7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1. Opportunity: College students have difficulty organizing and keeping up with all of their assignment due dates, whether that be on a calendar or a list.

2. 

Who: Students at UF.

What: Students are unable to keep up with their many assignment due dates.

Why: Each professor distributes dates differently, whether it is in a syllabus the Canvas calendar, or by email. Additionally, when these dates change they may only change on one platform and not update onto others.

3. I believe this opportunities exists for all students at UF; every student in some way must find a way to organize their assignment due dates in order to succeed. There are boundaries to my hypothesis; every student is different, and not all may prefer the platform I create. Additionally, it will take cooperation from professors to provide me with their assignment dates and any changes to them, which may be difficult to coordinate. There are many why's for my hypothesis. I believe the 'why' I have identified holds true to everyone; everyone needs to stay organized in some way.

4. 

Interview 1:

I first interviewed a freshman at UF. When I told her about my idea, she immediately agreed. Transitioning to college, she found extreme difficulty in organizing all of her assignment deadlines and exam dates. Her first semester, she found herself missing assignments simply because she either recorded them wrong off Canvas or a due date changed and she missed the announcement. She never had this issue in high school, yet the increased workload and decreased support for college students is he  reasoning as to why this is occurring. 

Interview II:

The next student I interviewed was one of my peers in class. She is in her fourth semester here at UF. After telling her my idea, she also agreed that students need an organized, cohesive platform where all due dates are listed. However, her reasoning was different than my first interviewee. After being a student for so long, my peer had developed a system for recording her assignment due dates. Her system works, and she has never missed a deadline. However, she would like the resource I proposed as a way to crosscheck her lists with a different platform, as an added security.

Interview III:

The third student I interviewed was a senior at UF. When I proposed my idea to him, he agreed that this would be a great resource to students. Over his time at UF, he never found one way that served him best to stay organized. After trying physical planners, sticky notes, and the Canvas calendar, the best method he found to recording assignment deadlines was Google Calendar. However, he emphasized to me that Google Calendar has its flaws, including that you have to manually input everything. He concluded that an automatic system would be a great resource to students.

Interview IV:

The fourth student was another one of my classmates, who I noticed used a physical planner. When I proposed my idea to her, she did say the idea was interesting, yet automatically told me my idea would not benefit her. She believes she has the best system by recording everything by hand, and would not be willing to transfer to an automized system. She was not comfortable trusting it, and would rather create her own schedule and cross check her lists over multiple platforms rather than use an automated system that has the potential to mess up.

Interview V:

The last person I interviewed was another freshman who takes all online classes. When I proposed my idea to her, she was not very receptive to it. She said Canvas already has a calendar, so why create a new one? She said because she is in online classes, every assignment is submitted through Canvas and therefore is on the calendar based on programmed deadlines. She has no need for a different system, yet she did understand that traditional students are facing an issue that she does not because she is fully online.

5. After completing interviews, I realized that my system may not be useful to all students at UF like I thought. Some students have systems that work for them, and do not have an unmet need. However, I do believe my system could be a great resource to many students, and therefore the opportunity still exists.