This week the group have tested the video diary task to attempt to extract the essential topics which are up for discussion. Common topics were evident from the group’s videos including; Traveling, routines, eating, cooking, family, networks, the balance between social and work life, hobbies and other commitments.
The videos begin to highlight critical topics which affect the life of part-time students and how studying part-time affects our social and family networks. It is evident from all our videos that socialising is a secondary priority behind completing work and university tasks.

The way that we filmed our week was left open for each member to interpret to allow for flexibility and experimentation while filming freely. All members of the group demonstrated similar filming techniques using their mobile phones, talking directly to the camera and filming themselves completing usual everyday tasks as a part-time student.

From the videos, we established five critical topics for discussion, for further exploration to frame the research and video diaries, as we look to get other part-time students to participate in the video diary development. These include:

Time

                  Meals                                                                               Network

                   Happiness                                                                     Travel

The five key subjects will allow us to create a questionnaire for all part-time students on the Architecture course to fill out, to allow us to collect data on how other part-time students view their studies. The purpose of this research is to improve the experience of the part-time course, ensuring that the way that the course is written benefits part-time students.

The videos and questionnaire will be developed upon side by side, providing two different types of research methodologies, which will allow us to study the effects that part-time studying has on students and their everyday lives in more detail, allowing for the hypothesis to be tested.
By completing our week-long video diary, it has allowed us to establish our core themes of research and complete a Video Frame for Part-Time participates to work from. As a group, we decided that we should not overly restrict participants but that we should set standard instructions so that the outcomes wherein the same format. The complete Framework below, outlines the parameters of the video diary, highlighting that students should show both positive and negative events in their life which they feel contribute to the lifestyle of a part-time study. The framework also sets out the length of the videos and format that the filming will be required in.

Ethically, we outlined what the videos were going to be used for and informed students of their responsibilities and that the videos would be kept secure and would not be used for any other purposes.

Once we have received all video diaries from part-time students, we will look to analyse the films and extract relevant information and themes from them. The individual videos will be recut and edited to create a final film which will provide evidence of the effects on part-time students in relations to the topics establish above. The videos and questionnaires will be analysed, and interviews will be partaken at a later date with student volunteers to allow for more detailed and specific common topics to be discussed.

PP