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SCOPE Project Report on end-of-semester student questionnaires: 4711 Social Differentiation University of Stirling, Autumn 1998

I. Introduction

The questionnaire was prepared to provide quantitative information on the impact of SCOPE resources upon students on the 4711 Social Differentiation course at Stirling University.

Three packs were made available for students to choose from. Each of the three packs contained a selection of articles relevant to the entire 4711 course, and was available though John Smiths Bookshop on the Stirling University campus for £15. In addition, an online pack with equivalent material to the hard copy packs was available over the internet, this service was free to students but they needed to provide their own paper.

II. Methodology

282 students were registered on the course, and 300 questionnaires were printed. These were distributed to the students in class along with the formal class evaluation questionnaire. 141 completed questionnaires were returned and collected at the end of the lecture. These were manually entered in PinPoint to allow comparison with last years results.

III Findings

1. General comments about the questionnaire.

i) Question 2 sent respondents to question 9 if they had not bought a pack, before asking if they had shared a pack. The questionnaire should have included a general question at the start as to which SCOPE resources had been used, to determine which parts of the questionnaire should be filled in.

ii) Some students filled in the evaluation of the online resource bank, despite having said they did not use it

iii) The question to find out if students were school leavers or mature was dropped, since it had been explored in previous questionnaires.

2. Background Questions

As expected, 99% of students were full-time (Table 2.1). 55% lived on Campus (presumably in halls) (Table 2.2). 86% were in the first year, 12% in their second year, one student in their third year and one 'other' (who was a part-time student) (Table 2.3). Only 15% had difficulties obtaining a password for computer use (Table 2.4). 67% had never used the internet before starting the course - 17% had previously used the internet once a week or more often, and the remaining 16% had used it once a month or less. (Table 2.5)

Table 2.1. Q.1a Are you a full-time or part-time student?

	Frequency	Percentage
Full-time	139	98.6
Part-time	2	1.4
Total	141

Table 2.2. Q.1b Do you live on Campus?

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	77	54.6
No	64	45.4
Total	141

Table 2.3. Q.1c What year are you in?

	Frequency	Percentage
First	121	85.8
Second	18	12.8
Third	1	0.7
Other	1	0.7
Total	141

Table 2.4. Q.1d Did you experience any problems obtaining your password for computer access?

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	20	15.2
No	112	84.8
Total	132

Table 2.5. Q.1e How often had you used the internet prior to starting this course?

	Frequency	Percentage
Never	90	66.7
Less than once a month	18	13.3
Once a month	4	3.0
Once a week	9	6.7
More than once a week	14	10.4
Total	135

3. Overall SCOPE usage

38% of respondents had used SCOPE in some form or other - either buying a pack (new or second-hand), sharing a pack or using SORB (Table 3.1). According to the bookshop, 127 packs were sold; the questionnaire returns account for only 76 of them. The database records only 4 successful printouts by 4711 students.

Table 3.1 Overall SCOPE Usage

Scope usage counts %columns	Buy packs		Share packs			Second-hand packs			Sorb usage
	Yes	No	Not answered	Yes	No	Not answered	Yes	No	Not answered	Yes	No	Total
Not used	0 0%	87 89%	49 84%	0 0%	38 64%	73 84%	0 0%	14 27%	13 81%	0 0%	47 65%	87 62%
Used	43 100%	11 11%	9 16%	24 100%	21 36%	14 16%	3 100%	37 73%	3 19%	12 100%	39 35%	54 38%
Total	43	98	58	24	59	87	3	51	16	12	113	141

4. Pack Usage

30% of students had bought a pack. 17% of students shared packs, and of those who shared, 75% had also bought one or more packs: 25% did not buy any pack, but shared those bought by other people (Table 4.1). It is unknown if they helped pay for the packs, but they did not indicate that they had 'bought' them. Only three respondents had bought second-hand packs, amounting to 6 copies. (Table 4.3)

Table 4.1. Buying against Sharing packs

Buy Counts %columns	Share
	Not answered	Yes	No	Total
Yes	6 10%	18 75%	19 32%	43 30%
No	52 90%	6 25%	40 68%	98 70%
Total	58	24	59	141

Table 4.2. Q.5 Did you buy a pack second-hand?

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	3	5.6
No	51	94.4
Total	54

Table 4.3 Second-hand purchases against number of packs purchased.

