Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law School of Business, Economics and Society Chair of Business and Social Psychology (Prof. Dr. Klaus Moser) How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? Serhat Sahin Submission date: 2023-07-28 Data Collection Methods in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (vhb course, summer term 2023) Examination number: 70172 Lecturer: Dr. Karen Döring Address Jupiterweg 6 90513 Zirndorf Tel. 01522 8391156 Serhattsahin03@gmail.com Degree program: Semester: Matriculation number: International Business Studies 4 22985246 How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 2 Table of contents 1 Derivation of research topic..............................................................................3 2 Method Description...........................................................................................4 3 Interview findings..............................................................................................7 4 Reflection..........................................................................................................8 5 References.......................................................................................................10 How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 3 1 Derivation of research topic The ongoing digitalization that permeates all areas of life has led to fundamental changes in the educational system, in particular in university education: There has been a paradigm shift from traditional in-class teaching to teaching remotely via digital classrooms or self-study. Not merely are some courses transformed in the way they are conducted – i.e. from offline to online – but also the number of comprehensive study programs solely offered online is rapidly increasing. This transition has been accelerated by the emergence of the Coronavirus: the pandemic inevitably lead to the closing of universities, whose only vehicle to maintain teaching was the usage of online classrooms respectively digital platforms. This swift transformation resulted in diverging outcomes for students as far as their university achievements were concerned. Against this background, the interview study will examine the effects of the mode of study on the individual academic performance of a student. The different outcomes of studying conservatively on-campus and studying online will be analyzed. Therefore, two semistructured interviews will be conducted and their results will be compared. The participants will be classified according to their experienced mode of study – i.e. entirely studying remotely in contrast to online. How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 4 2 Method description In the following, the approach of semi-structured interviews will be characterized and the motives for its application will be expounded. The chosen data collection method comprises two semi-structured interviews with two different individuals which are conducted via Skype. The interview processes will be accompanied by a semi-standardized interview guide which consists of open questions without response options. The structure of the interviews is on the one hand due to the given instructions but on the other hand proves to be beneficial for the research question. This is due to the fact that the current state of knowledge in the research area of “digitalization effects on academic performance“ does not suffice to conduct a fully-structured interview with predefined response options. Furthermore, the interviews are administered by the researcher and thus can be described as “computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI)“ (Döring et al., 2022, II-1, chapter 1). By capitalizing on the usage of computers and video-conferencing applications, the willingness of the respondents to participate increases significantly. Thus, participants are not expected to commute to the interview location which is time-consuming and entails opportunity costs. Instead, they simply join the videoconference via Skype from the premises of their choice – provided that they have a computer and a stable internet connection. On a meta-level, the conducted research is a primary analysis as it is not based on previous studies. Given the non-numerical and verbal data from the interviews, the empirical study can be described as a qualitative and exploratory study that aims at determining the differences in the effects of the study modes on academic achievements. Moreover, the study comprises a cross-sectional study, i.e. the data is only captured once since the interviews are not repeated. In contrast to longitudinal studies, the snapshot resulting from the cross-sectional analysis enables the observation of potential differences at the time of interest. Longitudinal studies in the form of repetitive interview sessions might be advisable to analyze the changes over time, but they are not suited given the instructions and time restrictions due to deadlines. As far as the study design is concerned, the chosen method is considered to be a “natural experiment“ as the variation of the independent variable is not feasible (Döring et al., 2022). In this case, the independent variable is the study mode (on-campus vs online) and the dependent variable is the study outcome respectively the academic performance. Evidently, it is not possible to change the independent variable