As a student in Psychology 409b, I have been involved in a self-witnessing exercise since the beginning of this semester. This internet-focused course has been taught by Dr. Leon James at the University of Hawaii at Manoa since the early 1990’s. Each semester, the students are required to publish their reports online and do oral presentations. Each year, the course topic changes. This semester, the course topic is self efficacy.

As with the first 4 assigned tasks, I was required to fill out pre-ratings before starting the tasks, take notes while doing them, and fill out post-ratings after their completion. The empirical notes that I took while completing the tasks helped me analyze my information behavior. I have undergone the same process with this fifth task, which was to research given topics and post my findings every week in WebCT (a web-based program that allows students to post forum discussion messages). Along with posting a research message every week, I have also had to reply to someone else’s research message. Therefore, each week, we had to post 2 messages online.

I was already familiar with the process of logging into WebCT and posting because I took another class taught by Dr. James last semester. I enjoyed the forum discussions because I had a chance to interact with classmates and those from the other two classes Dr. James was teaching. However, in the current generation, G19, Dr. James has made the discussion postings more structured. We were required to answer specific questions for each given topic. I believed this was to prevent the postings from deviating too much from suggested topics.

This report, which is the second required report for the semester, will be about my experiences with doing internet searches every week—what I did, the errors I made, and how I felt during the research process. I will first reiterate the second required task of the semester, which was to register as a user for WebCT. I will then explain the fifth task of the semester, which was to compile and publish this report online.

Task #2: Posting the first week’s Web discussion messages

Research topics

The WebCT home page is at this address: http://webct.hawaii.edu

(Note: The students in Dr. James’ classes are the only ones who can access the forum discussions.)

Every week, we are required to research one of the following 10 topics:

• How optimism affects problem solving

• Information literacy issues

• How self-confidence affects performance

• Gender discrimination in language use

• Speed limits and drivers

• Multitasking while driving

• How people cope with noise in their lives

• Understanding the difference between rational and mystical spirituality

• Errors—when, where, and what types

• La Femme Nikita Fan Movement

Each topic includes a series of questions that are to be answered through our internet searches. The questions can be viewed in the same file as our report instructions: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy19/g19tasks-schedule.htm

We search for articles or other types of evidence that pertain to the topic and post our findings on WebCT.

Sub-steps of task

(Note: The following notes for Task #2 have been taken from Report #1.)

The table below delineates the steps involved in the second required task, which was to post a research and comment message in WebCT. These notes correspond to the first week I posted messages.

Table 1a

Affective and Cognitive Information Behaviors Associated With Task #2

(Note: Affective information behaviors include feelings, emotions, intentions, and reactions; Cognitive information behaviors include thoughts, thinking sequences, strategies, plans, interpretations.)

Step	My Affective Information Behavior	My Cognitive Information Behavior
1. filled out pre-ratings form	- I want to take good notes	- I can do this - I understand that I need these ratings in order to analyze my information behaviors at the end
2. logged into WebCT	- felt no anxiety at all because I did this last semester	- thought this was easy
3. clicked on our class discussions’ link	- I felt motivated to post a message because somebody already posted his message.	- I wondered if anyone else already posted their messages. I discovered that somebody already did.
4. read message from Dr. James, which was an overview of the instructions and topics	- felt confident that I could do the task	- I should have no problems with posting messages
5. decided on a topic to research and chose a subtopic (questions to answer)	- felt a little dismayed because I was not interested in researching some of the topics	- realized that there were not as many categories as last semester; noticed that there was not a category for other topics
6. logged out of WebCT	- felt excited because I would be posting my first week’s messages	- I will probably have to log in several times a week to catch up with responding to research messages and posting mine
7. used a search engine (Google) to start looking for articles	- felt calm because I have searched using Google countless times	- thought about searching for many articles and keeping them handy for future postings
8. bookmarked certain articles	- felt excited that I found articles	- I love the bookmarking feature
9. looked over articles	- felt a bit disappointed that I did not find all the information I needed	- I had to search for more articles
10. logged back into WebCT	- felt relieved that I finally had enough information to post	- I thought that other topics might include questions that are difficult to find articles for
11. read over some students’ research postings	- I can’t wait to respond to more messages	- I thought it would be fun to start replying to students’ messages because I like it when they respond to mine
12. clicked on Compose Message and started typing in my message	- felt a little nervous because I was anxious about what other students would say about my message	- proofread to make sure that I did not have any typos and checked that my link worked by copying and pasting it into a new window
13. posted my messages	- felt relieved that I completed the second task	- I thought I could get more practice doing so because we will be posting messages each week
14. filled out post-ratings	- felt stupid that I posted my first research message under the wrong category	- this task wasn’t too bad - I wonder what topic I will research next