Second hand Counts %columns	Number of packs
	One	Two	Three	Total
Yes	1 5%	1 17%	1 8%	3 8%
No	19 95%	5 83%	11 92%	35 92%
Total	20	6	12	38

Of those who indicated how many packs they had bought, 47.5% bought one pack, 15% bought two, and 37.5% bought three (Table 4.4). The number of packs bought, and amount of sharing seem to be inversely related, indicating that some students may have followed the lecturer's suggestion and bought a different pack each, to share them (Table 4.5).

Table 4.4. Q.4 How many packs did you buy?

	Frequency	Percentage
One	19	47.5
Two	6	15.0
Three	15	37.5
Total	40

Table 4.5. Number sharing packs against number of packs bought

Share Counts %columns	Number
	Not answered	One	Two	Three	Total
Not answered	55 56%	1 5%	0 0%	2 13%	58 41%
Yes	4 4%	14 67%	4 67%	2 13%	24 17%
No	40 40%	6 29%	2 33%	11 73%	59 42%
Total	99	21	6	15	141

There is no firm evidence of students' location (i.e. living on or off campus) affecting their pack buying and sharing habits. (Tables 4.6 and 4.7)

Table 4.6. Pack usage against location

Campus Counts %columns	Pack Usage
	Not used	Used	Total
Yes	53 58%	24 49%	77 55%
No	39 42%	25 51%	64 45%
Total	92	49	141

Table 4.7. Pack sharing against location (Includes only those who answered Q. 3)

Campus Counts %columns	Share
	Yes	No	Total
Yes	14 58%	29 49%	43 52%
No	10 42%	30 51%	40 48%
Total	24	59	83

Although 74% of those who had used a pack were satisfied with its usefulness, only 27% were satisfied that it was good value (Table 4.8). A possible cause for this is that most students used only half the material in the packs (Table 4.9), although with 34% using more than half of the pack, % usage figures are almost double those of the previous year.

Table 4.8. Q.6 How satisfied were you with the SCOPE pack? (Using only replies from users of the packs)

counts %rows	Completely satisfied		Fairly satisfied		Uncertain		Fairly dissatisfied		Completely dissatisfied
Usefulness	9	19.1%	26	55.3%	8	17.0%	3	6.4%	1	2.1%
Value	6	13.3%	6	13.3%	17	37.8%	11	24.4%	5	11.1%

Table 4.9. Q.7. What percentage of material in the course packs did you actually use?

	Frequency	Percentage
<10%	5	12.2
11-25%	3	7.3
26-50%	19	46.3
51-75%	12	29.3
>75%	2	4.9
Total	41

It is hard to tell if the number of packs bought has any bearing on the amount of material used, since the numbers involved are too small to show any reliable trends. (Table 4.10)

Table 4.10. Number of packs bought against amount of material used

Number of packs	Percentage of material used
	Not answered	>10%	11-25%	26-50%	51-75%	>75%	Total
Not answered	1	0	0	1	0	1	3
One	0	3	0	11	4	1	19
Two	0	1	0	1	4	0	6
Three	1	1	3	6	4	0	15
Total	2	5	3	19	12	2	43

Similarly, the lack of an organised second-hand market in books makes it hard to tell if there are any significant trends. Only three people bought packs second-hand and the price they paid is unknown. Of those, only one is planning on selling the packs on again. (Table 4.12)

Table 4.11. Q.8 Do you intend to sell your SCOPE pack to next year's students?

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	10	25.0
No	9	22.5
Don't know	21	52.5
Total	40

Table 4.12. Intention to sell pack against actual second-hand sales

Sell	Second hand
	Yes	No	Total
Yes	1	5	6
No	2	11	13
Don't know	0	21	21
Total	3	37	40

5. SORB Usage

(Unless otherwise stated, tables include only those who indicated that they had used SORB)

Only 12 respondents (8.5% of all respondents) had used SORB (Table 5.1). All bar one had also used SCOPE packs. With such a small sample it is hard to draw any reliable conclusions, even where definite answers are given. For example, only one respondent indicated that they had printed, most said that they 'sometimes' viewed, and one indicated that they had never used any of the individual facilities, which raises the question of what they used the resource bank for. (Table 5.2). It may be that students answered this question in terms of what they had successfully achieved using SORB.

