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SCOPE Project Report on end-of-semester student questionnaire:
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I. Introduction
The questionnaire was prepared to provide quantitative information on the impact of SCOPE resources on the 47JF Child Welfare Policy and Practice course at Stirling University. A copy of the questionnaire is appended to this report.
Material was made available online to Students throughout the course. Printouts could be made from computer lab 4Y2, and later in the semester from the library. Printing was free, although students had to supply their own paper. Some course material was made available in the library, but was not added to stock early enough to be ready for the start of the course. The lecturer concerned expected students to use the resource bank, and provided lab time for this purpose.
II. Methodology
50 students were authorised to use the resource bank. Questionnaires were distributed via Royal Mail in the second week of January, with pre-paid envelops for replying. 25 were returned: a response rate of 50%.
III. Findings
1. Background Questions
Of the twenty five students who responded, only one was part-time (Table 1.1); 60% lived off campus (Table 1.2); 60% were in their third year (Table 1.3), (the rest being 'other', which is likely to be fourth year, or postgraduate); only one student had problems getting a password for computer access (Table 1.4); there is a fairly even spread of previous internet usage: 40% have used it once a week or more, 30% have used it once a month or less, and 20% have never used the internet prior to starting the course (Table 1.5).
Table 1.1 Q.1a Are you a full time or part time student?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Full-time | 24 | 96.0 |
| Part-time | 1 | 4.0 |
| Total | 25 |
Table 1.2 Q.1b Do you live on campus?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Yes | 10 | 40.0 |
| No | 15 | 60.0 |
| Total | 25 |
Table 1.3 Q.1c What year are you in?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| First | 0 | 0.0 |
| Second | 0 | 0.0 |
| Third | 15 | 60.0 |
| Other | 10 | 40.0 |
| Total | 25 |
Table 1.4 Q.1d Did you experience any problems obtaining your password for computer access?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Yes | 1 | 4.3 |
| No | 22 | 95.7 |
| Total | 23 |
Table 1.5 Q.1e How often had you used the internet prior to starting this course?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Never | 5 | 20.0 |
| Less than once a month | 7 | 28.0 |
| Once a month | 3 | 12.0 |
| Once a week | 6 | 24.0 |
| More than once a week | 4 | 16.0 |
| Total | 25 |
2. SCOPE Usage
92% of students had used the resource bank (Table 2.1) This is to be expected given the requirements of the course. Of the students who had used the resource bank, and answered Question 3, all had either viewed or printed documents (Table 2.2). Two of those viewing had not printed, and two of those printing had not used the resource bank to view materials. (Table 2.3) The computer lab was used slightly more than the library computer on a 18:13 ratio (Table 2.2), which is unsurprising since the library computer was not available at the start of the semester, and students could use the lab during tutorial sessions. The sample is not large enough to do any meaningful comparisons between those who used SCOPe and those who did not.
Table 2.1 Q.2 Have you used the resource bank?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Yes | 23 | 92 |
| No | 2 | 8 |
| Total | 25 |
Table 2.2 Q.3 When you use the resource bank, how often do you:
| Always | Often | Sometimes | Never | Total | count | % | count | % | count | % | count | % | count | View materials | 1 | 4.5 | 8 | 36.4 | 11 | 50.0 | 2 | 9.1 | 22 | Print materials | 3 | 13.6 | 6 | 27.3 | 11 | 50.0 | 2 | 9.1 | 22 | Use library | 5 | 22.7 | 3 | 13.6 | 5 | 22.7 | 9 | 40.9 | 22 | Use 4Y2 | 8 | 36.4 | 5 | 22.7 | 5 | 22.7 | 4 | 18.2 | 22 | Search text | 3 | 14.3 | 2 | 9.5 | 13 | 61.9 | 3 | 14.3 | 21 |
Table 2.3 Viewing against printing
| View Materials | Print materials | |||||
| counts % columns |
Not answered | Always | Often | Sometimes | Never | Total | Not answered | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 12% | Always | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0% | 33% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 4% | Often | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 0% | 33% | 50% | 18% | 100% | 32% | Sometimes | 0 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 11 | 0% | 0% | 50% | 73% | 0% | 44% | Never | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0% | 33% | 0% | 9% | 0% | 8% | Total | 3 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 2 | 25 |
65% of students stated that they would access the resource bank
from computers outside the university (Table 2.4). These students
were split evenly between living on and off campus (Table 2.5).