Analysis of errors

Instead of delineating each of the errors I made during each week, I have decided to generalize all the errors and put them into one table. Therefore, the table below, includes all the errors I made since the first week of postings until now.

Table 1b

My Errors While Doing Task #2

Note: A minor error denotes an error that could be fixed, whether technically or personally (ex: typing in the wrong URL in the browser window and making a grammatical mistakes in a report). A major error denotes an error that could not be fixed, whether technically or personally (ex: missing the deadline for uploading a report and posting a research message under the wrong category).

Description of Error	Error Classification	Explanation For Error	Solution
Login not accepted	Minor	I typed in the wrong password; accidentally pressed the wrong keys leading to a misspelled password	Pressed the keys on the keyboard one by one, making sure that I was pressing the right letters
Did not have sufficient information to answer questions for particular topic	Minor	When I searched for articles, I saved the pertinent ones. However, it was only after reading them for the second time did I realize that I needed more information.	Continued to search for more articles until I had enough information to answer all the questions for the particular research topic.
Posted my first research message under the wrong category	Major	I was not doing the task with my full attention because I was talking on the phone at the same time.	I should not multitask.
My research message contained broken links	Major	I typed in the URLs correctly and checked by copying and pasting the URL into a new window. I thought that maybe it did that because the URL was too long.	Check to see if it happens again in the future and if it does, to ask Dr. James or another student why it is so.
Missed a few deadlines in posting research and comment messages	Major	Felt too lazy/unmotivated to do internet searches and/or had other tasks to do that were of higher priority and urgency	I should start doing research earlier on during the week so that I do not start rushing a few hours before the deadline for posting.

I felt quite stupid when I found out that I posted my research message in the wrong category. I thought, “How could I have done such a senseless thing?” I tried to search for a way to delete the message, but the Help guide did not find a match for such an option. In order to cope with my embarrassment, I responded to my message. Included an apology for placing my message in the wrong category. To make another point that I was aware of my error, I included a statement about noting it down as an error. I felt stupid because I posted messages in WebCT last semester and I never included a message in the wrong category before. I thought about what people would say if they found out that I took a class taught by Dr. James last semester. They would assume that I should not have had a problem. The ironic thing is that I did. However, I thought that my error was a reminder for me not to undertake more than one task at a time. I need to focus on one task at a time to able to do it correctly.

Task #5: Publishing Report #2

Sub-steps of task

The table below delineates the steps involved in the fifth required task, which was to publish this report, Report #2.

