Abstract
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Using a publicly available web camera, this project sought to determine whether the weather had any effect on student entrance patterns in a specific computer cluster. The project measured number of people in the lab rapidly over the course of the time periods bordering the start and end of class and correlated these patterns with a weather forecast.
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Introduction
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Does nice weather predict student tardiness and early exit? If so, professors might take this into account when planning lessons and activities.
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Methods
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Counts were taken at short intervals during the 15 minutes before
the start of class, and the 15 minutes after the start of class;
any person in the room was considered to be a member of the class.
A count was taken every 30 seconds. Penn State University provides
class schedules for its computer clusters (https://ical.ecsel.psu.edu/305hb/).
The project used this schedule to determine observation times and accessed
weather information via www.weather.com. One class was observed repeatedly
in an attempt to minimize possible confounding factors. Despite this,
it is still certainly possible that other confounding factors such as
campus events, student personal problems, or scheduled class activities may have skewed the results.
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Results
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As the weather conditions become more pleasant less students show up in total but those who do come to class tend to show up earlier. In the most pleasant condition 100% of the students came on time. In the least pleasant condition 50% of the students came to class on time. Intermediate results fall neatly in between. The latter result is somewhat surprising but can possibly be explained if the students who do come on pleasant days are generally more committed and thus have a tendency to come early.
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Privacy
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Having a camera operational during a class session can yield lots of harms to students. For instance, when the instructor monitors images, attendance and attention can be incorporated into grades and the instructor's perception of the student.
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References
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Camera: https://www.cede.psu.edu/schedule/schedule.shtml
Click on ‘Live Image’ next to '315 Hammond Building Computer Classroom'.
Project Paper (PDF)
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