Table 5.1. Q.10 Have you used the SCOPE electronic resource bank? (All respondents)

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	12	9.6
No	113	90.4
Total	125

Table 5.2. Q.11 When you use the resource bank, how often do you:

	Always	Often	Sometimes	Never
View items	0	1	10	1
Print items	0	1	0	11
Use library computers	1	0	5	6
Use computer labs	1	2	5	4
Search the item	0	1	6	4

Those who did use SORB were marginally more likely to be living on campus (Table 5.3), but previous use of the internet did not appear to affect SORB usage. 44% had previously used the internet, and only 12% of those had used SORB (Table 5.4). Focus groups indicated that students would have had more confidence to use SORB had they been in their second year, however, this is not borne out by the result - none of the second year students used SORB. (Table 5.5)

Table 5.3. SORB usage against Accommodation

Campus	Usage
counts %columns	Yes	No	Total
Yes	8	58	66
	67%	51%	53%
No	4	55	59
	33%	49%	47%
Total	12	113	125

Table 5.4. Previous Use of internet against usage of SORB

Previous use	Usage
counts % columns	Yes	No	Total
Never	7	72	79
	58%	67%	66%
Less than once a month	1	15	16
	8%	14%	13%
Once a month	1	3	4
	8%	3%	3%
Once a week	0	8	8
	0%	7%	7%
More than once a week	3	10	13
	25%	9%	11%
Total	12	108	120

Table 5.5. Year of study against SORB usage

Year	Usage
counts % columns	Not Answered	Yes	No	Total
First	14	12	95	121
	88%	100%	84%	86%
Second	2	0	16	18
	12%	0%	14%	13%
Third	0	0	1	1
	0%	0%	1%	1%
Other	0	0	1	1
	0%	0%	1%	1%
Total	16	12	113	141

Most respondents were satisfied with the content of SORB and access to the internet, but dissatisfied with access to computers and the internet (Table 5.6). Indications of satisfaction with print time and assessment of printing problems are of limited use since only one respondent indicated that they had printed. (Tables 5.7, 5.8, 5.9)

Table 5.6. Q.12 How satisfied are you with each aspect of the resource bank?

count %row	Completely satisfied		Fairly satisfied		Uncertain		Fairly dissatisfied		Completely dissatisfied
Usefulness	2	16.7	6	50.0	2	16.7	1	8.3	1	8.3
Range	1	8.3	5	41.7	2	16.7	3	25.0	1	8.3
Layout	2	16.7	6	50.0	1	8.3	3	25.0	0	0.0
Computer Access	0	0.0	3	27.3	3	27.3	2	18.2	3	27.3
Internet Access	1	8.3	5	41.7	2	16.7	1	8.3	3	25.0
Print time	0	0.0	2	33.3	3	50.0	1	16.7	0	0.0
Help	1	8.3	3	25.0	5	41.7	2	16.7	1	8.3

Table 5.7. Q.14 How often do you have problems trying to print the documents?

	Frequency	Percentage
Always	0	0.0
Often	2	18.2
Sometimes	3	27.3
Never	6	54.5
Total	11

Table 5.8. Q.15 If a document failed to print, did you print it out later?

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	1	12.5
No	7	87.5
Total	8

Table 5.9. Q.16 Did the length of the document affect your decision to print it?

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	4	50.0
No	4	50.0
Total	8

Most respondents had used less than 50% of the material in SORB (Table 5.10), and would have preferred to have the materials sold as a pack (Table 5.11). The problems which were raised concerned the computers and access to SORB (Table 5.12). 75% of those using SORB stated that they would have accessed it from off-campus if it had been possible (Table 5.13) The majority of those wanting external access live off-campus (Table 5.14).

Table 5.10. Q.17 What percentage of material in SORB did you use?

	Frequency	Percentage
<10%	3	33.3
11-25%	3	33.3
26-50%	1	11.1
51-75%	2	22.2
>75%	0	0.0
Total	9

Table 5.11. Q.19 Would you rather have had the materials in SORB sold as a pack

	Frequency	Percentage
Yes	6	60.0
No	4	40.0
Total	10

Table 5.12. Q.18 What problems have occurred with SORB

Comment

Lack of computer knowledge

It would never download

Needs access from PCs offsite with password protection

Even with the instructions and a computer knowledge base I found it inaccessible

Table 5.13 SORB usage against desire for external access.

