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.

Introduction to my research

This Blog is intended to introduce and keep people up to date about the progress of my doctoral research into the effectiveness of video as an educational tool for autistic people.

The current qualifications I hold which are relevant to this task are a CertHE in Autistic Spectrum Disorders and a PGCert Autism Adults from the University of Birmingham School of Education and an HND in Media (moving image).

I have also assisted with and produced two autism videos/DVD's myself.

My other personal involvements with autism include being a trustee and councillor of the National Autistic Society and a participant in various on and off line groups of autistic people

My research is based with the Autism Centre for Education and Research at the University of Birmingham and my supervisor is Dr Mitzi Waltz.

My research will involve an extensive literature review within the fields of education and media/film studies combining the two areas of my interest and expertise in an innovative way.

The methodology will involve two groups of autistic people, and one control group of non autistic people, who will be watching specific videos, answering questions and being involved in specific tasks.

In addition there will be research of a more qualitative nature utilising focus groups and more general interviews, looking also at the perspectives of the industry and markets for education videos in autism and the current use of video in education.

Research subjects will be drawn from as wide a demographic base as possible and the innovation I intend to introduce, for those research subjects who are interested is the ability to comment. critique and inform the work in progress via a separate electronic mailing list which I have set up for this purpose.

I believe this research is of some importance and relevance, when one considers the amount of video material that is being produced, the presumed power of media in our lives and the lack of a research base into how autistic cognitive styles affect the perception of and ability to learn from the moving image.

Laurence Arnold FRSA