COSTOS DE INVERSIÓN DE LOS PLANES INDICATIVOS

Students’ responses are seen as a filter which categorizes the lectures based on students’

perception on their comprehensibility. Figures 3.4 and 3.5 below illustrate this process.

Figure 3.4 Student Questionnaire as Selection Criterion

Figure 3.5 Categorization of Lectures

This categorization depends on students’ responses to the questionnaire statements as described in Section 3.2.3. Through this categorization, based on the comprehension values, it was possible to form a continuum on which to place all the lectures. The differences between the comprehension values were not particularly large. However, at the ends of the continuum the differences were notable. This continuum is depicted in Table 3.3 below.

Table 3.3 Lecture Continuum Based on Comprehension Values

Table 3.3 shows how lectures are categorized into challenging and accessible. The pivoting point was located through the use of mode in averages of the lecture comprehension values.

In this continuum there are, actually, four modes, 3.38, 3.49, 3.50, and 3.76. Since the range of the averages is fairly small and the mathematical center point of the possible range was 2.5 (range 1 – 4), the first mode was selected as the cut-off point for challenging/accessible lectures. Furthermore, the assumption was that the ends of the scale would provide the most differing information, which further encouraged selecting this pivoting point.

Lecture Number

3.2.4 Transcription

The continuum presented in Table 3.3 was further used to select three challenging and three accessible lectures for a more thorough investigation in order to gain a deeper understanding of the present case (see Figure 3.6). There were several issues which needed to be considered regarding this selection. The first one was the quality of the recording. As the recordings were not performed in the same space, the quality of the recordings varied notably, depending on the classroom or lecture hall.

Another issue was the audience. In some lectures there were very few students present while others had more students in them. In order to have as much feedback as possible from students, only those lectures with nine or more students present were considered for transcription. Since the ends of the continuum showed the most difference in their comprehension values, those lectures as close to the ends of the continuum were the main targets for transcription. The transcription conventions were adapted from the ELFA Corpus¹⁵ (see Appendix 2).

Some of the lectures were no actual lectures at all. In some the lecturer acted as a chairperson while the students gave presentations on various topics related to the course (e.g. lecture 20). In other cases, the lectures were actually workshops where students were asked to work in small groups to solve problems or find information on certain issues.

These types of lectures were excluded from transcription in order to keep the transcriptions comparable and the investigated embedded units of the case study as similar as possible (see Section 3.1).

The most important factor influencing the original selection was, however, based on the case study approach. It was already discussed in Section 3.1 how the case study selection is not performed randomly. The selection can involve key cases, outlier cases, or local

15 http://www.helsinki.fi/englanti/elfa/elfacorpus.html#link

knowledge cases (see Flyvbjerg, 2011). In the present study, the embedded units (i.e. the lectures) within the case study were treated as separate cases in the selection process. To select those units which would provide most information when compared to each other meant finding the outlier cases. After finding the outlier cases, they were included as two of the embedded units. Therefore, starting from the very ends of the continuum (Table 3.3), the qualifications of the lectures (the number of students, voice quality, and lecture type) were evaluated and what are called the outlier units (lectures CL02 and AL21) which could be transcribed were located. In addition to these outliers, four other lectures (CL05, CL19, AL17, and AL15) were also transcribed and selected for further investigation to obtain a more rounded description of the case (i.e. the Master’s Program) as a whole as well as to see whether the use of interactional features in these lectures varied.

3.3 Implementation

The implementation of this case study was completed in phases. The main data collection, as mentioned above, occurred during the academic year 2005-2006 while the student questionnaires were processed during the summer of 2006. Transcriptions were completed during the academic year 2006-2007. Supplemental work, such as the Paper Engineer Questionnaire, was conducted during the early part of 2006 while the comparison of students’ grades in EMI vs. Finnish Program was completed during the summer of 2007.

3.3.1 Phases

In order to follow the case study strategy of obtaining information through multiple sources, acquisition of a larger picture on this Program was necessary. In an exploratory study, phases help in bringing forward a deeper understanding of, in this situation, the case we are investigating. The image below (Figure 3.6) illustrates how the multiple points of view on the case gradually form a holistic, deeper understanding of the case.

Figure 3.6 Phases of an Exploratory Study (Routio, 2007)

Preliminary understanding is seen to cover what was known of the Master’s Program prior to the actual case study investigation. We knew internationalization was one of the driving forces in implementing this Master’s Program and it still is one of the chief goals set by the university (see Chapter 1). This Program materialized the university’s goals and expectations.

Viewpoint A is based on a survey conducted by the student organization (Pynnönen, 2005) through which information on students’ view on the international Master’s Program was obtained. As Table 3.1 on propositions of the present study indicates, students’ expectations regarding the Program were not overwhelmingly positive (see Section 1.3).

Viewpoint B includes the survey conducted specifically to gain knowledge on the working life aspect. A survey among the members of the Finnish Paper Engineers’ Association was conducted and it will be discussed in detail in Section 4.1. As illustrated in Figure 3.2, information collected through this questionnaire was used for triangulation to obtain a more comprehensive picture of students’ situation.

Viewpoint C refers to my own view on the international Master’s Program based on the literature reviewed on lectures and lecture comprehension (see also Sections 2.1.2 and 2.3.1). An attempt to investigate student comprehension through their performance in the earlier (2001-2002) Master’s Program in Finnish compared with their performance in the

latter (2006-2007) EMI Master’s Program was made. This comparison and its results are discussed in more detail in Section 8.1. It was clear that lectures needed to be studied in detail in order to locate differences and similarities in their features and to be able to complete the task of evaluating lecturers’ English. At this point, obtaining students’

feedback on the lectures was determined necessary.

Viewpoint D, therefore, is the lectures within the present case study. The data collected in these lectures, both from the students through questionnaire and through video-taped lectures and their transcriptions increased the understanding of this Master’s Program in a comprehensible way. At this phase, it was evident that something in the examined lectures was influencing student perception of them as their comprehension values were different.

After thoroughly investigating the outlier unit lecture (CL02 and AL21) transcripts, the lack of (CL02) and presence (AL21) of, firstly questions and, consequently, also other interactional features became apparent. Thus, based on this finding, the focus of the more detailed examination was directed to interactional features.

The final phase, deeper understanding, was gained through the synthesis formed through analyzing the gathered data, as well as through structuring and writing this report on the present study. When the preliminary understanding and the deeper understanding were compared, it became evident that all the phases in this study were essential for a holistic understanding of this complex case.