4. Results
4.2. Survey B – Exploratory Analysis
29 Table 11-Survey A Grades Average per Anxiety Type
Final_Grade_Average iRAT_Average tRAT_Average Handout_Average
Minimal 14.36 13.07 17.81 17.06
Mild 14.77 12.79 17.89 17.5
Moderate 15.00 14.27 18.76 17.77
Severe 16.00 13.91 19.07 17.31
30
Viana do Castelo 3
Santarém 2
São Miguel 2
Lagos 1
Nicosia 1
Guarda 1
Funchal 1
Faro 2
Berlin 1
Évora 1
Beja 1
Nil 1
Castelo Branco 1
Vila Real 1
Benghazi 1
Porto 1
Nationality
Portuguese 57
German 2
Nigerian 2
Brazilian 1
Cyprus 1
Libyan
1 Master
Program
Data Science for Marketing
1
Digital Marketing and Analytics 2
Information Systems Management 5
31
Knowledge Management and Business
Intelligence 54
Information Analysis and Management 2
Classes Format
Presential 47
Online 17
Professional Status
Working 14
Not Working 50
Through the exploration of some descriptive statistics, it was possible to observe an average anxiety score was 8.5 out of 21 points as well as a 13 or lower score presented by 75% of the students, while the mean age value was 22 years.
Table 13-Survey B Statistics
Survey B GAD-7 Anxiety Score Age
Count 64 64
Mean 22.3281 8.4800
Std Dev. 2.1971 5.8581
Min. 21 0
25% 21 4
50% 22 7
75% 23 13
Max. 35 21
Regarding anxiety levels, most of the students reported mild anxiety (34.3%), followed by minimal anxiety with 29.7% of the answers, moderate anxiety with 18.8% of the students, and 17.2%
with severe anxiety. Through the analysis of the average anxiety scores for the different levels, the minimal anxiety students obtained an average of 2.68 points, the mild 6.41 points, while in moderate and severe the scores were 12.25 and 18.55 points, respectively. By combining that anxiety with the student's ages the average results were 23 years for minimal anxiety, 22.22 for mild, 21.92 for moderate, and 21.82 years old for severe. Of those, 56.25% selected the somewhat difficult option when asked “how difficult have these problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?”, 19% not difficult at all, 17.2% very difficult, 6.3%
extremely difficult, and 1.6% nothing. Additionally, the mean anxiety score of people answering, “Not difficult at all” was 4 points, “Somewhat difficult” 7 points, “Very difficult” 14.82, and “Extremely difficult” 16.25 points while the ages means were 23 years, 22.19 years, 21.91 years and 22.25 years respectively.
32 Table 14-Survey B GAD-7 Results
Anxiety Type Number of Students
Minimal 19
Mild 22
Moderate
12 Severe
11 If you checked off any problems, how difficult have these
problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?
Not difficult at all 12
Somewhat difficult 36
Very difficult 11
Extremely difficult 4
Nothing 1
Table 15-Survey B Statistics per Anxiety Type
Age Survey B GAD-7 Anxiety Score Mean Std. Dev. Median Mean Std. Dev. Median
Minimal 23 3.2489 22 2.6842 1.4927 3
Mild 22.2272 1.7977 21.5000 6.4091 1.2212 6
Moderate 21.9167 1.3114 21.5000 12.2500 1.6583 12.5000
Severe 21.8182 1.1677 21 18.5455 2.0671 18
Table 16-Survey B Statistics and Daily Life Difficulties Type
Age Survey B GAD-7 Anxiety Score Mean Std. Dev. Median Mean Std. Dev. Median
Not difficult at
all 23 4.0676 21 4 2.3741 5
Somewhat
difficult 22.1944 1.5824 22 7 4.6599 6
Very difficult 21.9091 1.1362 22 14.8182 5.1927 14 Extremely
difficult 22.2500 1.8930 21.5000 16.2500 2.8723 17.5000
Nothing 24 24 15 15
33 From the grades point of view and by observing the box plots behavior in the iRAT grades, minimal anxiety students obtained the lowest number of points, around 13, moderate and mild anxiety got around 14 points, and severe anxiety students presented median values above 14 points.
On the group tests, all the students with minimal, moderate, and severe anxiety had a median value of around 19 points while the mild ones achieved a median of 18.5 points, representing tenuous differences. In the handout grades, the similarities between minimal and moderate anxiety students are clear while mild and severe anxiety diverges from the first ones as they have values around 17.25 points and 17.75 points, respectively. The final grade medians had similar behavior as the previous since minimal, mild and moderate anxiety students had 15 points while severe achieved 16 points.
