A Comparison of Master’s and Doctoral Students Needs By: Bonnie L. Fong Minglu Wang Krista White Roberta Tipton VALE Assessment Fair Thursday, July 17,

A Comparison of Master’s and Doctoral Students Needs

By:

Bonnie L. Fong Minglu Wang

Krista White Roberta Tipton VALE Assessment Fair Thursday, July 17, 2014

Respondents

• 232 students filled out Qualtrics survey: 142 Master’s 89 Doctoral

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What are Students Studying?

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Best time(s) to Attend Workshops?

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Master's Doctoral Master's Doctoral Master's Doctoral Master's Doctoral Master's DoctoralMorning Mid-day Afternoon Evening None

Monday 9.3% 28.2% 15.3% 35.2% 17.0% 40.9% 60.2% 33.8% 13.6% 14.1%

Tuesday 10.5% 27.4% 16.9% 31.5% 19.4% 35.6% 59.7% 31.5% 12.1% 13.7%

Wednesday 10.6% 28.0% 15.5% 30.7% 13.8% 34.7% 62.6% 32.0% 11.4% 13.3%

Thursday 10.2% 24.6% 14.4% 30.8% 19.5% 38.5% 58.5% 35.4% 14.4% 12.3%

Friday 12.5% 27.4% 16.7% 37.1% 19.8% 38.7% 50.0% 25.8% 25.0% 22.6%

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Preference for Announcements

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Year in Program?

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Preferred Format for Learning

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Workshops Most Would Attend• Master’s students…

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Topic Subtopic Workshop Would attend

A. RESEARCH SUPPORT

Subtopic 1: Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information)

Accessing hard-to-find research material (e.g., using archives, special collections, and government documents)

45.5%

Subtopic 2: Data Collection, Analysis and Management, and Digital Humanities Specific Methods and Tools

Data analysis software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, R, Nvivo) 44.4%

Subtopic 3: Thesis Research, Writing, and more! Writing your proposal 52.4%

Subtopic 4: Scholarly Communication Oral presentation – best practices 40.0%

C. GRANTS SUPPORT Grant funding opportunities for graduate students 51.2%

D. CAREERS SUPPORT

Job search strategies 58.3%Building your professional network 58.3%Looking outside of academia 45.0%

E. TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT Subtopic 1: Basis Desktop Application Microsoft Excel 41.2%

Workshops Most Would Attend• Doctoral students…

Topic Subtopic Workshop Would attend

A. RESEARCH SUPPORT

Subtopic 1: Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information)

Accessing hard-to-find research material (e.g., using archives, special collections, and government documents)

47.0%

Citation management tools (e.g., RefWorks, EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley) 45.1%

Subtopic 2: Data Collection, Analysis and Management, and Digital Humanities Specific Methods and Tools

Data analysis software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, R, Nvivo) 60.5%Data management – best practices (e.g., data management plans, organization of data, documentation, preservation)

51.8%

Online survey / data collection tools (e.g., Qualtrics, Google Forms, SurveyMonkey) 45.1%

Data visualization 45.1%

Subtopic 3: Thesis Research, Writing, and more!

Post-dissertation publishing 65.4%Writing your proposal 57.8%Considerations when submitting your thesis (e.g., ProQuest, ETD, RUcore, embargo) 52.4%

Microsoft Word formatting for thesis & dissertation 50.6%Conducting a literature review 46.3%Keeping a research notebook 40.2%

Subtopic 4: Scholarly CommunicationPublishing tips 62.7%Increasing research visibility and impact 48.8%Author rights, copyright, Open Access 44.6%

Workshops Most Would Attend• Doctoral students…

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Topic Subtopic Workshop Would attend

C. GRANTS SUPPORT Grant funding opportunities for graduate students 66.3%Developing your NSF grant application 40.2%

D. CAREERS SUPPORT

Finding postdoctoral fellowships 59.8%Looking outside of academia 51.9%Job search strategies 47.6%Building your professional network 45.0%

Similarities?

Master's Doctoral

Topic Subtopic Workshop Would attend

Would attend

A. RESEARCH SUPPORT

Subtopic 1: Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information)

Accessing hard-to-find research material (e.g., using archives, special collections, and government documents)

45.5% 47.0%

Subtopic 2: Data Collection, Analysis and Management, and Digital Humanities Specific Methods and Tools

Data analysis software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, R, Nvivo) 44.4% 60.5%

Subtopic 3: Thesis Research, Writing, and more! Writing your proposal 52.4% 57.8%

C. GRANTS SUPPORT Grant funding opportunities for graduate students 51.2% 66.3%

D. CAREERS SUPPORT

Job search strategies 58.3% 47.6%Looking outside of academia 45.0% 51.9%Building your professional network 58.3% 45.0%

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Differences?

