Survey Data in Teaching Project:

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• Survey Data in Teaching Project
• enhancing critical thinking and data numeracy
• Louise Corti and Jon Mulberg
• UK Data Archive, University of Essex

21 June 2004, Cambridge workshop
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Aims and challenges of the the JISC Exchange for
Learning (X4L) Programme

• encourage HE/FE institutions to actively take a
  role in defining the kinds of content that would
  best fit their learning aims
• challenge to demonstrate how UKDA materials can
  be re-used to support learning
• pedagogical outcomes at the heart of the
  programme - focus on learning activities and
  outcomes
• explore sustainability and widespread adoption of
  e-learning materials - by unlocking the potential
  of complementary areas of work

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Meeting the programme objectives

• assemble chunks of content which can be
  identified as learning objects to create new
  learning materials
• make more direct connections between available
  resources and the 16 curriculum and to create
  learning pathways
• document the processes used to re-purpose
  learning materials and to provide case studies
  and exemplars
• test the usability of materials within the
  context of an institutional environment
• submit these learning materials for sharing to
  suitable learning materials repository
• tag/catalogue the learning objects using
  appropriate metadata
• to trial and evaluate their use within the
  community

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Project rationale

• UK academic community has access to a unique and
  expansive range of digital data resources
• whilst individual datasets used extensively in
  academic research they are significantly under
  used in TL programmes within HE, and rarely used
  in Further Education
• UKDA has the potential to offer its resources to
  the TL communities for developing more
  packaged resources BUT needs the advice and
  input from instructors in the classroom on how to
  re-purpose and apply the content
• widely recognised in the UK that the skills
  shortage of quantitative analysts is now critical
  - introducing concepts early on in post-16
  education is one way to redress this shortage

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Survey Data in Teaching a resource for students
and teachers

• UKDA project aimed to increase the use of real
  data sources held within the JISC portfolio of
  HE/FE research, teaching and learning resources
  in the classroom. A grander mission is to
  improve the data literacy of GCE A level and
  university students to
• enable a better understanding of the use of
  social science data as applied to real-life
  problems
• enhance skills in manipulating numerical data in
  textbooks, newspapers or reports
• become critical consumers of this data

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Topics and educational level

• X4L SDiT uses the study of crime in society to
  show how existing data sources can be utilised,
  and as such, this project is relevant to a range
  of social science disciplines, such as sociology,
  politics, psychology and media studies. The
  project is also relevant to citizenship studies.
• Empirical orientations research methods in
  social science
• potential of survey data to answer questions
• survey measurement sampling
• basic data management/basic data analysis
• resource discovery skills
• the resources applicable to A level syllabi but
  are also highly applicable for undergraduate and
  postgraduate learning

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Resources created

• outputs from the project are a variety of free
  teaching and learning resources relating to
  social science and statistics.
• based on learning strategies that encourage the
  teaching of research methods within a substantive
  context
• modules designed to be used as part of standard
  classroom teaching or as additional/self-paced
  learning activities
• Key Skills mapping for A level
• pre-prepared materials can save teachers
  considerable time and effort, and also offer
  ideas of how to utilise data sources in their own
  teaching
• steering committee and advisors from across the
  HE and FE sectors

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Overview of the learning and Teaching materials

• four learning modules on the use of crime data,
  plus an appendix on sampling and statistical
  inference, as well as a glossary of statistical
  terms
• two general guides
• one on the use of the Nesstar online data
  exploration system freely accessible via the UKDA
  site
• resource discovery (data and documentation) at
  the UK Data Archive
• a teaching version of the British Crime Survey
  dataset is also available
• free demonstration version of very simple and
  user-friendly data analysis software, which is
  utilised in the last two of the teaching modules

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Modules overview

• Module 1 Tracking Crime Police Recorded Crime
  Figures, Trends and Reasons for Change
• Module 2 Theories about Crime Public
  Perceptions of Crime Rates
• Module 3 Gathering Evidence How to investigate
  crime statistics
• Module 4 Examining Evidence How to interrogate
  crime statistics
• Module 5 Resource Discovery - Searching for
  evidence sources of crime data
• Module 6 Guide to Using Nesstar

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Teaching and learning modules.