since the student has either been learning on-campus or online. Accordingly, the validity of the causal effect is at least in part forfeited. But as elaborated How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 5 in the following, this loss can be offset by other characteristics of the data collection method. Firstly, the sampling procedure is non-random meaning that the individual probability for the interview participants to be drawn from the population and included in the sample is unknown as they are selected by the researcher. Yet, this proves to be crucial for the analysis. The nonrandom sampling approach entails a direct benefit for the research topic, as it hereby becomes to an extent experimental: Although the independent variable – the study mode of the individual – cannot be changed, the researcher can compare the two participants to infer changes in effect. In order to maximize the internal validity of this experiment, several conditions have to be met: The participants have to vary in their way of studying but be as homogenous as possible as far as any other characteristic is concerned. This desired homogeneity of the biographical background of the two participants is due to confounding variables. For the study to be inherently valid, the research method should aim to minimize the exposure to confounding variables, which could result in a change in academic performance that is not caused by the study mode of the student. Therefore, the two interviewees were selected such that they belong to the same cohort, study the same subject at the same university (student 1 after the Corona pandemic, student 2 during the pandemic), and resemble each other with regard to their sociodemographic factors. In a similar vein, the preferences of students can be very heterogeneous: While some students may favor studying on-campus, others could favor studying remotely. Therefore, the final academic performance may be correlated to the student’s preferences. In order to limit the impact of this confounding variable, the sample size should be increased. Thus, the hampering effects of the confounding variable could be offset – assuming that the preferences follow a normal distribution. Unfortunately, this stands in conflict with the stipulation to only use two respondents respectively interviews. Consequently, the methodological advantages and motives for choosing the interview method will be outlined. To begin, by conducting the interviews via Skype, face-to-face interviews can be accurately emulated, thus enabling the interviewer to observe non-verbal behavior (Döring et al., 2022). Furthermore, the similar construction of the specified interview guides allows the comparison of both interviews. The researcher can directly contrast the interviewees‘ responses and accordingly draw probable conclusions. Since the data collection method is restricted to exactly two interviews with two different individuals, the necessary administrative efforts can be neglected as they are relatively small. In general, semi-structured interviews contain various pragmatical advantages that favor their usage over observations. In contrast to observations, interviewing allows the researcher to comprehend the personal and subjective experiences of the interviewees. Likewise, private information – in particular when it How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 6 comes to past events – can be disclosed. Interviews encourage a so-called “two-way communication“ (Cacciattolo, 2015, p.2) enabling the interviewees to turn to the interviewer in the case of a misunderstanding of the question at hand. In the same way, the interviewer can make specific inquiries if deemed necessary. The research question which discusses the impact of the study mode on academic achievements requires semi-structured interviews as the data collection method inasmuch as subjective impressions are apparently invisible and simply not observable. Only by conversing with the students the outcome of the respective study modes can be purposefully assessed. Additionally, the collected data shows a substantial degree of reliability as interviewees are capable of unequivocally expressing their attitudes and views with regard to the research question as they are in charge of their responses. Nevertheless, the chosen approach encompasses not negligible drawbacks that have to be addressed. Conducting interviews goes hand in hand with the risk of occurring biases. In particular, biases that arise from the interpersonal relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee are affected. For instance, the conversation may lose authenticity due to interviewer bias which describes the extent to which the presence of the interviewer influences the respondents’ answers. Similarly, response bias could affect the respondents’ behavior inasmuch as they are prone to give socially desired answers (Döring et al., 2022). Fortunately, by choosing two participants who stand considerably close to the researcher respectively interviewer, the biases can be reduced: The pre-existing relationship between the interviewer and interviewees prevents simulations on the part of the respondents. This stems from the fact, that the researcher would be able to look through any false pretense considering the fact that both parties have known each other for 20 years. How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 