We are beginning data collection today for our study of how students become interested in computer science (our beginning of a project website is at https://picsul.utk.edu/). I’ve blogged about the project two times before:
- Thoughts from submitting a grant proposal for the first time
- New project on understanding the development of interest in computer science
One idea we have brought to the project is that we want to share as much as we possibly (ethically and based upon the Institutional Review Board applicaiton for the project) can.
A tenet of this commitment is sharing not only products, but also resources related to our process, e.g. the National Science Foundation grant proposal is available as a pre-print.
In that spirit, here are links to the pre- and post-survey items and our experience sampling method (ESM) survey items and our study plan (these are in the same document). We are also working on and releasing the tool we are creating, Short Message Survey, as open-source software.
Pre- and post-survey items
Pre- and post-survey items Word document: surveys.docx
Experience sampling method (ESM) survey and study plan
Experience sampling method (ESM) survey and study plan Word document: research-plan.docx
Short Message Survey tool for carrying out ESM
hort Message Survey tool for carrying out ESM GitHub repository: http://www.shortmessagesurvey.com/
fin
I don’t love linking to Word documents; sharing these as plain-text files (perhaps through an Open Science Framework repository, where changes to them can be tracked) would probably be better.
But, perhaps a part of sharing about the process of research is that it is messy (or, at least more messy than sharing the product); if these are interesting or relevant to others in some way - or if others, including those who are not researchers can see what we are up to - then sharing documents in a less-than-ideal way may still satisfy most of its purpose.