Exploring perceived support of postgraduate medical science research students

There is still much to learn about the support required by postgraduate research students, across academic disciplines, to facilitate successful completion of a research degree. The primary aim of this study was to explore postgraduate medical science research students’ perceptions of academic and mentoring support at different stages during their degree programme. A second aim was to explore the feasibility and acceptability of peer mentoring as a strategy to enhance student support in this population. A mixed method study design was used. Students first completed an online questionnaire, which was then supplemented with focus group discussion to explore emergent findings in greater depth. The main results indicated that the nature and quality of academic supervision support have a significant influence on research student training and development. ‘Functional’ and ‘relationship development’ concepts of supervisory styles were highlighted as important aspects to perceived support in this research population. The main facilitators to enhance academic support were effective communication, project planning and timely feedback. There was a high degree of acceptability for a peer mentoring programme as a complementary approach to enhance student support. Peer mentoring psychosocial functions such as friendship, counselling and career guidance were considered potentially beneficial to enhancing student support. Students also discussed peer coaching as central to their learning and research skill development. This work is a useful starting point to explore perceptions of research student support in the target population. Further work is required to develop strategies to enhance student support in academic practice.     

微格教学技能训练调查与思考

为了解学生在微格教室进行技能训练的基本情况,作者设计了"外语系微格教学技能训练调查表",对外语系2002届168名学生进行了问卷调查。结果表明,微格教学在提高学生的教师职业技能和激发学生的训练热情等方面成效是显著的。     

Measuring the research experience of research postgraduate students in Hong Kong

To date, there has been little research in non-Western contexts exploring the research experience of research higher degree (RHD) students and the effect of research experience on student outcomes. The purposes of this study were to validate the Student Research Experience Questionnaire (SREQ) developed in Australia in the Hong Kong context and to explore the relationships between student research experiences and their perceived skill development and overall satisfaction with their research degree experiences. Data were collected from 599 RHD students. The results supported the construct validity of four SREQ scales (supervision, infrastructure, intellectual climate and skill development). The results of the structural equation modelling suggested that supervision related to students' perceived skill development and overall satisfaction, while intellectual climate and infrastructure were related to overall satisfaction only. The data provide a better understanding of how we can promote positive learning outcomes of RHD students.     

New trends of research in postgraduate design education in China

Although postgraduate design education has existed in western countries for several centuries, it is still new in China, including Hong Kong and Macao. In the past, although postgraduate design education has been claimed available in some universities in China, nearly all of them are fine-art or engineering oriented. Only in the past few years, postgraduate design education with significant design research elements has been incorporated in the curricula. This paper briefly reviews the trends and development of design research in postgraduate design education in the western world. It then identifies the limitations and constraints of the postgraduate design education in China. Based on case studies in several universities in China, the paper attempts to identify the opportunities and then new trends of design research in postgraduate design education in China.     

Realising graduate attributes in the research degree: the role of peer support groups

This paper discusses the role of peer support groups (PSGs) in realising graduate attributes in the research degree. The literature indicates that top-down embedding of graduate attributes has met with only limited success. By taking a bottom-up approach, this paper shows that PSGs offer an opportunity to improve the graduate attribute outcomes of universities. This paper presents the experiences of research students in three PSGs in New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia, and the results of an exploratory opinion survey that required past and present PSG members to share their learning experiences about the development of graduate attributes. The participants favoured five attributes: communication, critical thinking, self-motivation, research organisation and teamwork. Viewing the development of graduate attributes through the lens of the students adds to our understanding of how PSGs help them to develop graduate attributes and contribute to university efforts to instil these attributes by taking into account experiential learning.     

河南高校体育学硕士研究方向设置的现状分析

运用文献资料法、数理统计法、比较研究等方法,对河南省4所高校的体育学硕士研究生的研究方向设置现状进行分析,以更好的了解河南高校体育学硕士研究生教育的现状,为新时期深化体育学硕士研究生教育改革提供参考依据。     

Research paradigm choices made by postgraduate students with Pacific education research interests in New Zealand

This paper explores the nature of postgraduate research in the broad area of Pacific education completed in New Zealand universities. First, a number of basic trends are identified in terms of institutional affiliation, area of educational research, MA and PhD balance, growth over time, national/ethnic focus and the expected beneficiaries of the research. Secondly, and more significantly, trends in the theorisation of Pacific postgraduate education research are identified using a positivist-interpetivist-emancipationist-deconstructivist paradigm typology as a basis for analysis, in particular the degree to which the latter two research perspectives have been embraced. It is argued that research done within emancipationist and deconstructionist paradigms has the most socially transformative potential. The completion of socially transformative educational research is significant given increasing calls from within Pacific communities to decolonise and re-indigenise both educational research agendas as well as systems of Pacific primary and secondary schooling influenced by educational research. The paper demonstrates, however, that very little emancipationary and deconstructivist education research has been completed. This apparent mismatch is explored in the light of the wider competing educational discourses of Pacific colonisation and indigenisation.     

