FIT5125 / FIT4005 Research Methods for IT Semester 2 2024 2

Java Python Faculty of Information Technology

FIT5125 / FIT4005

Research Methods for IT

Semester 2 2024

Assignment 2: Weeks 4 & 5

Assignment Criteria

This assignment relates to the material studied in Weeks 4 and 5.

Week 4 Surveys           Week 5 Interviews

Weighting: 20 marks     Weighting: 20 marks

See page 3.                  See page 4.

This is an individual assessment; it must be your own work and expressed in your own words.

⚐A marking guide is available on Moodle.

⚐ There are specificrequirements for file names on your submission (see the instructions for each task).

Assessment rules:

1. Note that plagiarism detection procedures may be applied to each submission. See the University rules and regulations regarding plagiarism and resulting penalties. Any case of plagiarism detected will mean automatic failure of the entire assignment. Note that even where TurnitIn reports a high similarity score, this may simply be the result of text that is part of the original question or a correctly referenced quotation (such cases are not plagiarism).

2. Late submissions will incur a penalty of 5% per day, see:

https://publicpolicydms.monash.edu/Monash/documents/1935752

3. Submissions should follow the instructions for each task, described under "What to Submit".

4. Monash policy on Special Consideration is available at:

https://www.monash.edu/exams/changes/special-consideration

5. In line with Monash University policy, we aim to mark and return work within 10 working days of submission where possible.

Task A: Week 4

“ Designing a student survey on Generative AI for learning”

Being able to design a survey to assess the beliefs, attitudes and experiences of users of technology is a key research skill that all IT professionals should have an understanding of. Consider the following scenario:

You work for the Teaching and Learning Product Team at eSolutions, Monash University. Your team has

been approached by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) to design an online service to help

academics make decisions about how to incorporate Generative AI services within their teaching and learning activities (i.e. not in their assessments). A pilot study has been proposed in which your team has been given the task of proposing a design for such a service for the Faculty of Information

Technology. Before the team starts developing ideas for the service, your team leader wants to

understand what students' experiences, attitudes and beliefs about the value of Generative AI for

learning are. She has asked you to develop a questionnaire to help do this. All students in the Faculty

of Information Technology will be required to complete you questionnaire. Since the survey will be

completed by students "in class" (under the direction of the academic leading the class) it mustn't be

too long, so as not to disrupt the regular teaching and learning activities. You've therefore been asked

to use Google Forms to implement the survey, using closed questions only, and to make it no longer

than 20 questions. The purpose of the survey is to support the development of the new service, you are therefore not required to seek ethics approval from Monash University HREC, and the form. will be

distributed to all students by email.

What to Submit

1. A PDF document, named "STUDENT-ID-Assigment-2A-survey.pdf", containing a "print" of you questionnaire (using the Google Forms "print" option). 2. A PDF document, named "STUDENT-ID-Assigment-2A-rationale.pdf", containing a link to your survey (on the fist line) and a written description of no more than 500 words of the rationale for the design of your survey. Use the "Add collaborators" function (of Google Forms) to make the form accessible to "Anyone with the link" (your marker will need to be able to access you Google Form).

How Much to Write

Do not use more than 500 words for the written description of the rationale for the design of your questionnaire.

What to Know

If you have any questions about the assignment, you should submit them as a public post to the Ed forum (under the sub- category "Assignments") so that all students have access to the question and CE or admin tutor's response. . This is an individual exercise that forms part of the formal assessment for the unit, you must therefore work alone and follow Monash University’s policies, procedures and regulations relating academic integrity, plagiarism and collusion (see Moodle). . As this is a formal assessment tutors are not allowed support to directly, however, they can provide feedback on any studio activities (during the studio).

Task B (Week 5)

"Planning and conducting a research interview"

This assessment task aims to evaluate your knowledge and skills related to planning and conducting research interviews. Knowing how to conduct a research interview is not only valuable for conducting qualitative research, but for the many interviews in other settings that you will be required to conduct in your career. The ability to plan and conduct a high-quality interview is an important skill that all IT professionals require.

Consider the following extension to the scenario described in Task A:

While your team is developing the design of the online service to help academics make decisions about how to incorporate Generative AI services within their teaching and learning activities, a national news story breaks about how students are using Generative AI to complete their assessments, even where this is explicitly forbidden by the assessment rubric. There is much public debate about whether this is "cheating" or "the new reality of work", and whether academics need to develop new forms of assessment that take account of the fact that Generative AI is a resource that will always be available to students both in their studies and their careers.

The University has decided that the use of Generative AI for completing assessments may be appropriate in some circumstances, and as a result, they want your team to extend your online service to incorporate support for academics seeking to create assessments that both allow and do not allow,  the use of Generative AI. Before your team embarks on designing this extension to the online service   you've been asked to conduct interviews with a representative range of students to understand what their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours are in relation to using Generative AI to complete assignments.

Your task has three parts:

1. You must create an interview schedule for a semi-structured interview with students to explore student attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the use of Generative AI to complete assignments.

2. You must recruit and interview a fellow student (from any unit, program or course with the Faculty of Information Technology). Make sure that you record the interview, that you create an appropriate consent form, and that your interviewee signs the consent form. before you interview them.

3. Manually transcribe the interview. Use a modified form. of verbatim transcription in which you record

everything that you and the interviewee say, except for non-verbal utterances (e.g., "ums and ahs",

coughs, sneezes, etc.). That is, just transcribe the actual words that both you (as interviewer) and your interviewee say