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• Qualtrics’ Cross Tabulations with Statistics Test:

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• Chi-square is a statistical test commonly used to compare observed data with data we would expect to obtain according to a specific hypothesis.

What if we also want to know: For each topic, are Master’s or Doctoral students interested more than the other group? Are the differences statistically significant?

Master's Doctoral TotalWould Attend 21 13 34Might Attend 45 41 86Would Not Attend 58 28 86Total 124 82 206

TopicsGraduate Students Types

Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information) - Current Awareness

Tips

Master's Doctoral TotalWould Attend 20.46601942 20.46601942 34Might Attend 51.76699029 34.23300971 86Would Not Attend 51.76699029 34.23300971 86Total 124 82 206

TopicsGraduate Students Types

Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information) - Current Awareness

Tips

Observed Values

Expected Values if there is no relationship between types of graduate students and their preferences for this topic (null hypothesis)

Chi Square 4.14Degree of Freedom 2p-value 0.13

The possibility that the hull hypothesis is true 13

Number of Studnts Would Attend (Percentage)Master's Doctoral

Designing research assignments 32 (26.02%) 26 (30.95%)

Grant funding opportunities for graduate students

62 (51.24%) 55 (64.71%)

Developing your NSF grant application 34 (28.10%) 33 (39.29%)Finding postdoctoral fellowships 36 (30.25%) 49 (58.33%)

Teaching Support

Grant Support

Significantly More Doctoral Students Would Attend Following Workshops than Master's Students (Teaching & Grant Support)

Topics

For many workshop topics on research, teaching, and grant supports, significantly more Doctoral students would attend than Master’s students.

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Number of Studnts Would Attend (Percentage)

Master's Doctoral

Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing

Information)

Citation management tools (e.g., RefWorks, EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley)

33 (26.83%) 37 (44.05%)

Data management – best practices (e.g., data management plans, organization of data, documentation, preservation)

47 (37.90%) 43 (50.59%)

Data analysis software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, R, Nvivo)

55 (44.35%) 49 (59.04%)

Online survey / data collection tools (e.g., Qualtrics, Google Forms, SurveyMonkey)

35 (28.46%) 37 (44.05%)

Introduction to GIS mapping for humanities research

23 (18.85%) 24 (28.92%)

Considerations when submitting your thesis (e.g., ProQuest, ETD, RUcore, embargo)

46 (36.80%) 43 (51.19%)

Post-dissertation publishing 42 (33.87%) 53 (63.86%)Navigating the IRB Process 30 (24.56%) 33 (39.76%)Author rights, copyright, Open Access 34 (27.42%) 37 (43.53)Publishing tips 36 (28.80%) 52 (61.18%)Networking with citations and discipline-specific social networks

33 (27.05%) 32 (38.10%)

Promotion of research via ResearcherID, 25 (20.00%) 25 (29.76%)Increasing research visibility and impact 34 (27.20%) 40 (47.62%)

Data Collection, Analysis and Management, and Digital

Humanities Specific Methods and Tools

Thesis, Research, Writing, and more

Scholarly Communication

Significantly More Doctoral Students Would Attend Following Workshops than Master's Students (Research Support)

Topics

Research Support

Master's Doctoral

Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information)

Patents 18 (14.75%) 9 (11.11%)

Microsoft Access 42 (35.29%) 16 (19.05%)Microsoft Excel 49 (41.18%) 14 (16.67%)Microsoft PowerPoint 40 (33.90%) 11 (13.25%)Microsoft Word 29 (24.37%) 6 (7.32%)

Technology

Basic Desktop Applications

Significantly More Master's Students Would Attend Following Workshops than Doctoral Students

TopicsNumber of Studnts Would Attend (Percentage)

Research Support

For only a few topics on research and technology that significantly more Master’s students would attend than Doctoral students, especially basic desktop applications.

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Conclusion

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• Many differences between Master’s vs. Doctoral students– Different scholarly needs– Different career paths– Consider offering separate workshops for the 2

groups if there’s enough demand

• Also need to note disciplinary and/or program differences within the 2 groups, which leads to varied needs

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Thank you!

Questions?

E-mail addresses for team of investigators:[email protected] [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected]

VALE Assessment Fair Thursday, July 17, 2014