data sample

Let's see, I'm supposed to share what I was trying to do and then share some data to see if I'm analyzing it correctly; here goes.
The focus of my t.i.p. was to see if the concept of authentic learning actually carries any merit: specifically, if publishing work for an audience offers a greater learning experience than simply handing in an assignment to the teacher who is usually the only person who ever reads the work. All of this is based on the concept that authentic experiences are intrinsically motivating because students can make the connection between the work they are doing and the real world, unlike traditional school assignments. If this is true, the assumption is that the final product will be better when the students want to do the work rather than doing the work because the teacher told them to. However, before looking at how intrinsic motivation effects the quality of work, I decided I had better confirm that authentic learning, in this case, publishing for an audience, would actually increase intrinsic motivation.
Within my qualitative data, I found that prior to beginning their wiki assignments, which the students were told was not being graded (and therefore did not have an extrinsic motivator), 60% of students said they enjoyed writing assignments. Because I asked them if they enjoyed writing assignments rather than just writing, I've assumed that there original answers are based on the effects of extrinsic motivations (grades, teacher & parent approval, etc). After working on their wiki projects however, this number rose to 68%. I therefore concluded that using wikis, which provided the students with an authentic learning experience was more enjoyable and therefore more motivating than traditional writing assignments and activities. In addition, many of the studies on motivation I read about concluded that the absence of extrinsic motivational factors would increase the likelihood of intrinsic motivation. Therefore, I believe that the 8% increase is a result of two things; writing for audience and writing because they where encouraged to instead of being told they must.

thinking out loud...missed opportunities

Now that I've collected all the data I can before I begin putting together my presentation and writing my paper, I've had several off the record chats with colleagues who are interested in my t.i.p. I've found these lunch time discussions really helpful because as I'm explaining what I did and what I was hoping or expecting to find, I start thinking about all the things that I could have done different or will do differently for the presentations.
For example, so far it looks like wikis aren't a great motivator since over 57% don't want to use wikis in the future.
I'm also trying to figure out the best way to share some of my data. My qualitative questions offered a range of possible answers for each question from "strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree." I'm not sure what I was hoping to learn from this range of possible answers but when displayed in a graph, it becomes a confusing mess of pre and post "agreeable-type" answers. So instead, in my infinite wisdom, I've decided to condense my data into pre and post "agree" - full stop. Since I'm working in percents it seems to me this is the easiest way for the audience to make sense of my data and for the life of me, I can't think of any drawbacks. If you can think of any, I'm all ears. I've already typed it all up into excel from survey monkey so if there is a valid argument for presenting it all, it's no skin off my nose.
I also should have done more research into motivation before planning and implementing my project. Thankfully, after reading several articles and research from the last 30 years, it seems I was on the right track (according to the research) but I don't think my data supports this theory.
Something, somewhere went terribly wrong.
Anyway, live and learn. I don't think I learned a lot about how to best use wikis in a classroom, if at all but I have learned some of what works and what does not when doing research. I suppose that's the point. I hope.