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Arqueille
Joined: 08 Feb 2014
Posts: 17
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 Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:57 pm Post subject: |
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| rtm wrote: |
| Arqueille wrote: |
| Looking past the light-hearted tone, option A marks the ideal situation for many teachers, no young children. B marks the next best thing, almost no young children. |
There seem to be some assumptions being made here that may be quite inaccurate. I'm not sure why you would assume that the ideal situation would be to not work with children. I've had some very good experiences working with children, and quite enjoy it. I know many people who seek out jobs teaching children because that is what they enjoy and what their skillset targets. |
I know many such people as well, and I'm one of them. I've also known some teachers who felt like they were duped into teaching much younger students than they were told they'd be working with. If it's not a big factor in novice attrition, the data will reflect that. A couple of years ago, lots of the Korean job ads featured the claim "NO KINDIES!" rather prominently, so I don't think I'm the first person to wonder about this. |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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Your survey seems to pin quite a lot on a bait-and-switch by employers. This would be far more prevalent in parts of the world where teachers are hired from abroad, without a chance to see the school, students, and other teachers in advance.
In Europe, this is very rare - almost all hiring in Western and Central Europe takes place in person - as does that of ESL teachers in Anglophone countries.
Nor is most teaching in this part of the world with children.
The survey wouldn't be generalizable worldwide; recommend you specify more clearly what areas it's aimed at. |
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HLJHLJ
Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 1218
Location: Ecuador
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| Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Arqueille wrote: |
The first draft of the survey had 20 questions, and this was what the IRB approved after numerous revisions. To comply with Survey Monkey's format (I waited for IRB approval before putting the survey online), three of the questions had to be broken up into separate questions. Since changing the number in the Request for Participants could possibly have resulted in resubmitting the whole package to an IRB that had already approved it, causing a further delay I was keen to avoid, I let the number 20 stand. Mea culpa.! |
IRB exists for a reason. Making changes to procedure after approval and not bothering to resubmit is shockingly bad practice and a serious breach of ethical protocol. It may seem like a trivial change to you, but that's not your decision to make.
| Arqueille wrote: |
| A marks the ideal situation for many teachers, no young children. B marks the next best thing, almost no young children. C is children, but they're a delight to work with. D is children, but no better or worse than what you'd find in a classroom back home. E, terrible kids, is the furthest one would get from the "no kids" ideal. What looks like a nominal scale is actually an interval scale and can be measured as such. |
Aside from the very biased assumptions behind the question, this is an ordinal scale not an interval scale. The points on your scale can be ranked, but you cannot measure the degrees of difference between them.
I hope you aren't planning to analayse it with parametric tests. |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013
Posts: 2006
Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Arqueille wrote: |
| The top three reasons I've seen people quit over are not the top three reasons I'm seeing in the survey results, and (assuming the rest of the respondents bear this out) my final paper will reflect this. |
Having just completed your survey, it appears that the top three reasons for attrition that you were anticipating (as implied by your line of questioning) are (1) can't handle working with kids, (2) can't freely practice one's religion, and (3) can't freely practice one's drinking habits/party lifestyle. Either that, or I'm just not seeing the connection between what otherwise appears to be a random set of questions. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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| esl_prof wrote: |
| Having just completed your survey, it appears that the top three reasons for attrition that you were anticipating (as implied by your line of questioning) are (1) can't handle working with kids, (2) can't freely practice one's religion, and (3) can't freely practice one's drinking habits/party lifestyle. Either that, or I'm just not seeing the connection between what otherwise appears to be a random set of questions. |
Ditto that. I didn't complete the survey because it lacks focus, is missing key assessment items, and makes assumptions about the profession and the respondent. Plus, I agree with Spiral about the intended audience for this survey. Perhaps the OP should have designed it to target only those teachers (new and seasoned) who voluntarily or involuntarily left their first EFL/ESL jobs before completing their employment contract. |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013
Posts: 2006
Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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| Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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| nomad soul wrote: |
| Ditto that. I didn't complete the survey because it lacks focus, is missing key assessment items, and makes assumptions about the profession and the respondent. Plus, I agree with Spiral about the intended audience for this survey. Perhaps the OP should have designed it to target only those teachers (new and seasoned) who voluntarily or involuntarily left their first EFL/ESL jobs before completing their employment contract. |
Not having read the OPs research proposal or lit review, we certainly don't have the whole story behind this study and, quite possibly, we're misinterpreting what he's trying to do on the basis of our lack of information. That being said, there seem to be enough red flags in the questionnaire and the OPs informal explanation of the study on this forum to make one wonder how valid the results will be. In all fairness, this appears to be a class project--not something that will actually be published or used in writing a thesis--so, hopefully, our input will help the OP refine his research questions and method before pursing more high stakes research in the future. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:54 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Not having read the OPs research proposal or lit review, we certainly don't have the whole story behind this study and, quite possibly, we're misinterpreting what he's trying to do on the basis of our lack of information. That being said, there seem to be enough red flags in the questionnaire and the OPs informal explanation of the study on this forum to make one wonder how valid the results will be. In all fairness, this appears to be a class project--not something that will actually be published or used in writing a thesis--so, hopefully, our input will help the OP refine his research questions and method before pursing more high stakes research in the future. |
Sure, however, respondents should never feel confused nor compelled to make assumptions or interpretations when answering personal survey items. There's a high chance they'll either choose not to respond to the survey, skip questions, guess, or hit any answer---all which don't bode well for the person collecting the data and expecting to base all or part of his/her graduate project on it. Given the posted discussions and feedback on the OP's survey, it wasn't a slam dunk.
Whether designing a course, lesson, test items, survey, product, or whatever, consideration of the target audience/population must always be front and center during the design process. Even SurveyMonkey stresses this critical element in, "The Importance of Creating a Survey with Your Target Audience In Mind" (https://www.surveymonkey.com/blog/en/blog/2012/11/05/advice-from-surveymonkey-audience-create-your-survey-project-with-your-target-audience-in-mind/). Additionally, surveys should always be proofed for errors, validity and reliability, and bias as well as tested by several savvy reviewers before going "live." Some food for thought for the OP if he/she plans to go this route again for future graduate-level projects. |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013
Posts: 2006
Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent points, Nomad! Indeed, one wonders how the OP's faculty mentor allowed him to get this far with such a poorly conceived project. I do hope, however, that he takes our feedback in the spirit it was intended--constructive criticism--and is able to learn something of use for future projects or, for that matter, even making mid-course corrections, if possible, to this one. |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's highly likely that the OP will do what many others have done before him when the input on a thread isn't to their liking; pick up his toys and leave the field without comment. Hopefully not, in this case! But this is a fairly common response. |
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