DataAnalysis_LearningBoredomFun

Executive Summary
The data for this analysis was collected through SurveyMonkey, an online survey tool, distributed to family and friends of current EdTec 670 students of San Diego State University. At the time that this data was pulled from the survey, 212 subjects between the ages of 7 to 86 had participated in the survey, which asked respondents to recall and describe boring and fun learning experiences. Learners were asked to describe details about the experience that made it boring or fun. This data was downloaded to a spreadsheet format where it was sorted into age group categories to identify differences between perceived fun and boredom across ages and gender. Data analysis revealed that there are similarities between what all learners consider fun and boring. For example, about 70% of learners reported that they interacted with other learners during their fun experience. During boring experiences, however, interaction with others took place in only 9.5% of experiences. Similarly, learners reported moving around in 48.5% of fun activities and only 2.2% of boring activities. These general tendencies were to be expected across all learners. However, there were notable differences in what "fun" and "boring" consisted of for the learners across different age groups. For example when 15-18 year old female learners described fun learning, they tended to recall group activities. For learners under 14, on the other hand, fun meant using objects and having hands-on experiences. Meanwhile, the 50+ age group tended to include environmental, logistical, contextual factors in their analysis of fun and boring. While these results are of interest to current educators and EdTec students, further formal research with a larger sample of repondants would have to be conducted to conclude that these data and findings are significant.

What Makes Learning Boring?

 * 1. Learners ages 14 and under commonly categorized their boring learning experiences as formal classroom experiences.** There were 36 total respondents who described a boring learning experience at the age of 14 or younger. 33 of those experiences took place in a formal classroom environment. In almost all of these cases (30 out of 33) learners were expected to sit still, but in only 1/3 of these cases (11 out of 33) learners were expected to use critical thinking skills. "Creative Cathy" describes how her confirmation classroom had to be "deadly silent", and "L2S" described the boredom of the repetitive daily classroom routine of his math class.


 * 2. Male learners ages 15-18 consistently felt disengaged and disconnected from the experience that they described as boring.** Of the 12 male respondents in this age group, all of them described situations in which the teacher disengaged the student from the learning experience. The respondents describe teachers who discouraged student participation, presented monologue-style lectures, and neglected to relate the material to the lives of the students. In data collected from "Rawful", the learner describes how the teacher "regurgitated" the book content during a two-hour lecture period. "Chiseled Gorgeous" recalled being unable to relate to the "Scarlett Letter", becoming disinterested, and falling asleep while reading the story numerous times.


 * 3. Female learners ages 15-18 commonly attributed boring learning experiences to characteristics of the instructor.** There were 10 female participants in this age group, and all of them describe characteristics of their instructor which negatively impacted the learning experience, including, for example, lack of excitement, monotony of voice, lack of eye contact, lack of public speaking skills. "Marie" wrote that her teacher "wasn't really competent" while "Mrs. Teacher" described that hers "wasn't very approachable".


 * 4. For learners ages 20-40, the activity of "taking notes" was more commonly attributed to an experience that they considered to be boring.** There were 14 instances when respondents reported about taking notes in their learning experiences. All 14 of these instances were used to describe boring experiences. "Mr. Excitement" reports having to take "copious" notes in his legal writing class. "Monte Cristo" recalls only seeing his instructor's back because he was writing so much on the white board that had to be copied to notes.


 * 5. Learners aged 50 and over tended to report a logistical element having contributed to their boredom in a learning experience.** These logistics include elements such as duration of class, classroom setup, tools, temperature of classroom, etc. All together there were 14 experiences from 50+ learners, and in 9 of these experiences learners recalled logistics which negatively impacted their learning. In the case of "ArcheryNoni", the class lasted for "four horrible hours", while "Cassie" listened for "6 hours while a boring instructor talked about traffic laws". In the case of "dancing queen" there was "no time schedule" and entirely self-motivated. "CJ" found her classroom too cold, while "Shawnee Miss" found hers too dark.

What Makes Learning Fun?

 * 6. For male learners ages 14 and under, fun learning experiences often include use of a tangible touchable artifact.** 10 out of the 12 respondents who described a fun learning experience at age 14 or under, included the use of an object when describing the fun event. "Rich's Dad" recalls using a drill and testing minerals in his class field trip to the mines. Other learners, like "CM9573", describe using objects like robot cars and balls in the classroom during their learning experience.


 * 7. Male learners ages 15-18 often classified a scientific test, experiment, or creation as fun.** Masher, at age 16 learned physics principles by creating project demonstrations. At 17, Joel R. dissected a frog and then reassembled its skeleton. Of the twelve total male respondents who described a fun learning event between 15-18 years old, 7 of them described similar experiences of interaction and creativity in the classroom.


 * 8. For females learners ages 15-18 an element of "group learning" is almost always classified as fun.** All 17 female respondents who reported a learning event between the ages of 15-18, classified the fun learning event as "Interactive with other learners". "Happily Mixed" recalled an anatomy game that her teacher had them while divided into teams. "sdsu jenn" had fun while teaching her family recipe to a group in her home economics course. Maggie recalled when her senior English class had to modernize Shakespeare's MacBeth as a group. And "Fannie Mae" learned about predator/prey relationships in her high school biology course by playing a "survival" game with the members of her class. All activities described by these female learners involve interaction with other learners in the class.


 * 9. Learners ages 20-40, who are mostly sitting still through the learning experience, will consider the event to be fun when they are engaged by the instructor and/or engaged by the content.** Fun is not limited to learning with activities, movement, and objects. Of the 15 "seated/no-movement" 20-40 year olds, 12 of them recall being engaged by the instructor and/or content. Learner "Jazzy J." recalls feeling engaged in a conversation with the instructor which made him feel like a "peer of the instructor". "Jeff O." also commented on the conversational format of this class and the relevance of the material, which he "really needed to know." In all cases, these experiences also required the learner to think critically.


 * 10. For learners over the age of 50, fun learning experiences were often described as having an element of excitement and/or energy.** "Mountain Man" recalls feeling completely engaged by the vivid words that recreated a dramatic story for the listeners at his company's retreat. "CJ" describes the instructor's excitement, and "Bow Papa" recalled the animated instructor at his camp class. "Dancing queen" found the dance class fun because of the "exhilaration" she felt with the music and dancing. Out of 9 respondents, 6 of them described elements of excitement and energy that they felt from the instructor or the content that they were learning.

Implications
There is a way to inject a little fun into everything. I'ts just a matter of figuring out how to do it for those particular learners, at that particular time. Generally the results of this survey imply that the more interactive and engaging that the experience is for the learner, the more fun the learner will experience. Getting learners interacting with each other and thinking critically about the content are key to keeping learning fun. The results of this analysis also serve as a strong reminder to know your audience. Some activities and strategies will work better than others, especially if the audience consists of high school kids after lunch, for example. When we know the audience and we are prepared with activities that will get them engaged and thinking critically, then they are more likely to experience fun. There are times, however, when we are must teach content that is not interesting, in an environment that is not comfortable, to students who don't want to interact. Here is the real challenge, and the real value of these survey results. //There is still a way to make that experience more fun for the students.// It may mean that I, as the instructor, make more eye contact, or inject some humor, or use pictures to tell the story. There is a way to inject a little dose of fun in even the dullest of training sessions, conferences, and classes. For me personally, injecting fun into the training sessions that I conduct will mean listening to my audience, getting to know them as learners, allowing them to see me as a real person, and being open and willing to learn from them as well.