Table 2a

Affective and Cognitive Information Behaviors Associated With Task #2

Step	My Affective Information Behavior	My Cognitive Information Behavior
1. filled out pre-ratings form	- feeling depressed and disappointed in myself	- figured that I needed to get this done
2. opened a new web document and copied the same formatting as in Report #1	- I’m feeling quite confident - I intend to keep the same colors and formatting as in Report #1 so that my website will seem more uniform	- I have done this before and should be able to do it now
3. made an outline of the necessary components	- making an outline will speed up the progress in completing this report	- I should make an outline first so that it will be easier to fill in the different sections.
4. started filling in the sections of the outline	- starting to feel more confident because I intend to do a good job even if I have already missed the deadline	- OK, I’m getting this report done one section at a time. Eventually, I will finish and then I will be able to upload it. I can relax for a little while thereafter.
5. cross-checked the components of the report with those listed in the instructions	- my notes were not as descriptive as they should have been	- thought that I should have filled out pre- and post-ratings for each research posting; my analysis would have been more thorough - I should take more descriptive notes for the next postings so that I can improve this report
6. filled out post-ratings	- felt relieved - still felt disappointed that I missed the deadline	- I am now reaching the final stages in completing this report
7. proofread the report, checked for broken links	- feeling more at ease	- already thought of things I could do to improve this report by the end of the semester (i.e. data comparison with another student, more descriptive explanations)
8. opened up Fetch and uploaded report	- feeling glad and a little more carefree, especially since I don’t have to stress on finishing up the report because I just finished it	- I don’t want to procrastinate for the third report; I will work on that during Thanksgiving break
9. checked to see if report published successfully	- I would be shocked if it didn’t upload	- I haven’t had any trouble uploading since I first started and so I didn’t expect any at this time
10. emailed Dr. James to inform him that I published Report #2	- I’m scared. I let him down. I let myself down. What will others say?	- a bit hesitant to find out what he will say, especially since I procrastinated

Analysis of errors

Table 2b

My Errors While Doing Task #2

Description of Error	Error Classification	Explanation For Error	Solution
Procrastinated; started working on report after the deadline	Major	I had many things due during the past week and did not manage my time wisely to include time to work on the report. I also did not feel motivated to get it done until the last minute. This could have been because I took advantage of the fact that I could resubmit my report for regarding at the end of the semester.	I should not have procrastinated. I should have started a few days earlier and broken down the report into several manageable sessions.

Data Collection: Pre- and Post-Ratings for Task #5

Table 3

Pre- and Post-Ratings for Task #5

(Note: I have pulled out only the questions from the forms that had scaled ratings to include in the table below. To view explanations for ratings, click on the links provided.)

	Task #5
Questions	Pre-	Post-
2. Mood (1= negative; 10=positive)	6	8
5. Importance of succeeding at this task (1=not important; 10=extremely important)	10	10
6. (Expected) difficulty in performing task (1=not much; 10=a lot)	2	2
7. Amount of upset if failed at task (1=not upset; 10=extremely upset)	3	4
8. Degree of certainty in completing task (1=doubtful; 10=almost certain)	10	10
9. Likelihood of becoming good at task (1=pretty doubtful; 10=almost certain)	10	10
10. Main reason for completing task (a=luck; b=skills I’ve acquired; c=help from others; d= combination of things)	B	B
11. Amount of motivation to complete task (1=slightly motivated; 10=very highly motivated)	10	8
12. Computers make it easier to perform the task (1=I strongly disagree; 10=I very much agree)	10	10
13. ∫(Expected) amount of effort to complete task (1=not much; 10=a tremendous amount)	6	4

• (Question #2) From the beginning of the task till the end, I noticed that my mood improved to becoming more positive. This was because I was quite depressed and disappointed about missing the deadline. While I was doing it, I knew that I would complete it because I do have high self efficacy, but I felt much better after I was done. I felt relieved, knowing that I finally completed it.

• (Question #11) My level of motivation to complete the task started decreasing towards the end of the task because it was near completion. I needed a lot of motivation in the beginning because I had already missed the deadline and needed to work on it right away.

• (Question 13) As with the level of motivation decreasing towards the end, so was my perceived amount of effort to complete it. Once I started working on it, I realized that it did not require as much effort as I predicted at first. I suppose it was because completing it got easier once I started working on the different sections.

• (Question #4) I predicted that I would spend about 3 hours doing this report. In actuality, I spent 2 hours and 55 minutes. I have noticed that I do make predictions that come close to the actual times and amount of effort it took to complete the task. I suppose this means that I do a good job in gauging what needs to be done and what resources will be needed. I like to think that I have a high self-efficacy. Even though I procrastinated, I knew that I would get the report done sooner or later. I just made an outline and filled in the different sections one at a time.

I noticed that all my ratings for the other questions remained the same or else differed by a point. The task itself was very important because Report #2 amounts to a great deal of my overall grade. The degree of certainty of completing the task and becoming good at it were rated 10 during the pre- and post-ratings because I believe I have high self-efficacy. This explains why I chose “the skills I’ve acquired” to be the main reason I completed the task.

