User Study 3: Synthesis Model of Students
We conducted contextual inquiries and survey investigations with students from maker space course in Winchester Thurston, and generated some insights from affinity diagram.
For the survey questions, we are combining both closed questions and open questions to get both quantitative data and qualitative data from the students. For the structure of the survey, we started with questions about their general experiences of documentation and their motivations for taking this course.We also asked them about the current tools that they use to document for the course and for themselves. In addition, we examined the students’ openness to better ways of documentation and a class-wide guideline to documentation.
Our insights also come from those aspects. We found out that students were enjoying the class dynamic, and that they were not reluctant to doing documentation, they just lacked a more organized and permanent way to collect and reflect on their work afterwards.
In terms of workflow, our instructor needs an organized way of naming the files, preferably automatic. Students like to contact him and get timely feedback, that’s one of the problems that we locate, too. We also noticed that students might not see the value of good documentation because of WT’s current showcasing settings, that students will only be showcasing their work at the end of the semester, which will be graduation for the students. Students did not realize the importance of documentation along this process, that’s why they did not treat it like a big deal.
