"Investigation of Graduate Students' Perspective on Post Graduation Community Issues"
Statistical Results of Research Survey:
Sample total:
50
1) What level of graduate program are you currently seeking?
Certificate
(11/50-22%) Master’s
(33/50-66%) Doctoral
(6/50-12%)
2) What do you plan to do after you graduate?
Continue further studies
(16/50-32%) Work
(38/50-76%) Others
(0/50-0%)
3) Do you think it would be important to keep in contact with fellow alumni?
Yes
(45/50-90%) No
(5/50-10%)
4) Why or why not?
Positive reasons: Social and entertainment purposes, work contact, job related purposes, friendship, enjoyment of goodwill, networking, mutual help, mutual support, fun, support for academic or professional efforts, motivation, exchange of ideas, enjoyment of camaraderie.
Negative reasons: No point, no need, and no time.
5) Do you think it is important for you to maintain allegiance to a post graduation community of your program after you graduate?
Yes (24/46-52.2%) No (22/46-47.8%)
6) Why or why not?
For pretty much the same positive and negative reasons as for Question 4.
7) Would you maintain contact with a number of your fellow alumni on your own accord?
Yes
(50/50-100%) No
(0/50-0%)
8) Would someone else taking the initiative, encourage you to follow suit and maintain that contact with your fellow alumni to form that post graduation community?
Yes
(20/50-40%) No
(10/50-20%) Possibly/Depends:
(20/50-40%)
9) Do you think the leadership initiative of someone among your fellow alumni be a strong motivation for you to take part in maintaining this post graduation community?
Yes
(19/50-38%) No
(12/50-24%) Not sure
(19/50-38%)
10) Would you take on a leadership role of getting fellow alumni together to form a strong post graduation community?
Yes
(5/50-10%) No
(45/50-90%)
11) Do you think the school administration has an important role to play in establishing and maintaining such a post graduation community?
Yes
(30/50-60%) No
(20/50-40%)
12) Even with established leadership to build such a community, would an incentive, benefits or reward of some sort be a necessary attraction to tie you to this post graduation community?
Yes
(31/50-62%) No
(14/50-28%) Not sure
(5/50-10%)
13) If there are no incentives whatsoever, would you align yourself to this community just for the sake of maintaining alumni relations, goodwill or other less tangible reasons?
Yes
(20/50-40%) No
(15/50-30%) Not sure
(15/50-30%)
Reflection:
Even though the research I have done is not totally scientific, there were many interesting findings that would give an idea of graduate students’ general perspectives. Based on the results it seems that almost all seem to want to maintain some kind of contact after graduation but they are less inclined to join a formal post graduation community, not to mention pledge allegiance to it. Even those who do want to be part of a post graduation community prefer a more casual, less binding sort of a community. That is to say, they do not want to feel obligated to take part or put in unnecessary efforts into this post graduation cohort, unless of course there are substantial benefits derived out of it. Many cited a predictably busy post graduation life and do not want to have any extra commitments after graduation.
I learned a lot about the action research discipline from this research process. I realized that sound preparation of a good questionnaire is imperative to receiving sound answers that would provide accurate and relevant answers to the specific questions as well as to the important underlying queries pertaining to this project. Some of the questions I had might have been stated quite clearly but the design of the possible responses prevented more informative sorts of answers and also opened them to much ambiguity. Also the questions I asked were supposed to address the issues that I was enquiring about, and these issues should have been previously conceived to aid the goal of constructing a CCT post graduation community. That was in actual fact quite successful to an extent. I tried to craft my questions in ways that would reflect to me the general perspective and psychology of graduate students. However, there were certain questions that I omitted at first but soon later incorporated into the survey. Unfortunately I could not obtain all the responses for certain questions from the original 50 people in my survey sample. In those cases, I will just have to calculate percentages based on data that is partially incomplete in a minimal way. Of course, the ideal of such a survey is precision but we cannot always reach what is ideal and therefore have to adapt and improvise. There were many different minor irritations and obstacles to completing the research survey but in retrospect, I now know how I could have designed a better survey plan.
