by Martin Wallace
Pow! Student Self-Confidence Data Analysis
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I've completed the data analysis for my project about comparing undergraduate student self-confidence before and after participation in the UTA Libraries Pitch of the Week (POW!) Contest.
There were 25 matched pairs of pre- and post-self-evaluations. I initially believed that student self confidence would get a boost from exposure to the competition and that student self confidence would increase in each of the five categories. When comparing all pre- and post-evaluation averages, we find that this holds true for all but the teamwork category, which decreased. The teamwork skill also showed the largest change in student self-confidence, dropping from an average of 4.44 to 4, a 9.5% change. The largest gain in confidence was in proposal writing, rising from an average of 3.8 to 4, a 5.1% change.
I then wanted to see how comparisons differed between teams that won their preliminary rounds and those that didn't. My prediction was that winning teams would show a greater increase in confidence across all categories than those who did not win, but that even the teams that did not win would, on average, show an increase in confidence. This turns out to have been wrong. The winning teams gained significant confidence in all categories, but the non-winning teams lost confidence in all but two categories, critical thinking and teamwork, where the averages in pre- and post-evaluations were identical (no increase or decrease shown).
You can read my full project report on my project website.
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