同伴互评——远程英语教学的有机组成部分

在远程教育领域,注重对学习过程进行临控和反馈的同伴互评正日益受到重视.本文介绍了存远程英语教学中开展同伴互评的试验.试验结果表明,互评能促进远程英语教学质量的提高,增强学生的自我效能感和帮助他们掌握能用于今后学习的可转换技能.不管是在语言学习层面还是在学科学习层面,互评不仪是一个发现和纠正错误的过程,也是一个探究和互相学习的过程.经过悉心组织、开展和监控的同伴互评对认知、情感和可转换技能等都有明显促进作用.     

高职朋辈心理辅导员团体心理咨询技能培养的策略研究

朋辈心理辅导已成为高职院校心理健康教育过程中不可或缺的重要形式。加强朋辈心理辅导员的培训与指导,探索有效途径,提高其操作技能,发挥团体心理咨询的功能,具有重要意义。     

临床医学研究生的科研训练

科研能力是研究生的一项最重要的素质.加强临床医学研究生的科研训练,有利于提高研究生的科研能力,为国家和社会培养优秀的医疗和科技人才,促进实验室和学科的发展.实践表明:制定和严格执行切实可行的科研训练计划,能减轻临床研究生的学习负担,提高工作和学习效率,达到既定的教学目标.     

A blended learning curriculum for training peer researchers to conduct community-based participatory research

Peer researchers (PRs) are research team members who share traits (e.g. gender, age, sexual orientation, diagnosis, income, housing situation, etc.) with study participants. Participatory methods and some fields (e.g. HIV/AIDS) expect PRs to be equitably involved in a project. Moreover, in Canada, there is a current impetus to include ‘the patient’ in health research. PRs often join a project without any formal research training, yet they are frequently tasked with suggesting appropriate language, recruiting participants, conducting interviews, administering surveys, analyzing data, and presenting findings. While there is literature on PR hiring, ethical considerations of PR engagement, and PR experiences, the methods of training PRs remain underreported. A blended learning curriculum (i.e. combination of webinars, didactic in-person presentation, filmed simulation, etc.), informed by the principles of action learning and the concept of reciprocity, has shown preliminary effectiveness in training PRs across two studies. This paper will present the curriculum, alongside exploratory evaluation results (n?=?7), with details on how the curriculum changed from one study to the next and how reciprocity between academic and peer researchers led to stronger collaborations.     

Team dynamics feedback for post-secondary student learning teams

In the current research, we introduce the team CARE model for supporting team development during post-secondary education. Team CARE is part of a larger suite of assessments at itpmetrics.com. Team CARE is a free, online, survey-based assessment that allows team members to rate their team’s health and functioning in four key categories (communicate, adapt, relate and educate), as well as provide written feedback about the team’s functioning to add nuance and supplemental context to the numeric scores. Team members completing the assessment receive a report documenting their team’s scores on the variables measured. We report on data from student learning teams suggesting that the variables in the team CARE model are reliable, and that they are correlated with team performance outcomes. Students’ perceptions of the tool were also examined, and the findings suggest that team CARE is perceived to be valuable, useful and easy to use. Recommendations for practice are detailed, including sample assessment schedules for teams with differing life spans. Implications for future research and implementation are discussed.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of a social skills training (SST) programme for victims of bullying

Several programmes have been developed to help support victims of bullying, but few have been formally evaluated. On the basis of previous research and from a review of existing programmes, a Social Skills Training (SST) Programme was developed for victims of bullying, and the effectiveness of this intervention was evaluated. Twenty-eight children (aged nine to 11 years) took part in the SST Programme – 15 in the experimental group and 13 in the waiting-list control group. A Peer Nomination Inventory was used to assess social skills problems, peer victimization and friendship/peer acceptance. In addition, a number of psycho­social adjustment variables (i.e. depression, anxiety, self-esteem) were assessed, using self-report. The measures were completed at three time points over the course of an academic year. It was found that there was an increase in ‘global self-worth’ (i.e. self-esteem) for the experimental group (compared to the control group). However, there were no other significant improvements, e.g. in terms of social skills problems or victim status. These findings have important implications for interventions to tackle the negative effects associated with bullying in schools.     

