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C.A.'s comments on student exemplars Unique Maths project Nature of the survey questions--the quantitative and qualitative sides The survey questions used in this project were very general. They started by asking, "How much did you pay for your car? Is it second hand or brand new? How do you finance it? Do you have a job?" There are a lot of survey questions that give a perspective on what different people think. This is more of a qualitative exercise on the up front where qualitatively, people made their assessment - is it good? or is it bad? The quantitative side of the survey, which is what they relied on to draw the conclusion, came in when they were asking, "How do you finance your car? Approximately how much do you spend every year on repairs? etc." So the points that they raise in survey questions 10 and 11 are the reasons for wanting it in the first place. These are the qualitative factors that end up being the justification for having a car. However, I don't think they really considered the qualitative factors when they come up with a grand conclusion that it's not financially feasible, given the amount of money students spend on it. The tie-in of both the qualitative and quantitative factors is really critical in such analyses. I believe this project could have had a bit more depth to it, for it is towards the end that they started talking about real qualitative reasons for wanting a car; getting to school, all the sports, independence, etc. In relying on a survey, from a perspective of applying your own thoughts to solve the problem rather than applying other people's thoughts, it would be better to consider the costs involved and analyzing them rather than just a survey asking people, "what do you think?". I may know how it costs majority people to own a car, but what if I want to buy a car based on my own situation. Some points raised in the section headed 'some more things to consider' are certainly useful: "gas prices rise and fall with time" Yes, but what does this mean for you? We could say something more about these and tie them in the analysis. Others points like, "Don't drink and drive" while are very valid social comments, I am not sure whether they are relevant to the analysis. Basing the conclusion on a combination of factors This project went into a lot more of the issues on: "Why should I have a car? Why is it worth it?" The project talks about the qualitative issues, but at the end of the day, the conclusion is still based on finances; it is still said, "no matter what, I'm not going to bother," or you couldn't bother unless you could justify it for having fun or whatever. Certainly, if I go to school on the west side of Calgary, I have a job in the south, and my home is in the south, and my job is nearby, then, yeah, I might be able to justify it. But certainly the decision/conclusion that they arrived at the end wasn't based on a combination of factors; it was simply based on the dollars--the quantitative issue, which was the obvious conclusion at the end of the day. Towards the end of the project the conclusion comes: "Our work showed us, that it is quite obvious financially not worth it to own a car." Even though that may be true, I didn't see that analysis. I saw, "It costs money." I didn't see, "It costs money, but I make this much to pay for it," or "It costs this much, but it's helping me to get somewhere to do something important. They took a very indirect approach to reach that conclusion. They talk a lot about things that just didn't matter at the end of the day, or they didn't incorporate other ways that they spend money, didn't talk about how they financed it. They didn't talk about how important it was whether or not they had the job.
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