8. Research Methods
8.4 AN Survey Part II: The PowerPoint Presentation
This second part of my survey was designed around a 14 slide PowerPoint presentation explaining Applied Nonsense teaching theory in full. The PowerPoint presentation slides are available for viewing in Appendix 3. The presentation discussed how and why I developed the theory, explained my thoughts on how it facilitates learning in the classroom environment, and also gave a few examples of AN theory. In short, the PowerPoint was a brief summary of my thesis topic.
For the lukio students at Mattlidens and for the student teachers at University of Helsinki, I was able to present the PowerPoint in a 10 minute lecture format. For those students and teachers who participated in my study from the United States, I emailed them a more comprehensive PowerPoint presentation to be read individually. The
downside to not being present for the PowerPoint presentation to these respondents from abroad was that they were not able to ask me direct questions or clear up any confusions about the teaching theory. I realized however that the understanding of AN was left to the respondent’s own interpretation anyhow, whether I was present or absent during the PowerPoint; their understanding and responses in the survey would reflect their
comprehension of the topic. My goal was to present AN theory as simply and comprehensively as possible so that the respondents’ responses in the survey would reflect their genuine feeling about the theory.
After the PowerPoint presentation was either heard or read through, the students and teachers were then provided with a link to my online survey. Survey Part II was
designed in Google Forms and was available only online. The survey was set up to take respondents to a series of questions that were best applicable for their answers; there were several questions in the survey which would redirect the respondents to another
series of questions. There were several main questions that sent respondents on different question paths. As a result, the respondents answered a different number of questions based on their answers. I will further explain my reasoning for each of these redirecting questions and the directed line of questioning that followed these questions.
The first question that was critical for interpreting the data results was whether the respondent was filling in the survey from the perspective of a student or teacher.
8.4.1 AN Survey Part II: Student Survey Design
When the respondent filled in the student checkbox, the students’ line of questioning lead to a series of questions which asked both their gender identity and age, whether they understood the AN theory based on the PowerPoint presentation, that is, was the presentation of AN teaching theory understandable and clear to them. It was important to know if they felt they understood the teaching theory to gage whether they were able to express their accurate feelings about the teaching method.
Furthermore, my line of questions tried to pinpoint how much exposure and experience the students had in their education as a whole with AN; whether or not they had
experienced this teaching method in practice at any point in their education, how often they experienced this theory in practice, and then at what levels of their education they experienced this teaching method. And then finally, I developed questions to gauge whether or not they felt the teaching method would or does help them learn, as well as whether or not they would be open to their teachers using the teaching method with more frequency in the future.
I hypothesized that most of the students would answer that they felt they have had at least one teacher throughout their educational experience who had implemented the AN techniques in the classroom. However, I created a line of questioning for those students who felt they had never been exposed to AN in the classroom environment. This line of questioning also asked similar questions about whether they would be open to the method being used and whether they thought based on the PowerPoint presentation that the method might be helpful for their learning.
8.4.2 Teacher Survey Design
For those individuals who filled the survey from the perspective of a teacher, I felt it was important to ask these same questions that I had asked the student respondents about their education and experiences with AN when they were students; the teachers were asked to answer these same questions about their time as students.
I then developed a separate line of questions for the teachers to probe whether or not their experiences with AN in their own education or lack there-of, affected their attitude and use of AN as part of their personal teaching philosophy. I then went on to ask whether they felt they used AN as part of their teacher tool kit, how often they thought they implemented the method, whether or not they felt they used the method
spontaneously, and/or then whether they did a considerable amount of planning before they used the method. Even though AN as a term was new to the teachers, I felt that because it is a teaching method that has been used in a nameless way for many decades, that most of the teachers would identify with the techniques I proposed as encompassing AN. For those teachers who felt they didn’t use the method or had never experienced this type of teaching philosophy, I asked them to explain why they didn’t use it and then probed to find if my PowerPoint presentation introduced them to these teaching
techniques, and whether they would be willing to use this method of teaching in the future, now that it had been introduced to them.
The final question in the survey presented to the teachers asked whether or not they felt the PowerPoint presentation and the two part survey process influenced their ideas about using "Applied Nonsense"; that is, did the presentation and survey influence them in a positive way? I felt this question was significant because it would give me some idea if I had been able to explain and express the teaching method comprehensively as well as give me some idea then if the majority of teachers agree or disagree with AN as being a useful tool for helping students learn.
Most of the questions asked in the second part of this survey were multiple choice, but several of these questions additionally asked for open ended answers so the students and teachers could better explain what they meant by their answers. For example when asking students and teachers if they felt AN was a teaching method that would help them learn, they were given six choices for answers ranging from “absolutely” to
“neutral” to “no, this method would irritate or distract me”. The second part of this question then asked them to further explain their answer in an open-ended format where they could type a detailed explanation. I felt it was important to try to understand any nuances in the respondent’s answers, which is why I designed these telling questions in this manner. I hypothesized that most of the teachers would have been exposed to AN in some manner throughout some period of their education. I also felt there would likely be some correlation between their own use of the teaching techniques and their experiences with AN in their own education.