Your own wait-observation log from Weeks 1 to 4, read through the duration, attention, expectation, and information lenses those weeks built it to answer.
- Waiting Field Notes15% · due Week 4
- Queue Case Study20% · due Week 9
- Waiting Experiment25% · due Week 10
- Waiting Audit40% · due Week 12
Due: 15 March 2027 · Weight: 15%
The brief#
Submit the wait-observation log you’ve kept since Week 1, and show that you can read it through all three explanatory lenses this block has built — attention, expectation, information — together, not one at a time.
This is a personal record of waits you actually experienced, not an external system you’ve gone looking for. Nothing here asks you to analyse how a system is built — that’s the Queue Case Study’s job later in the course. This assessment asks something narrower and more basic: can you read your own log honestly, against the specific distinctions Weeks 1 to 4 gave you, without overclaiming what a handful of personal entries can show?
What you submit#
The log itself, in full, covering Weeks 1 to 4: every entry’s clock duration, judged duration and whether that judgement was prospective or retrospective, expected wait, available information, and outcome/notes. Alongside it, a written interpretation that works through the log using each week’s own distinction:
- Week 1 — clock vs. judged duration. Where do the two numbers agree or diverge across your entries, and which of those judgements were made prospectively versus retrospectively?
- Week 2 — attention. Is what occupied you during a wait consistent with differences between entries’ judged durations? This can only ever show consistency or inconsistency with the pattern the research describes, not prove it — say so plainly rather than overstating what one log can establish.
- Week 3 — expectation. How does “Expected wait” line up against outcome? Keep this apart from information: expectation is set before a wait begins, and Week 4 depends on that line staying clear.
- Week 4 — information. How does “Available information” line up against outcome, independently of what you expected going in?
Close by naming any entries that don’t fit any of these lenses cleanly. That’s a legitimate, useful thing to report, not a gap in your log.
What you must not claim#
Don’t claim that your log proves any of the four mechanisms — a personal log, checked against a handful of entries, can only show whether a pattern is consistent with what you recorded, never that it caused anything. Don’t generalise your own experience to other people or to waiting in general. Don’t treat a self-reported, unblinded personal record as if it were a controlled measurement.
How this is marked#
Marking assesses the completeness and fidelity of the four-week record — whether it reads as an honest, continuous account of real waits, checked against every week’s distinction — not how many entries it contains. A shorter log that is complete, honest, and carefully read against all four lenses will score better than a long one that’s thin on interpretation or inconsistent with its own entries.
Afterwards#
From Week 5, the course stops reading your personal log and starts examining how waits get built. The same discipline this assessment asks for — separating what your evidence actually shows from what you’re interpreting into it — is exactly what the Queue Case Study needs once it turns from your own experience to a system you don’t control.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- you have submitted your wait-observation log covering Weeks 1 to 4, each entry recording clock duration, judged duration, whether that judgement was prospective or retrospective, expected wait, available information, and outcome/notes
- you have separated clock duration from judged duration, and prospective from retrospective judgements, in your interpretation, per Week 1
- you have checked whether attention or occupation is consistent with differences between entries, without claiming it proves anything, per Week 2
- you have checked the expected wait field against outcome, per Week 3, and kept expectation separate from information
- you have checked the available information field against outcome, per Week 4
- you have named entries that don't fit any lens cleanly, rather than forcing them into one
- you have not claimed that your log proves any mechanism, or generalised your own log to other people or to waiting in general
- you have attributed every claim drawn from Block & Zakay, Block, Hancock & Zakay, Hui & Tse, Pruyn & Smidts, or Maister to that source
- you have analysed your own personal record of naturally occurring waits, not an external system's design
How it is marked
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Completeness and fidelity of the four-week record | 30% |
| Correct use of each week's distinction | 35% |
| Honesty and specificity of limitations | 15% |
| Clarity and use of the course's own vocabulary | 20% |