7 3 Interview findings The interviewees differ according to their mode of study: Whereas the on-campus student (student 1) spends the majority of her time at university, the online student (student 2) is seldom attendant at university. This is due to the fact that student one is expected to be present in many mandatory lectures and exercises while student two primarily conducts self-study. In conclusion, student one stated that she benefited from the tutoring offers and the associated supervision but disapproved of the amount of compulsory – yet redundant – sessions. These would negatively impinge on her ability to actively learn and prepare for exams, hence leading to an average grade. In contrast, student two approved of his flexible schedule and the accompanying liberty to plan his days. Likewise, the comfort of not having to commute to university and participate in unproductive lectures respectively exercise sessions was emphasized. Accordingly, the student had sufficient time to revise for his exams which led to aboveaverage grades. The sole mentioned drawback of studying online was a perceived lack of support in some intricate subjects. In comparison, the study mode “online“ led to a more favorable academic performance. Nonetheless, other studies should take other significant aspects such as the ability to cultivate social contacts into consideration before assessing the superior way of studying. How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 8 4 Reflection Consequently, the execution of the semi-structured interviews will be evaluated with regard to encountered complications and associated learnings for future empirical work. As discussed in chapter three, the conducted interviews in general proved to be conducive to determining the effects of the study mode on academic outcomes. However, some methodological and organizational aspects impeded the analysis. To start with, the pre-existing relationships between the interviewer and the participants made it difficult to maintain professionality at all times. Interviewees tended to digress from the conversation to other topics thus undermining the integrity of the interview sessions. To address this issue, further studies should select unfamiliar participants. Similarly, the degree of difficulty in officiating the interviews was underestimated by the researcher. Acting as the interviewer requires a specific skill set such as the ability to maintain the flow of conversation by for instance delving deeper into an expedient train of thought with further questions. In future interviews, the interviewer should undergo training to enhance interviewing skills or – ideally – consult a professional interviewer (Döring et al., 2022). As far as the timing was concerned, both interviews were scheduled back to back with only little leeway in case of delays. This transpired to be a material handicap as it resulted in bias caused by the interview situation, namely time pressure. Hence, the number of questions and inquiries partially overwhelmed the respondents. To remedy this shortcoming, the interview guide could be presented to the participants in advance allowing them to prepare and thus save time during the interview. In addition, a substantial time buffer should be integrated into the interviewing plan to ensure feasibility. When it comes to the interview guide, the similar structure of both guides was intended to enable a swift comparison of both sessions. However, the flexible structure of semi-structured interviews represents a major advantage: By varying the questions and their chronological order, the interview can be adjusted to the interviewee. This is certainly beneficial when conducting personal interviews as people and their experiences can be very heterogenous (Monday, 2020). In the conducted analysis, customizing the guides to the respective respondent would have improved the quality of the research study – because influence factors of on-campus and online students differ not merely in size but also in type. As expounded above, the inopportune arrangement of back-to-back interviews made it impossible to implement an adjustment of the interview guide. How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 9 In summary, the interview could have been conducted in a more efficient respectively proficient manner. Yet, the research process proved to be helpful in gaining valuable practical experience with the data collection method of interviews, since it exposed the researcher to the peculiarities of the chosen approach. How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 10 5 References Cacciattolo, K. (2015). A Comparison of Depth Interviews and Observations as Methods of Data Collection. ResearchGate, 2-6. