Igor PDML-StR wrote: > >Those are curious facts, but there are several important questions >that need to be addessed before any conclusions (or even suggestions) can >be made: >1. What type of class that is and for whom? >(e.g. an introduction to major for espiring photographers vs. one of the >"election" classes for "far-from-major"-s) > >2. For most of those numbers his is not a statistically representative >case. So, very few clear conclusions can be made (Except that the class is >happening, and you've got some studnets who are likely to be interested in >photography). With just a dozen of students, the statistical error is >Sqrt(12) ~= 3.5 So, +/- 3.5 person is your "error bars" for each of the >numbers you mentioned. (I.e. 0 +/- 3.5 with mirrorless, 0 +/- 3.5 with >4/3rds, 2 +/- 3.5 with P&S, etc.) > >And that 3.5 out of 12 is close to 30%. It means that if you were to teach >this class again and again, and no other factors would change, >on average you might expect up to 30% of students with mirrorless and up >to 30% - with 4/3rds, and up to 45% with P&S. >Not that "black and white" anymore, isn't it?
I never said it was black and white. I'm just putting out a small sample of what's going on. As the course name "Digital Photography II" implies, this is a second-level course. (I bet you can guess as to what the prerequisite course might be called.) It's purely elective for all majors. What was more telling to me than the cameras being used was that none of the students had even *heard* of mirrorless cameras. Or the Four-Thirds system. It will, as you say, be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming semesters when I get a bigger sample size. As for the percentage who show up with P&S cameras, rather than going up to 45% it should drop closer 0% after we have the requirement of an interchangeable lens camera mentioned in the course description in the catalog currently they don't know until they show up for the first class and get the syllabus. -- Mark Roberts - Photography & Multimedia www.robertstech.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
