experiments, mathematics and concrete aspects / “Combines mathematics with application in everyday life, making it a concrete science”
A5 / Characteristic aspects of physics
A5.1 Mathematical/formal language, language of formula, / “The application of formulas for reading reality”, “The possibility to understand the reality in mathematical terms”
A5.2 Integrating math and phys / “Physics employs methods of mathematics to interpret the real world”
A5.2 Modeling / “The possibility to model the reality that surrounds me”; “Physics modeling the real world”
A5.3 Synthetic vision and way of interpreting phenomena / “Physics seeks to explain the universe and the world around us and is able to give explanation to every phenomenon”
B INTERNAL FACTORS
B1 / Desire for
B1.1 Knowledge / a. how phenomena work / “My personal desire for knowledge on functioning the world around me” “The desire to know how the phenomena work”
b. what happens in the phenomena / ” The desire to know what are the laws governing the occurrence of any event
c. order and organization of the world / “Desire to understand how everything is organized”
B1.2 Understanding / d. Phenomena / “Desire to understand how phenomena occur in nature”
e. Laws ruling the world / “desire to understand laws ruling nature”
B1.3 Extending the field of knowledge / “The curiosity to discover more about the world and the search for answers to questions still unanswered”; "I would like to find out how the world and its phenomena"
B2 / Easy to be studied / “I find it easy to study physics”
B3 / Pleasure
B3.1 in the study / “the pleasure for the study of physics”
B3.2 in acquiring knowledge / “Physics satisfies my desire to know”
B3.3 to serve the society / “Physics is a noble source of progress”
B2: "What is the topic/content that you love most in physics?"
Topic / explanationB3. Your identity as physicist: what typical aspects of a physicist do you recognize in yourself
Cod / Description of Factors / ExamplesA. STEREOTYPE
A1 / Researcher in the field of
A1.1 Astrophyics / “Researcher specialized in particular in astrophysics”
A1.2 High energy / “Researcher in high-energy physics”
A1.3 Classical physics / “Physicist interested in fluid mechanics and electromagnetism”
A2 / Theoretical physicist / “Theoretical physicist”
A2.1 Speculative / “Theoretical physicist, because, in my opinion, has more chance to speculate”
A2.2 Not practical / “For me, physics must not have practical purposes: more than an experimental physicist would like to become a theoretical physicist””
A2.3 (Rewarding) abstraction / “I would be more inclined to become a theoretical physicist, because in general I find the abstraction more fulfilling”
A2.4 Interpret the phenomena / “I want to work to try theories of phenomena”
A2.5 Predict phenomena / Theoretical physicist. The part of the reasoning (intuition-preview) has a propedeutic part with respect to the practice”
A3 / Experimental physicist
A3.1 Formulate and verify the laws of phenomena / “I would like to be an experimental physicist because it allows to affirm the validity or otherwise of certain theories”
A3.2 Individuate regularities in the phenomena / “Through observation, it is fascinating to know that seems chaos is actually controlled by rules. Therefore considered more challenging experimental physics”
A3.3Individuatefunctional aspects and operating modes
A4 / Industrial physicist / “Industrial physics, I think it's the best way to infuse their theoretical and practical knowledge in something concrete”
A5 / Computational physicist / “In me it characterizes the identity of the physical computing. Through computer simulation can easily develop the ideas and resolutions of physical problems”
B. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
B1 / Inclination to:
B1.1.philosophy / “I see myself as a physical tending to philosophy, to the understanding of things in themselves”
B1.2 finding meanings of the formalism / “I do not appreciate the formalism if I do not see the significance, the physical sense in each step”
B2 / Curiosity for
B2.1 Descovering misteries / “Curiosity about the mysteries of the universe and matter”
B2.2 Causes / “With the curiosity to discover the causes that underlie the phenomena”
B2,3 Knowledge / “Curious to know”
B2.4 Understanding the funtioning / curious person to understand the workings of our universe
B2.5 Ruling laws of phenomena / “curious person to understand what are the laws governing the occurrence of any event”
B3 / Precision / precise person
B4 / Critical thinking / I consider myself a critical observer
B5 / Interest for
B6 / Passion for
B7 / Pleasure for
a. Applications
b. Models, Analysis of models
c. Experimental work,experimental test of laws and theories,practical aspects
d. Formal aspects
e. Numerical simulations
f. Problem solving
C. VALUES
C1 / Transfert of knowledge in concrete/practical contests / A physicist who moved knowledge in something concrete
C2 / Answer to social needs / “A physicist who moved the theoretical and practical knowledge in something that can meet the changing needs of the population”
C3 / Expand and diffuse knowledge / “Interested in finding out more and more about the world”
B4. Your better school results are, in order of marks in the following three subjects:
Subject / markC21. Please name any other reasons which are important for your interest in studying physics
see grid for B1 item analysis
C22. At what age did you first become very interested in physics?
<88age<10
10age<12
12age<14
14age<16
≥16
C3. Your age:
Age16
17
18
19
C24. Are you decided to apply to study physics at university? Yes - No (Please circle)
C24a. If no, explain
Category / ExamplePW - Professional work / Professional opportunities not those wanted
TPI – Technical and practical interests / Interest for engineering work
Interest for operative and technical activities
PD – Physics is demanding / Too demanding for results
MP- Math Passion / Passion for math, preference for math
C24b. If yes, at what age did you definitely decided?
AgePlease specify any particularly important circumstance or reason which inspired your choice of physics
see grid for B1 item analysis
C25. Which other subject(s), if any, did you or do you consider for university study? Explain why.
Subject / ExplanationMath / M1. Abstraction
M2. Achievement of incomparable speculative goals
M3. I feel it as a perfect and conceptual explanation
M.4 It follows from logic
M5. I like to perform calculations
M6. It is the tool to understand the world
Chemistry / C1. I like molecular reaction
Engineering / E1. I like practical aspects
E2. For the future work
Other
C28. What type of School did you go to?
Type of schoolFor global results, local data analysis will integrated in a general global report to obtain the answers to reach.
Please send all the documents produced in a single zip file to: