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Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Institutional Research and Analysis Lecture
Earlier in the year, I attended a lecture by the people who work on the institutional research and analysis at Carnegie Mellon. They gather statistical data about the university, students, faculty, programs, etc., analyze it, and the university uses it to make improvements. Most of their data comes from surveys, which is why they repeatedly emphasized how important it is for students to participate in surveys provided by CMU. Most people do not take those surveys, because they believe that their input goes into a black whole, and they think that it is a waste of time. However, that is not the case. First of all, the questions were carefully created to get the most specific results possible. And after the data is collected, it is thoroughly analyzed, conclusions are drawn, and improvements are made accordingly.
During the lecture, they explained how survey questions are created. It is not a simple process, because you do not get to simply talk to people, and all you get back is a rank or other type of short answer that later must be interpreted. Generated questions go through rigorous testing before a survey is conducted.
They also showed some data collected over the past few years about students' opinions of the university, classes, professors, and themselves. Then they explained how they interpret the results and draw conclusions. For each set of data, students were grouped based on appropriate characteristics. For example, if the survey was about schoolwork and classes, the students were grouped by their school. If it was about assessment of personal growth, the groups were divided by grade level.
I do not remember all the details of the presentation, but all the data can be found at https://www.cmu.edu/ira/index.html
During the lecture, they explained how survey questions are created. It is not a simple process, because you do not get to simply talk to people, and all you get back is a rank or other type of short answer that later must be interpreted. Generated questions go through rigorous testing before a survey is conducted.
They also showed some data collected over the past few years about students' opinions of the university, classes, professors, and themselves. Then they explained how they interpret the results and draw conclusions. For each set of data, students were grouped based on appropriate characteristics. For example, if the survey was about schoolwork and classes, the students were grouped by their school. If it was about assessment of personal growth, the groups were divided by grade level.
I do not remember all the details of the presentation, but all the data can be found at https://www.cmu.edu/ira/index.html
Wonder Boys
Whenever reading a book, I imagine the characters in my head, but that image does not always correspond with the author's description. Throughout the book, had trouble seeing Grady Tripp as an overweight man in his 50's, and Emily being Korean. Although I did not watch the movie, I saw a preview, and the actors did not match Chabon's descriptions, either. Tripp is not as fat as he is in the book, Hannah Green is not blonde, and James Leer does not have long oily hair. However, those are just minor irrelevant things. It seems like the actors captured the characters' personalities perfectly.
Also, the movie is more of a comedy than I thought the book was. Yes, Chabon uses humor throughout, but I found it to be more of a depressing story, filled with adultery, murder, depression, drugs, etc. Netflix, however, says that it is a "feel-good" movie, and Rolling Stone calls it a "comic dazzler." I do not know, maybe this preview is misleading , but if it is not, I feel that the movie does not reflect the mood of the story.
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