This raises the question of where, apart from the university,
students living on-campus have access to networked computers -
possibly at weekends. It may be that they have answered from the
point of view that they think off-campus access would be useful,
rather than whether they personally would use it.
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Yes | 15 | 65.2 |
| No | 8 | 34.8 |
| Total | 23 |
Table 2.5 Location against external use
| Location | External access | |||
| counts %columns |
Not answered | Yes | No | Total |
| On campus | 0 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 0% | 47% | 38% | 40% | Off campus | 2 | 8 | 5 | 15 | 100% | 53% | 62% | 60% | Total | 2 | 15 | 8 | 25 |
The length of the document only affected the decision to print for 35% of students (Table 2.6). This percentage might be expected to rise in a situation where students were paying directly for printing; or to fall if printing was free and all paper supplied.
Table 2.6 Q.5 Did the length of the document affect your decision to print it?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Yes | 8 | 34.8 |
| No | 12 | 52.2 |
| N/A | 3 | 13.0 |
| Total | 23 |
Problems frequently arose during printing (Table 2.7), but 25% of students never bothered having the database reset to enable them to attempt a successful printout (Table 2.8). This also has cost implications for the library, since they will have been charged for all printouts which were registered as successful. When asked to comment on problems, (summarised in Table 2.9), 58% were associated with printing, and 23% with the availability of material on the system.
Table 2.7 Q.6 How often do you have problems trying to print documents?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Always | 5 | 21.7 |
| Often | 10 | 43.5 |
| Sometimes | 5 | 21.7 |
| Never | 3 | 13.0 |
| Total | 23 |
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Always | 6 | 31.6 |
| Often | 2 | 10.5 |
| Sometimes | 6 | 31.6 |
| Never | 5 | 26.3 |
| Total | 19 |
| Category | No. Comments |
| Unspecified print problems | 2 |
| Failure to print | 6 |
| Computer crashed | 2 |
| Partial printing | 4 |
| Time taken to print | 1 |
| User authorisation problems | 3 |
| Computer memory | 1 |
| Material mounted late | 7 |
| Staff help | 3 |
| No complaints | 2 |
| not answered | 19 |
| Total | 50 |
Table 2.10 Q.8 Please outline the problems you have had using the resource bank.
| Documents, when called up. do not always print out |
| 1) Stated that I had previously printed it when I hadn't 2) Crashing before I could access a text 3) Only printing first page of text |
| Length of time involved in getting materials actually on to system Length of time involved in printing |
| It crashed often when I tried to print because others were on in different areas |
| Failure to print the whole document (usually printed first page only - then saying that I'd printed the whole thing - therefore not able to print again) When it did print I had to print the whole bulletin board first - a waste of paper and time |
| Just printing problems at start of term |
| Didn't have any problems |
| I was unable to print on my initial attempts, my attempts were unauthorised by the system. Also sometimes the initial screen where you type in your name etc. would go black or red, the boxes were there for you to type into but you had to have used it successfully before to know which order to type your name and registration number. |
| It was quite frustrating coming up to exam time (Dec 97) as material was needed to study from and a great number of problems were faced when it came to printing! |
| Said that I had printed the document when I hadn't and also, another time it only printed the first page and then wouldn't allow me to print the rest of it |
| Assistant in Library knew very little when asked for help |
| Refusing to print, only printing front page Having to wait for important documents to be added to resource bank |
| Was not set up early enough in the course so could not access many documents |
| Not ready on time |
| Couldn't get document printed, and couldn't find anyone to help with it |
| none |
| I could not print any of the material. I tried to find out how to get this problem rectified, without success!! |
| Couldn't get one of my articles to print, otherwise fairly user friendly |
| Main problem was that the material supposedly available on SCOPE (essential for coursework) was not available until a ridiculously late date which rendered it an almost useless resource bank. It was especially annoying as some of these materials could not be accessed through any other medium - detrimental to evaluation |
| At first it wouldn't print - in fact for ages it was not accessible. Eventually - after asking for it to be reset it worked - with 2 days to go to the exam |
Most students used a relatively small amount of material from the resource bank (Table 2.11), this may be to do with material being made available late on in the course
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| <10% | 2 | 9.1 |
| 11-25% | 7 | 31.8 |
| 26-50% | 9 | 40.9 |
| 51-75% | 4 | 18.2 |
| >75% | 0 | 0.0 |
| Total | 22 |
Considering the level of complaints, the resource bank seems to have been fairly well received (Table 2.12). Overall, students expressed most satisfaction with the layout of the text (91%), followed by access to computers and the usefulness of the material in the resource bank (73%).