Figure 4-Survey B Grades Box-Plots
Table 17 presents the average grades combined with the anxiety levels reported by the students in the final of the semester. Through the visualization of the table, it is possible to verify that the highest values are registered in the severe anxiety level.
Table 17-Survey B Grades Average per Anxiety Type
Final_Grade_Average iRAT_Average tRAT_Average Handout_Average
Minimal 14.47 13.41 18.39 17.28
Mild 15.00 13.14 17.62 17.58
Moderate 14.66 13.00 18.04 17.44
Severe 16.09 14.36 18.95 17.72
When considering the TBL questions, 53% of the students disagreed or strongly disagreed that the TBL lecture made them feel anxious while only 25% agreed or strongly agreed that it made them
34 feel anxious. The majority of the students felt anxious before the first TBL class due to the fear of the unknown (Appendix D - Figure 24). Comparing the anxiety felt in this type of class with traditional ones 22 students disagreed that TBL caused more anxiety while 20 agreed that it caused more anxiety. However, when comparing the number of students that strongly disagreed, 9 students, and strongly agreed, 3 students, with the question the overall difference gets bigger. When having to conciliate this class with the others, 32 students disagreed or strongly disagreed that it made them anxious, 18 students agreed or strongly agreed with that affirmation, and 14 of them neither agree nor disagree (Appendix D - Figure 25).
Figure 5-Survey B TBL Lecture and Anxiety Opinions
Figure 6-Survey B TBL and Traditional Classes and Anxiety Opinions
In the evaluations part, 52% of the students reported that having low-weighted evaluations made them feel less anxious while 67% agreed or strongly agreed that TBL helped them to feel less anxious for other examinations (projects, exams, handouts) (Appendix D – Figures 26 and 27). In
19%
34%
22%
22%
3%
The TBL lecture made me feel anxious
1: Strongly Disagree 2: Disagree
3: Neither Agree or Disagree 4: Agree
5: Strongly Agree
35 addition, when students were asked if having evaluations constantly provoked anxiety most of them disagreed (Appendix D – Figure 28).
Through the doubts clarification part examination, the student majority agreed that clarifying their doubts through burning questions and with colleagues as well as having the teachers explain to them the contents during the classes contributed to reducing anxiety (Appendix D – Figures 29 and 30).
By analyzing the four phases of the TBL, preparation, iRAT, tRAT, and application exercise it was possible to conclude that the ones where most of the students felt anxious were the iRAT, the application exercise, and handouts having 34%, 44% and 39% of the students reporting it, respectively. In opposition, the student majority disagreed or strongly disagreed on feeling anxiety during the preparation and the tRAT, 38 and 35 students respectively.
Figure 7-Survey B Preparation and Anxiety Opinions
Figure 8-Survey B iRAT and Anxiety Opinions
36 Figure 9-Survey B tRAT and Anxiety Opinions
Figure 10-Survey B Application Exercise and Anxiety Opinions
Figure 11-Survey B Handout and Anxiety Opinions
37 Focusing on the pre-class preparation the amount of information to study, not having the teacher explaining the contents, and have not a clear understanding of the contents, were the statements in which students mostly agreed on feeling anxiety while being more aware of the contents statement they mostly agreed that their anxiety decreased (Appendix D – Figures 31, 32, 33 and 34).
In the iRAT phase, agreeing on feeling anxious when not knowing the answer to a question, was the predominant answer (Appendix D - Figure 35). Additionally, the same number of students agreed and disagreed on feeling anxiety when answering incorrectly in the iRAT, however, when joining those with the ones that strongly agreed with this statement we have on total 29 students while with the strongly disagree option it has only 25 students (Appendix D - Figure 38).
Turning our attention to the tRAT, the student majority agreed that the fact that the tests or exercises were done with a team made them feel less anxious as well as having the possibility to learn with each other (Appendix D - Figures 39 and 40). Likewise, the same results were achieved when students were asked about team content awareness with students agreeing that they felt less anxious due to it (Appendix D - Figure 36). On the other hand, most of them felt anxious when their team answered incorrectly to several questions (Appendix D - Figure 37). Additionally, most of the students disagreed when asked if they felt anxious when discussing answers with their teams, when teams did not reach a consensus, knowing that their answer had an impact on the team's answer or that their team's answer could have an impact on their grade (Appendix D - Figures 41, 42, 43 and 44).
Regarding the application exercises and handouts, 41% of the students agreed that the short time to finish the application exercise/handouts in the class made them feel anxious and 50% agreed that they felt anxious when they did not understand an application exercise (Appendix D - Figures 45 and 46).