A Comparison of Master’s and Doctoral Students Needs By: Bonnie L. Fong Minglu Wang Krista White Roberta Tipton VALE Assessment Fair Thursday, July 17, 2014

Respondents 232 students filled out Qualtrics survey:  142 Master’s  89 Doctoral 2 VALE Assessment Fair

What are Students Studying? 3 VALE Assessment Fair

Best time(s) to Attend Workshops? 4 Master'sDoctoralMaster'sDoctoralMaster'sDoctoralMaster'sDoctoralMaster'sDoctoral MorningMid-dayAfternoonEveningNone Monday 9.3%28.2%15.3%35.2%17.0%40.9%60.2%33.8%13.6%14.1% Tuesday 10.5%27.4%16.9%31.5%19.4%35.6%59.7%31.5%12.1%13.7% Wednesday 10.6%28.0%15.5%30.7%13.8%34.7%62.6%32.0%11.4%13.3% Thursday 10.2%24.6%14.4%30.8%19.5%38.5%58.5%35.4%14.4%12.3% Friday 12.5%27.4%16.7%37.1%19.8%38.7%50.0%25.8%25.0%22.6% VALE Assessment Fair

Preference for Announcements 5 VALE Assessment Fair

Year in Program? 6 VALE Assessment Fair

Preferred Format for Learning 7 VALE Assessment Fair

Workshops Most Would Attend Master’s students… VALE Assessment Fair 8 TopicSubtopicWorkshop Would attend A. RESEARCH SUPPORT Subtopic 1: Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information) Accessing hard-to-find research material (e.g., using archives, special collections, and government documents) 45.5% Subtopic 2: Data Collection, Analysis and Management, and Digital Humanities Specific Methods and Tools Data analysis software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, R, Nvivo)44.4% Subtopic 3: Thesis Research, Writing, and more! Writing your proposal52.4% Subtopic 4: Scholarly CommunicationOral presentation – best practices40.0% C. GRANTS SUPPORT Grant funding opportunities for graduate students51.2% D. CAREERS SUPPORT Job search strategies58.3% Building your professional network58.3% Looking outside of academia45.0% E. TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT Subtopic 1: Basis Desktop ApplicationMicrosoft Excel41.2%

Workshops Most Would Attend Doctoral students… TopicSubtopicWorkshopWould attend A. RESEARCH SUPPORT Subtopic 1: Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information) Accessing hard-to-find research material (e.g., using archives, special collections, and government documents) 47.0% Citation management tools (e.g., RefWorks, EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley) 45.1% Subtopic 2: Data Collection, Analysis and Management, and Digital Humanities Specific Methods and Tools Data analysis software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, R, Nvivo)60.5% Data management – best practices (e.g., data management plans, organization of data, documentation, preservation) 51.8% Online survey / data collection tools (e.g., Qualtrics, Google Forms, SurveyMonkey) 45.1% Data visualization45.1% Subtopic 3: Thesis Research, Writing, and more! Post-dissertation publishing65.4% Writing your proposal57.8% Considerations when submitting your thesis (e.g., ProQuest, ETD, RUcore, embargo) 52.4% Microsoft Word formatting for thesis & dissertation50.6% Conducting a literature review46.3% Keeping a research notebook40.2% Subtopic 4: Scholarly Communication Publishing tips62.7% Increasing research visibility and impact48.8% Author rights, copyright, Open Access44.6%

Workshops Most Would Attend Doctoral students… VALE Assessment Fair 10 TopicSubtopicWorkshopWould attend C. GRANTS SUPPORT Grant funding opportunities for graduate students66.3% Developing your NSF grant application40.2% D. CAREERS SUPPORT Finding postdoctoral fellowships59.8% Looking outside of academia51.9% Job search strategies47.6% Building your professional network45.0%

Similarities? Master'sDoctoral TopicSubtopicWorkshop Would attend A. RESEARCH SUPPORT Subtopic 1: Information Literacy (Finding, Using, and Managing Information) Accessing hard-to-find research material (e.g., using archives, special collections, and government documents) 45.5%47.0% Subtopic 2: Data Collection, Analysis and Management, and Digital Humanities Specific Methods and Tools Data analysis software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, R, Nvivo)44.4%60.5% Subtopic 3: Thesis Research, Writing, and more! Writing your proposal52.4%57.8% C. GRANTS SUPPORT Grant funding opportunities for graduate students51.2%66.3% D. CAREERS SUPPORT Job search strategies58.3%47.6% Looking outside of academia45.0%51.9% Building your professional network58.3%45.0% VALE Assessment Fair 11

Differences? 12 Qualtrics’ Cross Tabulations with Statistics Test: VALE Assessment Fair

Chi-square is a statistical test commonly used to compare observed data with data we would expect to obtain according to a specific hypothesis. What if we also want to know: For each topic, are Master’s or Doctoral students interested more than the other group? Are the differences statistically significant? Observed Values Expected Values if there is no relationship between types of graduate students and their preferences for this topic (null hypothesis) The possibility that the hull hypothesis is true 13

For many workshop topics on research, teaching, and grant supports, significantly more Doctoral students would attend than Master’s students. VALE Assessment Fair 14

For only a few topics on research and technology that significantly more Master’s students would attend than Doctoral students, especially basic desktop applications. VALE Assessment Fair 16

Conclusion 17 Many differences between Master’s vs. Doctoral students – Different scholarly needs – Different career paths – Consider offering separate workshops for the 2 groups if there’s enough demand Also need to note disciplinary and/or program differences within the 2 groups, which leads to varied needs VALE Assessment Fair

Thank you! Questions? addresses for team of investigators: VALE Assessment Fair Thursday, July 17, 2014