Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
3.1
Student Research Habits
In order to understand the respondents' research habits, three specific statements were
proposed, and the respondents' agreement or disagreement was recorded. These
statements were as follows:
•
“I enjoy doing research”;
•
“I am required to write research papers for my classes”; and
•
“I generally feel prepared to conduct the required research.”
Table 1.
Research habits of students
I enjoy doing research
Strongly
Agree
Neither Agree
Nor Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
Declined to
State
Agree
Disagree
51%, n=229
38.1%, n=171
7.1%, n=32
2.2%,n=10
1.3%, n=6
0.2%, n=1
I am required to write research papers for my classes
Strongly
Agree
Neither Agree
Nor Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
Declined to
State
Agree
Disagree
35.9%, n=161
38.8%, n=174
11.4%, n=51
6%, n=27
5.8%,n=26
2.2%,n=10
I generally feel prepared to conduct the required research
Strongly
Agree
Neither Agree
Nor Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
Declined to
State
Agree
Disagree
18.7%, n=84
41.6%, n=187
26.1%, n=117
10%, n=45
2%, n=9
1.6%, n=7
As revealed in Table 1, the majority of the respondents stated that they enjoyed
doing research (combined “agree strongly” and “agree” responses totaled 89.1%), and
that they had to write a research paper for their courses (74.7%). Almost 60% of the
respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I generally feel prepared to
conduct the required research”, while 26.1% of respondents were neutral, and 12%
disagreed or strongly disagreed. Skipped or declined questions could also be
interpreted as disagreement. When this statement was analyzed by academic level, a
statistically significant inverse relationship was observed between “feeling prepared
to conduct the research” and the academic level of respondents (chi-square= 60,135,
degrees of freedom: 3, p≤ 0.001). Figure 2 shows that postgraduate respondents
reported the highest level of agreement (“agree” and “agree strongly” responses) with
this statement (56%), while undergraduate respondents reported the highest level of
disagreement (“disagree” and “disagree strongly” responses) (90.7%). Taken together,
survey data show that the majority of students surveyed are engaged in course-related
research and enjoy it. However, as expected, postgraduates feel more prepared to
conduct this research than undergraduates do.
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