Questionnaires that inform educational practice: The case of CAD teaching at higher educational level.

Let’s consider that CAD teaching is comprised of the following four different processes:

– Training which is concerned with the acquisition of specific skills.

– Instruction which is concerned with the retention of information

– Initiation which is concerned with the acquisition of social skills

– Induction which is at the core of the educational process and is concerned with the deep structures of knowledge

The category of initiation is excluded, because CAD courses have a dominant focus on the professional development and offer little in the area of social development. For each category and having in mind that any research must have a clear purpose, we tried to exemplify a typical questionnaire.

Questionnaire informing the TRAINING process

Type of questionnaire: anonymous, in situ in a group given on the completion of the course.

Research purpose: Identify the variables (curriculum, environment, duration of the course etc) which maximize the acquired skills in relation to the professional demands.

Drawing on your experience in 2D-CAD course answer the following questions. Do you think that the duration of the course was sufficient for your CAD training? No. I needed more time  Yes. It was sufficient                                     Bearing in mind that working with computers is sometimes tedious, which time-schedule do you consider more efficient? Once a week for 3 hours      Twice a week for 1 1/2 hour    Other………………………………. Do you think that the acquired skills were the appropriate for your academic development or professional career?   Yes No                                                                                                          How would you characterize yourself after the completion of the course? Beginner user Medium user Advanced user                                                                                                             What else do you think it should be included in the course curriculum in order to become a more competent user?

Comments:

-The questionnaire contains mostly closed-ended questions as the focus is on the learning outcomes. However, a few open-ended questions must be included, since the exclusivity of closed-ended questions conceals problems that are not in the perception of the researcher.

-The questionnaire can be given on the completion of the semester so that the students answer using their experience. Unfortunately, any expected improvements can be applied only in the next course.

-The questionnaire inquires the student’s opinion. But with regard to professional development maybe the most appropriate people to answer are the professionals themselves.

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Questionnaire informing the INSTRUCTION process

Type of questionnaire: anonymous, in situ in a group given at the start and the end of the course.

Research purpose: Identify the most effective educational material in relation to the command knowledge.

Do you believe that you will need (or needed) supplementary material, for your studies? Yes No

Which, of the following supplementary materials you found useful and which useless Video tutorials             A printed Handbook Printed Summary notes Online forums, e-books etc Other………………………

Do, you have any comments, in relation to the material? ……………………………………………………

Comments:

-The questionnaire should contain a combination of closed-ended and open-ended questions.

-The questionnaire can be given at the start of the semester investigating the general preferences of the students. A similar questionnaire can be given at the end of the course investigating the student’s opinion after the use of the materials.

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Questionnaire informing the INDUCTION process

Type of questionnaire: anonymous, administered individually, given in the middle of the course.

Research purpose: Explore if the use of hand sketching can stimulate the creativity and imagination in digital drawing.

When you are using a digital representation method, like CAD, do you represent your ideas directly to the computer, or they precede other procedures, like hand sketching, mental representation etc. Please give details on how you convey the design ideas from your mind to the computer. ………………………………………………………………………………………

Do you find any differences or similarities between hand drawing and digital drawing? Feel free to assess whatever you find interesting (the drawing process, the aesthetic result etc)………………………………………………………………………………

Comments:

-The questionnaire must be given individually so that the students will have the time to complete it thoroughly.

-The questionnaire should contain mostly open-ended questions in order to focus on the learning procedure and on the deeper structures of knowledge.

-The analysis of the answer need reflection rather that statistical methods.

From the above, I would conclude that questionnaires can inform Cad teaching in several aspects (training, instruction, induction) providing the practitioner with both quantitative and qualitative sorts of evidence. But although it seems easy to conduct such a research, however the design of the questionnaire needs meticulous consideration on a variety of issues, such us the type of the questions, the characteristics of the respondents, the size of the sample, the research purposes, the period to be administered etc.  Additionally, the analysis of the answers is a thorny task that either requires knowledge of statistical methods either requires time-consuming reflection. In all cases, small scale researches, limited within the classroom are accused to produce inconclusive and contestable findings.

Without doubt, questionnaires give voice to students and the opportunity to judge the learning process drawing on their own experience, imagination, preferences etc. But how reliable and objective are the findings that derive from the evaluation of the respondents or the analysis of this evaluation? In this point, test scores seem more trustworthy in the sense that the teacher-assessor evaluates the performance of the students and not the students themselves. There is also skepticism on whether multifaceted concepts can be expressed verbally thought a questionnaire even when the questions are open-ended. In this point, field notes seem more flexible. Also, the fact that the presuppositions of the teacher inevitably interfere both in the design of the questionnaire and in the interpretations of the answers, makes the validity of the evidences even more uncertain