Actual access to the resource bank also rated quite highly at 59%. Just over half the students (55%) who responded were happy with the range of material (this probably reflects the delay in mounting some of the materials). Only 45% were happy with the level of help and support they received (this would include that received from their lecturer during tutorials). Support was only available in the computer labs between 9am and 5pm, and in the library from 9am to 7pm, so there was little support in the evenings and none at weekends.
A significant minority of students were dissatisfied with the technical and support aspects of the resource bank. Time taken to print caused the most dissatisfaction, at 41%; followed by access to the resource bank and computer support at 32%, although 23% were uncertain of their satisfaction with support.
Table 2.12 Q.10 Satisfaction with service
| Completely satisfied | Fairly satisfied | Uncertain | Fairly dissatisfied | Completely dissatisfied | Total | count | % | count | % | count | % | count | % | count | % | count | Usefulness of material | 2 | 9.1 | 14 | 63.6 | 3 | 13.6 | 2 | 9.1 | 1 | 4.5 | 22 | Range of material | 2 | 9.1 | 10 | 45.5 | 6 | 27.3 | 2 | 9.1 | 2 | 9.1 | 22 | Layout of text | 9 | 40.9 | 11 | 50.0 | 0 | 0.0 | 2 | 9.1 | 0 | 0.0 | 22 | Computer access | 7 | 31.8 | 9 | 40.9 | 1 | 4.5 | 5 | 22.7 | 0 | 0.0 | 22 | SORB access | 5 | 22.7 | 8 | 36.4 | 2 | 9.1 | 6 | 27.3 | 1 | 4.5 | 22 | Printing Time | 4 | 18.2 | 7 | 31.8 | 2 | 9.1 | 6 | 27.3 | 3 | 13.6 | 22 | Support | 2 | 9.1 | 8 | 36.4 | 5 | 22.7 | 4 | 18.2 | 3 | 13.6 | 22 | Total | 31 | 67 | 19 | 27 | 10 |
64% of respondents stated that they would rather have had the materials available as a pack. This response is unsurprising given the delay in mounting materials, and the inadequate backup provided by the library at the start of the course.
Table 2.13 Q.11 Would you rather have had the materials in the Resource Bank sold as a pack?
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Yes | 16 | 64.0 |
| No | 9 | 36.0 |
| Total | 25 |
24% of students stated that they had bought new books (Table 2.14) although 40% indicated how much they had spent on reading (Table 2.15) which may include the 'other' option of obtaining reading. Of those who did not use the resource bank, one did not buy any books either.
| Frequency | Percentage | |
| Bought new books | 6 | 24.0 |
| Bought second-hand books | 0 | 0.0 |
| Borrowed from main library collection | 25 | 100.0 |
| Photocopied items from RBR | 20 | 80.0 |
| Borrowed RBR items, did not photocopy | 15 | 60.0 |
| SCOPE materials | 21 | 84.0 |
| Did not do any reading | 0 | 0.0 |
| Other | 4 | 16.0 |
| Spending | Frequency | Percentage |
| Nil | 15 | 60.0 |
| £1-10 | 3 | 12.0 |
| £10-30 | 5 | 20.0 |
| £30-50 | 0 | 0.0 |
| £50-100 | 0 | 0.0 |
| >£100 | 2 | 8.0 |
| Total | 25 |
Table 2.16 Resource bank usage against book spend
| Usage | Spending | ||||
| Counts %columns |
Nil | £1-10 | £10-30 | >£100 | Total | Yes | 14 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 23 |
| 93% | 100% | 80% | 100% | 92% | |
| No | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 7% | 0% | 20% | 0% | 8% | |
| Total | 15 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 25 |
3. Conclusion
Due to the way SCOPE use was integrated into the course, the overall profile of the students appear to have very little effect on SCOPE usage. The profile of students is fairly homogenous, with the only variations occurring in whether they stay on campus, and in previous internet use. These factors do not appear to have influenced their behaviour.
SCOPE was generally viewed positively, although there were obviously problems with the printing system which need to be resolved, and material was not made available early enough in the course.