The fog of online learning

The authors recognized a close similarity between practices used in online genealogy research and those common in online education. Uses of a popular online database service were examined within a peer instruction community dedicated to researching a family history topic. Three community subgroups were divided into leaders, who base their work on external sources, and followers who copy the leaders’ conclusions. The accuracy and error levels of the 21 family trees produced by these researchers were calculated in relation to data obtained from offline archives. The trees created in the online process all contained flawed details and invalid conclusions due to practices similar to those of massive open online courses. The inconsistent reliability of the online approaches is discussed in terms of the ‘fog’ that descends upon knowledge when facts are distorted by academic jargon, disciplinary trends, and institutional priorities, and which increases with its transmission to others by non-experts.     

Semantic support environment for research activity

Scholarly activities are a collection of academic related activities such as research, teaching and consultation work which result in research outputs such as journals, theses and articles in proceedings. The output will then be disseminated to researchers all over the world by means of the WWW. The four pillars of this scholarship i.e. discovery, teaching, application, and integration of knowledge are supported by research activities which often start with the process of identifying key research questions. The ocean of information available on the interact could sometimes cause the scholars to be ＂lost in Cyber Ocean＂ Thus, this study aims at recognizing the key research questions and suggesting a support environment for scholarly activities for novice researchers. A structured interview was conducted among researchers to capture three pertinent aspects of research activities： becoming proficient in the new field of research, reviewing a research paper and identifying special research interests in specific research areas. The analysis of the interview shows pertinent questions that scholar make while carrying out their research. The feedback provides an overview of the range and altitude of support needed by scholars in seeking information especially in the electronic joumal environment. Based on the result of the study, a proposal for system prototype and future work will be discussed.     

Postgraduate conception of research methodology: implications for learning and teaching

This qualitative inquiry investigates postgraduate students’ conceptions of research methodology and how it contributes to their learning. It explores factors likely to motivate student choice of research methodology and challenges in understanding research methods. The research was carried out at research-intensive universities in New Zealand and in Malaysia with similar postgraduate programmes. Participants were enrolled in Masters and Ph.D. programmes. Findings revealed that participants share a recognition that research methodology is a significant body of knowledge in postgraduate education. However, there were noticeable differences in perspectives regarding what constitutes research methodology and whether or not it should be conceived as a discipline. To some participants, learning research methodology is less of a discipline but rather an acquisition of a set of isolated facts and skills without necessarily acquiring a deeper understanding of research. Furthermore, postgraduate students choose research methodology based on a number of factors such as familiarity with a method, methodological orientation of the primary supervisor, the domain of study, and the nature of research problems pursued. Participants reported that the key challenges they face in understanding research methodology include framing research questions, understanding the theory or literature and its role in shaping research outcomes, and difficulties in performing data analysis.     

The role of training in improving peer assessment skills amongst year six pupils in primary school writing: an action research enquiry

Peer assessment is where students assess the quality of a peer's work. Studies have demonstrated its positive impact on learning yet most of these are in higher education. This study used training to improve the quality of written feedback in a year six primary school classroom. Action Research was selected as a research strategy given the need to find a solution to a classroom problem. Convenience sampling was used as the research focused on the class of children where the issue lay. Methods used to evaluate the quality of training included documents, observations, informal interviews and mind maps. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data produced. The findings indicate that training may help to improve the quality of children's written feedback in primary school, as it has done in other contexts. Further research is needed to verify these results given the small sample size and absence of controls.     

Engaging postgraduates in a peer research group at the research proposal stage in a Malaysian university: support and challenges

Due to the increasing workloads for supervisors and the challenges in research proposals for postgraduates, the study focused on engaging 15 postgraduates in a Malaysian public university in a peer research group. The data was collected from observations of the group meetings, video-recorded peer feedback and follow-up interviews. The qualitative analysis of the data indicates that the research group supported the postgraduates through peer feedback practices, learning how to present proposals and defend themselves and finding directions in research proposals. Although their engagement was challenged by initial reservations of some postgraduates to present their proposals and provide feedback and issues related to provision, reception and reliability of peer feedback, these challenges were minimized through mentoring and instructional strategies. While peer research groups represent a valuable pedagogical support that complement supervisors’ support to postgraduates in developing their research proposals, the value should be maximized by integrating supervisors in research groups.     

操作技能训练的教学策略

操作技能的训练是职业技术教育中一种重要的学习过程,与认知学习相比,具有自身的特点。在学习科学的视野中,操作技能的训练根据不同的阶段,应该采用不同的教和学的策略,随时调控,才能取得较高的训练质量。