Is a higher commute time associated with a lower self-rated experience of the MDS program?

In this survey, we would test whether the average MDS enjoyment level for students living on and off-campus are different using hypothesis testing with regression.

Our null hypothesis is that there are no difference in enjoyment level between the two groups, our alternative hypothesis is that the two group means are different. Tests are conducted at 5% significance level.

Another part of our analysis is to summarize the survey results by looking at the ratings as categorical variables.

The following are other questions we will include in our survey to identify confounding variables:

• How many minutes does your commute take one-way? We are including this question because a student may have chosen to live on campus to avoid a long commute.
• How many hours of sleep a night do you usually get? The amount of sleep a student gets may affect both the student's choice of living on or off-campus as well as how happy with MDS. For example, someone that usually gets fewer hours may have decided that they have more time for commuting. Also, the amount of sleep may affect their stress levels and how they feel about MDS.
• How many years of work experience do you have? The student's years of previous work experience may affect where they decide to live. One possibility is that a student with many years of work experience may not want to live on-campus with a bunch of undergrads. The years of work experience may also affect their satisfaction with MDS since their work experience may have prepared students for MDS.
• Are you staying with family? Staying with family affects whether a student lives on or off-campus and also affects satisfaction with MDS since family could provide a support network.
• How many years have you lived in the Vancouver area? Familiarity with the Vancouver area could help students be aware of off-campus housing. Being used to the area may also make handling the MDS program more easy since those students don't have to adjust to living in a new area on top of dealing with the coursework.
• How many hours per week do you spend on MDS coursework? A student that spends lots of time on coursework may have decided to live on-campus to have more time for schoolwork. The type of student that is devoted to coursework may also get more from the program.
• What percentage of networking events have you been able to attend? If a student is really focused on finding a job, they may have chosen to live in an area with lots of companies. A student's focus on job searching could also affect their MDS satisfaction if they feel the program prepares them with the necessary skills.

Here are some aspects of UBC Office of Research Ethics document on Using Online Surveys relevant to our survey:

• We will ensure that any information we collect is stored only in Canada
• We will ensure not to collect any personally identifiable information such as SIN number, Name, Student Number or any kind of indirectly identifiable information that could be used for personal identification in combination with other variables.
• We will need to collect some personal opinions on living on or off-campus which alone do not constitute “personal information” for the purposes of BC FIPPA.
• Our survey is a basic one and therefore, we will use a cover letter which will include: the study title, contact information of the PI, a short description of the study, risks and benefits, limits to confidentiality, a statement that participation is optional, and the UBC Research Participant Complaint Line text.

Our EDA of the survey responses is here.

We have addressed the Milestone 1 feedback by updating this README and by updating the survey questions. The updates are documented in this issue.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.