• web-based resources hosted at the UK Data Archive
  web site
• printable and reproducible hard copies (bound
  paper workbook with accompanying CD-ROM, MS Word
  and Adobe PDF)
• MS PowerPoint presentations which can be used to
  provide slides or handouts
• a teachers guide to accompany the resources
• providing an exemplar/model of how such resources
  could be applied to other topics e.g. health,
  race etc

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Module 1 Tracking Crime Police Recorded Crime
Figures, Trends and Reasons for Change

• Looks at the trend in recorded crime. It charts
  the trend in crime for each of the last three
  political administrations, and concludes with an
  exercise linking policy decisions with possible
  explanations for changes in crime levels.
• Skills covered
• line graph reading
• interpretation of trends
• internet usage
• group discussion
• problem analysis and evaluation

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Module 2 Theories about Crime Public
perceptions of crime rates

• Considers an alternative method of measuring
  crime to the previous module, looking at the
  British Crime Survey, and comparing the two
  measures of crime levels. It then shifts emphasis
  to look at perceptions of crime trends, and
  examines different theories as to why the public
  perception of crime levels may not match the
  actual risk of victimisation.
• Skills covered
• comprehension of basic measurement guidelines
• trend comparison
• more complex graphical analysis (stacked bar
  charts, time indices, paired bar charts)
• understanding of theoretical concepts and
  evaluation of evidence
• understanding of simple statistical concepts
• also an appendix to Module 2 for government
  students which looks at UK party policy on crime

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Module 3 Gathering Evidence How to investigate
crime statistics

• Concerned with the concepts of
  operationalisation and validity, and with basic
  descriptive statistics. It shows how to use
  Nesstar to find out information about the British
  Crime Survey, to constructively criticise the
  validity of data used in reports, and to use the
  simple computer program to generate descriptive
  statistics, frequency tables and graphs.
• Skills covered
• understanding of concepts of operationalisation
  and validity
• understanding of content and usage of metadata
• use of internet to explore metadata
• understanding of basic descriptive statistics and
  frequency tables
• use of computer program to generate descriptive
  statistics, graphs and univariate tables

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Module 4 Examining Evidence How to interrogate
crime statistics

• A skills-based module concerned with explaining
  the analysis of associations between two
  variables.
• Skills covered
• understanding of concepts of association and
  independence
• use of computer program for recoding data
• use of computer program for construction of 2-way
  table
• analysis of 2-way tables
• There is a separate appendix to Module 4 which
  looks at statistical significance, and shows how
  to use NSDstat to investigate this.
• In addition, there are two general guides to
  finding and investigating data and documentation
  on the UK Data Archive site.

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Module 5 - Searching for evidence sources of
crime data

• Shows how to search the UK Data Archive web site
  to find out which studies have been conducted on
  any given topic
• Skills covered
• resource discovery on the web
• finding surveys at the UKDA
• exploring the Social Science Information Gateway
  (SOSIG)

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Module 6 - Browsing and analysing evidence a
guide to using Nesstar

• Shows how to use the online interactive Nesstar
  web site to obtain information about studies,
  such as data collection details, related
  publications and even the questionnaire itself.
  The guide also shows how to use the site to
  establish which variables are in a dataset, and
  to produce tables and graphs from the data.
• Skills covered
• accessing and browsing data using Nesstar
• familiarity with the British Crime Survey dataset
  
• producing tables and graphs online

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Check it out

• x4l_at_essex.ac.uk
• web site x4l.data-archive.ac.uk
• We welcome your feedback and suggestions and
  ideas on utilising data in your teaching.

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TODAY

• Work through exercises hour or so
• Feedback via a guided focus group
• Feedback form for chance to individual comments