I can’t believe I’m already halfway done with working at PAST this summer! It’s such a bittersweet realization.  It’s exciting to see all the work and new things to be learned in the future.  But, it’s also sad to see it come to an end so soon (since it has felt like time has flown past!). This week was different from the others.  I was home this week spending more time with family, but I was able to still snag a few hours in.  

For the past couple weeks, we’ve been working on analyzing data from 4 different middle schools regarding programming taking place at each of them.  This was quite difficult at the beginning because some students either didn’t take the pre-survey or didn’t take the post-survey OR put in a random code.  When they put in a random code, it renders their response useless because we are unable to tell which surveys belong together.  So, that was one hurdle we had to get through.  After that, we were only left with a handful of responses to analyze (this was mentioned in my last post, so check that out if you’re interested in how we analyzed it!). Once the data is analyzed, we have to draft a report and create a narrative.  This is what I spent my time at home working on.  Reporting on such little data is super difficult.  Small sample sizes means every part of your analysis must be taken with a grain of salt.  So, finding an area of significance was hard.  Luckily, there were some parts of the survey that did change quite a bit from the pre-survey counterparts! This is what I focused on.  I also made sure to mention the simple fact that the data did not change much.  This is always a tough spot to realize.  Sometimes the results don’t speak as you wish it would.  But my supervisor spoke great words of wisdom I would like to leave you all with:

“Sometimes the data isn’t always positive, and that is OK.  We just approach it with the understanding that we are always looking to improve, not only as program implementers and facilitators, but researchers as well!” – Kayla Galloway

See you all next week and happy 4th!

Danyelle Bumpus