Project temporarily stalled

Following on my successful presentation at the NAS international conference "Research into action"

(details available by clicking here)

I had hoped to be getting on with editing the final segment of video for the experiment itself. Unfortunately I am still mired in copyright problems somewhat complicated by the circumstances of the ownership of the video.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2001/aug/26/bbc.business

In the meantime enjoy this little example from the not so distant past which illustrates how not to make an educational video :)

Revised methodology

I have considered some revisions to my methodology in order to ensure that distant participants (including non UK residents) can be included.

There have been problems selecting suitable material, both from a pragmatic base of what might be appropriate and what may be legally possible without infringing copyrights. It seems some organisations are very strict about modifying the material, which is necessary due to length.

It would also not be pragmatic to present material online, because of the copyright issues and because I not everyone has equal access to good broadband services and computer equipment that would allow multiple windowing. It has been in all too impractical for me to either obtain or design a programme that would allow the collection of data this way

Therefore the material will be available to two of the experimental groups in the form of a DVD. The questions themselves will be available via web access.

This will have the advantage of being able to compare the responses of the groups who have continual access to the material, in order to review and revise it, and those who are presented with the material in a classroom setting.

I am still in the progress of writing up a full explanation of the methodology and am pleased to report it has been accepted for a poster presentation at the Disability Studies Association conference at Lancaster University later this year.

I will also be presenting another paper at this conference which examines my role as a researcher and the way in which medical science in general has been constrained by it's own definitions in terms of what it researches so far as autism is concerned. It is hoped that I will be able to find an open access publisher for this paper which forms part of the background to my research.

Second Report

This is the second feed back report of my doctoral research looking at the effectiveness of video as an educational tool for people on the autistic spectrum.

The study involves adults on the autistic spectrum and a control group who are not on the autistic spectrum. Participants will respond to a questionnaire about their video-watching and buying habits, view one or more educational videos (or parts of videos) about autism or related subjects and answer questions about them. For a more complete introduction to the study please refer to my earlier blog:

http://autvideo.blogspot.com/2007/12/introduction-to-my-research.html

So far I have had 95 replies to the questionnaire - good going but I need more so if you have not replied to this yet please do so: http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/bham/autvideo

For those of you who have, and who have volunteered, thank you. I will be in touch. One of the problems is finding a way to involve those who cannot travel to Birmingham or Coventry to take part. This has exercised my mind as well as my conscience and I am currently working on a way to facilitate participation online by watching my prepared video material and then answering the questions on it. Hopefully that will be possible, in the meantime please be patient.

I have not yet finished preparing the video material I intend to use in the experimental part of my research, however it is in progress, and I am delaying anything further until the publication of the NAS communication magazine which will give others who do not yet know about this project, the opportunity to participate.

First Report

This is the first feed back report of my doctoral research looking at the effectiveness of video as an educational tool for people on the autistic spectrum.

The study involves adults on the autistic spectrum and a control group who are not on the autistic spectrum. Participants will respond to a questionnaire about their video-watching and buying habits, view one or more educational videos (or parts of videos) about autism or related subjects and answer questions about them. For a more complete introduction to the study please refer to my earlier blog:

http://autvideo.blogspot.com/2007/12/introduction-to-my-research.html

The URL for the Questionnaire is here .

http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/bham/autvideo

The on line questionnaire was launched on 20^th January and in the first day has had over fifty respondents. This has revealed a couple of snags with the questionnaire which future respondents may wish to take note of.

Question 13: about occupation does not allow more than one answer, so that if someone is both working and a parent with caring responsibilities they cannot tick both boxes. The purpose of the question was to get a rough guide to respondents economic status and the inability to give multiple answers so this is an oversight I apologise for.

If you are both working and a parent there is opportunity to signify that you are a parent in the final open question 20: if you wish to.

I have also had responses that the reference in question 3: “in the last year” is ambiguous. This refers to the time period of 1 year’s duration, not the calendar year that has just begun. This is consistent with the same usage in the previous question that refers to specific time periods of question 2.

It is inevitable that problems of respondent’s interpretations occur in any questionnaires which I have issues of the same kind myself with the Cambridge AQ and EQ questionnaires which were developed and tested to give a standardised measure, yet there is still subjectivity in the responses that can be made.

However that does not invalidate their use in this study or others for the purposes of comparison.