Facing A Due Date

This report’s deadline was postponed a week later. Unfortunately, I did not even start on it until the day after it was due. I did have explanations of why my report was late, but then I did not want to dwell on such excuses. I believe that excuses only arise when something has not been done correctly the first time. Hence, I did not want to go into detail in regards to my excuses. Instead, I wanted to describe my experience of facing a due date for this report.

Because I started on this report much later than I should have, I felt a lot of distress. I was disappointed in myself for not managing myself more wisely and for not feeling motivated enough to complete it in one night. Perhaps, it was because I was taking advantage of the fact that my professor lets his students resubmit their reports for regarding at the end of the semester. I also did not want to publish a report that was sloppy and obviously hurried. I was willing to face the consequences of point deductions because of its tardiness. Another reason why I was disappointed in myself was because I felt that I also disappointed Dr. James. He has been praising me as a good student and I have ruined that impression by missing a deadline.

For this report, I realized that I missed more than the deadline for the report. During the semester, I have missed a few deadlines in posting comment and research messages. This realization was another disappointment compared to my performance last semester. Last semester, I was reading postings in WebCT nearly everyday. This semester, it is good if I even log into WebCT once a week. Although I missed deadlines, I made it a point to catch up on late work. I have also tried posting more than one comment message a week to help compensate for my tardiness.

Although I felt distressed, I was not frustrated. This was because I knew that I could finish the report in several hours. I knew that I could compile my notes and organize them coherently. In this essence, I was optimistic. However, I was also pessimistic. I was pessimistic in the sense that I did not feel the urge to publish my report as soon as I could have. Because it was late, I thought that it would not have mattered if it was one more day late.

To deal with such procrastination or lack of good time management skills, I have learned to break down tasks into smaller subtasks. By laying down a generic framework (outline per se), I can work on the individual components one at a time. Things do get done one at a time and so, eventually, I do complete the task.

Conclusion

Through this process of self-witnessing, I have noticed that I procrastinated several times this semester. However, when I did do my postings, I never rushed them. When I realized that I needed more information to answer the questions, I did more research. I did not post findings that were incomplete in any way. I always tried to include brief yet sufficient information. I have good information behaviors in that I tend to persevere until I find the answers. I do not give up and do not want to post poor findings.

Computers and the internet played integral roles in helping me accomplish the tasks of posting messages in WebCT and publishing Report #2. I believe that people will become more reliant on computers in the future. Because of technology, things have become so much more automatic with computers. They are more innovations that try to help us simplify our lives. I believe that I will continue to use computers very often in the future. Currently, I spend at least an hour a day checking my email and replying to messages. I use the computer everyday for academic purposes. I am trying to learn more skills in web designing. In essence, computers will always be a part of my daily routine – my life.

Advice to future generations

My advice to future generations is to learn how to break down tasks into smaller ones. I will not preach about not procrastinating because I do it too. However, because I have learned the process of making an outline first, filling in the different sections becomes much easier. I therefore advise future generations to read the instructions thoroughly, compile their notes, and make a logical outline of all the information they will need in their reports. Introductions and conclusions are usually the last sections to be completed.

I will also emphasize asking questions. If they have trouble with uploading or are not sure about what to include in their reports, they should ask their classmates and Dr. James. Asking questions does not hurt one bit. It will help in the long run and will most likely guarantee a good grade. Following instructions and interpreting them in a logical yet creative manner in this class is very important.

Last updated: November 17, 2003

[Back to Top] [Back to my Home Page] [E-mail me]

[Back to my Class Home Page]

Advice to future generations

Introduction

Task #2: Posting the first week’s Web discussion messages

Research topics

Sub-steps of task

Analysis of errors

Table 1b

Task #5: Publishing Report #2

Sub-steps of task

Analysis of errors

Table 2b

Data Collection: Pre- and Post-Ratings for Task #5

Table 3

Questions

Facing A Due Date

Conclusion

Advice to future generations