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 281114348_A_Comparison_of_Depth_Interviews_and_Observations_as_Methods_of_ Data_Collection?channel=doi&linkId=55d6cc5d08aed6a199a4ed0d&showFulltext=true Döring, K., Moser, K. & Sende, C. (2022). Data Collection Methods in the Social and Behavioral Sciences [vhb course]. https://kurse.vhb.org/VHBPORTAL/kursprogramm/kursprogramm.jsp Monday, T. U. (2020). Impacts of Interview as Research Instrument of Data Collection in Social Sciences. Journal of Digital Science, 1(1), 15-24. https://doi.org/10.33847/27128148.1.1_2 How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 11 Declaration of Originality I hereby confirm that I completed the submitted paper "How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? – A critical examination of the effects of studying on-campus vs online" independently and without the unauthorized assistance of third parties and without the use of undisclosed and, in particular, unauthorized aids. This work has not been previously submitted in its current form or in a similar form to any other examination authorities and has not been accepted as part of an examination by any other examination authority. Where the wording or ideas have been taken from other people’s work or ideas, this has been properly acknowledged and referenced. This also applies to drawings, sketches, diagrams, and sources from the Internet. In particular, I am aware that the use of artificial intelligence is forbidden unless its use as an aid has been expressly permitted by the examiner. This applies in particular to chatbots like ChatGPT and such programs in general that can complete the tasks of the examination or parts thereof on my behalf. Any infringements of the above rules constitute fraud or attempted fraud and shall lead to the examination being graded “fail” (“nicht bestanden”). _______________________ Place, date ______________________________ Signature How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 12 Semi-structured interview guide with the on-campus student (1) Introduction Serhat Sahin: “Hello, welcome to our interview. To begin with, the terms and conditions of our interview will be read to you, of which a copy has been sent to you: The computer-assisted personal interview will be held via Skype and will take 20 minutes. Participation will be voluntary and there will be no benefits or penalties in case of participation respectively nonparticipation. The interview will be recorded and the collected data stored until the analysis is completed or at the latest by the expiration period of 12 months. The data will be treated with the utmost confidentiality in accordance with all applicable legislative and regulatory standards. Do you agree?” Serhat Sahin: “Thank you. My name is Serhat Sahin and I will be your interviewer for today. Would you mind introducing yourself with regard to your current academic situation?” Serhat Sahin: “Nice to meet you. How do you feel about the stifling temperatures during your examination phase?“ (Smalltalk) Serhat Sahin: “I see. Speaking of exams, our topic today will be the effect of on-campus studying on one’s academic performance." Interview The following questions will be asked in the given chronological order. 1. “Could you please describe your day-to-day routines at university in further detail?“ 2. “Are you satisfied with the quality and extent of teaching and tutoring the university provides?” 3. “How about the workload? How rigid are the teaching methods and your calendar and how free are you in creating your own timetable?“ 4. “What is your current average grade? What could be the determinants of your grade?“ 5. “If you had the option to take some courses online instead of on-campus, would you consider it? Please explain your motivation.” Conclusion Serhat Sahin: "Interesting, thank you for the many insights into your personal academic situation. Do you have any concluding remarks or questions that you would like to ask me?” Serhat Sahin: “Good bye." How does the mode of study affect a student’s academic performance? 13 Semi-structured interview guide with the online student (2) Introduction Serhat Sahin: “Hello, welcome to our interview. To begin with, the terms and conditions of our interview will be read to you, of which a copy has been sent to you: The computer-assisted personal interview will be held via Skype and will take 20 minutes. Participation will be voluntary and there will be no benefits or penalties in case of participation respectively nonparticipation. The interview will be recorded and the collected data stored until the analysis is completed or at the latest by the expiration period of 12 months. The data will be treated with the utmost confidentiality in accordance with all applicable legislative and regulatory standards. Do you agree?” Serhat Sahin: “Thank you. My name is Serhat Sahin and I will be your interviewer for today. Would you mind introducing yourself with regard to your current academic situation?” Serhat Sahin: “Nice to meet you. How do you feel about the stifling temperatures during your examination phase?“ (Smalltalk) Serhat Sahin: “I see. Speaking of exams, our topic today will be the effect of online studying on one’s academic performance." Interview The following questions will be asked in the given chronological order. 1. “Could you please describe your day-to-day study routines in further detail?“ 2. “Are you satisfied with the quality and extent of teaching and tutoring the university provides?” 3. “How about the workload? How rigid are the teaching methods and your calendar and how free are you in creating your own timetable?“ 4. “What is your current average grade? What could be the determinants of your grade?“ 5. “If you had the option to take some courses on-campus instead of online, would you consider it? Please explain your motivation.” Conclusion Serhat Sahin: "Interesting, thank you for the many insights into your personal academic situation. Do you have any concluding remarks or questions that you would like to ask me?” Serhat Sahin: “Good bye."
