Task 9: Network Assignment Using Golden Record Curation Quiz Data

I am glad that we decided to create our own dataset for this task. It made it a lot more “real” to me. It was a good choice to work with musical taste (a highly subjective topic of debate).

First of all, I think that it’s important to recognize where our class is coming from. Although ETEC students are obviously from around the world, and from a variety of backgrounds, I can reasonably assume a few things about our class (please excuse me/correct me if I’m off base in this analysis in any way).

1- ETEC is a graduate level program. We can assume that the participants in this program have completed elementary school, high school and an undergraduate degree before enrolling in this course. How does educational attainment influence musical taste? If we were to ask a group of post-doctoral students, how would their answers differ? If we were to ask a group of people who didn’t graduate high school, how would their answers differ?

2- ETEC is expensive! Tuition for Canadian students for courses is almost $1700 a course! This makes access to this level of educational attainment limited to those who can afford to pay for their education (whether through loans, grants or their own financial contributions). How do economic realities influence musical taste? Would a group of billionaires choose different selections if they were given the same task? Would a group of people in extreme poverty make different selections if they were given the same task?

3- ETEC students are focusing their educational pursuits on Educational Technology. We have a specific focus for our academic pursuit. How does educational pursuit influence musical taste? Would an engineering program make the same choices? 

The point I’m trying to make regarding these assumptions is that our group is made up of people who are very similar in some ways, but still different in many others. Any interpretation of the data is going to be determined by the nuance of our sample. But even within our sample we are an extremely varied group of people. 

In any attempt at data interpretation, we need to look at potential factors that could skew the data in a specific way. I think for myself that a lot of my choices for this task were based upon my own personal and subjective opinions on the matter. To what extent do our group’s similarities bring our opinions about music together?

Having not spoken directly to other students about their choices (outside of their own posts), I can’t assume anything about why the songs they didn’t choose did not resonate with them. I can’t assume that everyone went through the same process to determine their choices.

I have the luxury of having a properly sound treated studio (to a limited extent) and an accurate set of studio monitors, I was able to listen to the songs in high fidelity. My listening position is 38% of the way back from the front of the room, and perfectly centred parallel to the front wall. When I listen to music I listen closely. I close my eyes and I turn off all other distractions. I like to listen to music LOUD, in order to really feel the impact of the songs. I listened to every song from start to finish in the same way in order to give each of them what I thought would be an equal chance.

Looking at my choices, as objective and removed from the decision as I tried to make myself, I still ended up mainly choosing songs that I had a pre-existing relationship with. Did others due the same (regardless of their justification)?