Week 9- Collecting Final Pieces of Data

Sandhya S -

Hello everyone and welcome back to week 9 of blog posts!

Last week, I addressed my shift in analysis and took the final assessments for 3 of the clients. This week on 4/8, I planned to distribute the last remaining assessments. However, Ms. Sheila was not able to come into the clinic today, so she has asked the families to give their rating on the GAS form electronically. Hopefully, everyone is able to return the assessments as soon as possible along with their respective home program activity checklist so all the data is collected in time.

Once I receive these final results, I can finish the last pieces of my final paper and presentation. After collecting all the data from the home program checklists, I will calculate the average number of days per week each client practiced their assigned activity. I will then organize this information into a table

One less participant:

Last week, I got an email from Ms. Sheila saying that Participant A will no longer be able to continue the study due to a family emergency. Unfortunately, they had a family emergency and are going to be out of town for a while. Unexpected events like this can happen, and this will reduce my sample size further. The main reason why my sample size was small was because Ms. Sheila and I worked together to prioritize minimizing any disruption to their personal lives, designing the data collection process to be manageable and require only a light commitment, allowing families to participate without added stress. These families have so many responsibilities and I did not want this study to negatively impact their daily lives. Since my study already involved less participants, I was able to track progress more closely and have a more individualized focus.

I am continuing to rehearse my presentation at home and revise information as necessary, as the end of this journey is approaching. That’s all for this week! Thanks for reading!

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Comments:

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    Brittany Holtzman
    Hi Sandy! I can't wait to see your draft presentation next week! You've been working so hard to collect your data, organize it, and analyze it! It's really unfortunate your sample size is going to be so small, but that's how these things go sometimes! You have definitely been flexible and positive throughout! -Mrs. Holtzman
    April 11, 2025 at 12:28 pm - Reply
    camille_bennett
    I like that you are really considering how to make this study easy for participants. Do you think that there are environments where your access to clients would be more consistent to allow more participants in future iterations of this study?
    April 15, 2025 at 9:49 am - Reply
    sandhya_s
    Hi Ms. Bennett, thank you for your question! Yes, I think that being an occupational therapist in a hospital or a school setting where there are typically more structured schedules and higher attendance rates would make it easier to ensure regular participation. This would also allow for a larger sample size for a future study similar to this.
    April 15, 2025 at 11:01 am - Reply
    aashi_h
    Hi Sandy, this sounds like such a good project! I understand first-hand how hard it is to reach a good sample size. Now that the project is coming to a close, what would you say has been the most exciting part?
    April 15, 2025 at 12:49 pm - Reply
    sandhya_s
    Hi Aashi, that's a great question! I would say, it has always been exciting to see my dream of working with kids come to life while shadowing and talking to the different clients. It is really inspiring to see how despite facing developmental challenges, kids are such positive, curious individuals who are able to find joy in the simple things. This kind of perspective has taught me so much, and I have definitely become a more patient person overall.
    April 15, 2025 at 4:56 pm - Reply

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