What you have done?

The surveys went through several modifications.

The student lead on the sustainability committee quit right before the Hackathon,  but he made arrangements for anohther student to send out surveys.  I had FedEx print out 700+ slips of paper reminding students to take the surveys.  These will be stuffed into the Swag Bags.

What do you need to do?

Help with stuffing Swag Bags,  to make sure the survey reminders are included.  Otherwise I will have 700 unnecessary slips of paper (see above).

How and why you have adjusted your Project Plan?

I have added a few extra opportunities for survey taking:  physical paper,  reminders to website organizers,  reminder to the email and newsletter organizer, and asking at the meeting if announcements could be made indicating that surveys are available.

Update: As I interviewed or spoke with participants during the Hackathon, I reminded them to take the surveys.

Update:  Exit Surveys didn’t go out until Thursday Oct. 31,  and we have a low response rate (<100 for Exit Survey,  144 for Entry Survey).

Update:  

As of Wednesday, November 7,  the count have improved, but are not at last year’s levels. Reasons may be the timing of survey distribution,  names of the surveys,  not enough advertising of their existence, or other factors.  The numbers aren’t terrible,  but I had hoped for dramatically better results.

Reflection

I presented my preliminary report to Julia yesterday, Tuesday November 6.  I thought the presentation went well except for a question about last year’s data that I could not answer (we both looked up the answer from the 2017 report).  We had agreed that this presentation was preliminary ,  because as I did last year,  preferences and desired insights will continue to emerge. We both felt that my performance last year combined with what I had completed this week was sufficient to determine the level of my success in this Practicum project at that time.   All documents will be completed by November 20 as stated in the MOU, and will be distributed to Julia’s team as she sees fit. An additional section that I will include came out of this meeting – it will be comparison of the 2 year’s data on Mentorship and Sponsorship engagement.  Others will be coding of least favorite and favorite parts of the Hackathon;  general comments; what participants would change about the event if they were organizers and a summary of literature,  especially the Warner & Guo study about why participants do not want to attend hackathons.   My involvement with OHI/O will continue – I consider this a fluid project – since Julia has asked me to begin helping with Robozoo Makeathon and maybe other outreach events.  I am looking forward to being more involved as a volunteer,  not  with the professional “detached engagement” that I felt had to exist as an evaluator.