Usage	External Access
counts % columns	Yes	No	Total
Yes	9	3	12
	75%	100%	80%
No	3	0	3
	25%	0%	20%
Total	12	3	15

Table 5.14. Location against desire for external SORB access

Campus	External Access
counts % columns	Yes	No	Total
Yes	5	3	8
	36%	100%	47%
No	9	0	9
	64%	0%	53%
Total	14	3	17

6. Student Spending

i) Packs

50% of all respondents indicated that they would be willing to pay £5-£10 for a course pack. Of those who had actually bought the pack, 57% said they were only willing to pay £5-£10, despite having paid £15 (Table 6.1b). In fact, when comparing results, those who had not used packs (Table 6.1a) were willing to pay more than those who had (Table 6.1b). This reflects the query over the value for money of the pack. 4.3% of those who had not bought a pack indicated that they would be prepared to pay over £20 for a course pack, (Table 6.1b) whilst none of those who had purchased packs were willing to pay over £20 (Table 6.1a). It appears that the perceived value of the packs drops if respondents have used them.

Table 6.1a. Q.9 How much would you be prepared to pay for a course pack?(non-users)

Spend	Frequency	Percentage
Nil	7	10.1
<£5	10	14.5
£5-£10	31	44.9
£10-£15	14	20.3
£15-£20	4	5.8
>£20	3	4.3
Total	69

Table 6.1b. Q.9 How much would you be willing to pay for a course pack (Pack users)

Spend	Frequency	Percentage
Nil	1	2.1
<£5	7	14.9
£5-£10	27	57.4
£10-£15	6	12.8
£15-£20	6	12.8
>£20	0	0.0
Total	47

ii) Overall

Of those who indicated how much they had spent (excluding SCOPE spending), 57% had not spent any money. (Table 6.2)

The most popular method of obtaining reading material remains the main library collection, with 78% of all respondents indicating they had used this method, the least common method was buying second-hand books. (Table 6.3) Spending on reading materials appears to be inversely related to library usage. (Table 6.4)

Table 6.2. Q.21 How much money have you spent on text books for this course (not including SCOPE packs)

	Frequency	Percentage
Nil	70	57.4
£1-10	15	12.3
£10-30	23	18.9
£30-50	8	6.6
£50-100	4	3.3
>£100	2	1.6
Total	122

Table 6.3. Q.20 How are you obtaining reading material for this course?

	Frequency	Percentage
Bought new books	38	29.7
Bought second-hand books	16	12.5
Borrowed from main library collection	100	78.1
Photocopied items from RBR	95	74.2
Borrowed RBR items, did not photocopy	82	64.1
SCOPE materials	34	26.6
Did not do any reading	0	0.0
Other	8	6.2

Table 6.4 Spending against reading sources

Spending	Reading sources
counts %columns	not answered	Bought new books	Bought second-hand books	Borrowed from main library collection	Photocopied items from short loan	Borrowed short loan items, did not photocopy	SCOPE materials	Other	Total
Nil	2	2	2	52	48	47	45	6	70
	67%	6%	13%	57%	54%	62%	136%	86%	57%
£1-10	0	6	2	13	12	8	4	0	15
	0%	17%	13%	14%	13%	11%	12%	0%	12%
£10-30	1	15	10	15	18	14	7	0	23
	33%	43%	63%	16%	20%	18%	21%	0%	19%
£30-50	0	6	1	7	6	3	4	1	8
	0%	17%	6%	8%	7%	4%	12%	14%	7%
£50-100	0	4	0	3	4	3	1	0	4
	0%	11%	0%	3%	4%	4%	3%	0%	3%
>£100	0	2	1	2	1	1	2	0	2
	0%	6%	6%	2%	1%	1%	6%	0%	2%
Total	3	35	16	92	89	76	33	7	122

Those who had used SCOPE materials were more likely to have bought new textbooks (43% as opposed to 17% of non-SCOPE users), and less likely to use the library (Table 6.5)

Table 6.5 SCOPE use against reading sources

SCOPE Use	Reading Sources
counts % rows	Not answered	Bought new books	Bought second-hand books	Borrowed from main library collection	Photocopied items from short loan	Borrowed short loan items, did not photocopy	SCOPE materials	Other	Total
Not used	8	15	10	67	61	56	1	6	87
	9%	17%	11%	77%	70%	64%	1%	7%
Used	5	23	6	33	34	26	33	2	54
	9%	43%	11%	61%	63%	48%	61%	4%
Total	13	38	16	100	95	82	34	8	141
	9%	27%	11%	71%	67%	58%	24%	6%

7. Conclusions

The overall profile of the students was much as expected - mainly full-time, first year. The variables covered appeared to have no significant effect on SCOPE usage. The packs were considered useful, but of dubious value for money. Very few students used SORB, so few meaningful conclusions could be drawn from responses. Spending habits again indicate that those students who buy SCOPE packs are more likely overall to spend money on textbooks.