Maynooth University Project Evaluation
Project Details
An evaluation of two projects being carried out by the PACT Department and Geography Department in Maynooth University.
Projects:
CoCoa23 (Computer Science Dept.)
5*S: Space, Surveyors and Students (Geography Dept.)
M-CO Team:
Marion Weymes, Project Lead
Simon O’Rafferty, Director in Charge
Ella Elliott, Researcher and Project Manager
CoCoA23: Co-create, collaborate, activate. Advancing Computational Thinking Education, SFI Discover Programme
A project commissioned by the PACT Department in Maynooth University. PACT are the Dept. of Computer Science and they develop resources and supports to allow educators to teach topics in computer science at both primary and secondary school. They specialise in computational thinking resources and have a number of programmes running to engage teachers across Ireland in tools developed alongside Bebras (an international initiative aiming to promote Informatics and computational thinking among school students). M-CO were procured to evaluate two of these programmes, provide recommendations and propose tools and strategies for measuring impact. These methods were designed to meet the needs and ethical constraints of evaluating the experiences of primary school participants.
Project Timeline Activities
This three-month long project involved a preliminary co-design workshop with the PACT team at Maynooth University to understand the programmes, their objectives and purpose of the evaluation. Following this, a report was drafted that outlined the key aspects of each project, the activities that took place and any feedback collected. I reviewed the different surveys that had been issued during the course of the programmes, and offered suggested improvements to enhance the quality of data collected. After an initial draft of our findings, we met with the PACT team in Maynooth to review the reports and make amendments. The final reports were presented and a follow-up call took place as a final engagement with our clients to answer any questions and close-out the project.
