Author: cdtlsd

Personal Growth Narratives: Voices From Community-Based Experiential Study Trips

cdtlsd Poster , , , ,

S. K. Tambyah*, K. Mukhopadhyay*, L. LIM, & Y. T. J. ONG 

College of Alice & Peter Tan

*kankana.m@nus.edu.sg; rc3tsk@nus.edu.sg

Mukhopadhyay, K., Tambyah, S. K., Lim, L., & Ong, Y. T. J. (2024). Personal growth narratives: Voices from community-based experiential study trips [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-kmukhopadhyay-et-al/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Engaging Communities

KEYWORDS

Experiential learning, personal growth, professional development, mixed methodology 

CATEGORY

Poster Presentation

 

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

This poster presents the personal growth narratives of student participants in short-term overseas experiential learning (Kolb 1984; Moon, 2004; Roberts, 2012; Backman et al., 2019; Lovett, 2020) programmes. Their voices are captured through focus group discussions (FGDs) and open-ended survey questions, which are part of a larger research study funded by the Ministry of Education. Using a mixed-method case study design, the study aims to understand students’ learning processes and outcomes of the community-based experiential study trips conducted as part of a residential college’s curriculum for over a decade.

 

METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS

Student participants were from different (STEER) (India, Balkans, Myanmar, Botswana, Nepal) from 2012 to 2020. They participated in six FGDs and completed an online vignette survey to share their perceptions on the different community-based learning aspects of the programme. The research team engaged in close readings and coding of the FDG transcripts and the responses to the vignette survey, particularly the key questions on personal growth (Figure 1) from the two data sets. Preliminary analyses indicated two emergent themes that define the construct of personal growth, which also demonstrated that students have experienced substantial personal growth with enduring effects beyond the duration of the programmes.

Figure 1: Questions on personal growth from FGD and Vignette Survey (open-ended question)

 

APPLICATION OF THE KNOWLEDGE GAINED

Students shared how the community-based experiential learning expanded their perspectives and facilitated the application of knowledge in their professional and personal endeavours after they have graduated. Some examples include “(integrating) methodologies like design thinking and asset-based community development in my daily life” (Nepal, 2018), “(thinking) deeply about how we can tap on community resources and to empower people within their own communities” (Mynamar 2018) and “looking” at societal issues and institutions with greater curiosity” (India 2018).

 

Several participants detailed the practical application of knowledge acquired during the study trips to their academic and career-related projects. For example, a participant from STEER Botswana who is now an educator shared the following:

 

DEVELOPING PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

There was an overwhelming sharing of how meaningful interactions with partner communities have broadened their worldviews and changed their mindsets. These experiences allowed them to “practise (their) curiosity” (FGD 3) during the trips and deepen their cultural awareness, empathy and social responsibility. One participant compared being “open and deliberate in understanding different perspectives” (FGD 3) when in the study trip from the filtered reality that s/he experiences in social media. This in turn encouraged them to take multifaceted approaches towards decision-making and become better at critical thinking after the trips. Students were also able to “understand the human psyche better” (Myanmar, 2019), and to “empathise with all sides of a conflict and focus on the similarities of the struggles faced by all sides.” (Balkans, 2019). Embracing new cultural perspectives was invaluable in developing global relationships, as an understanding of culturally different communities can help to “guide decisions and planning for bilateral discussions”. (Botswana, 2018)

 

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Educational experiences rooted in community-based learning offer a powerful and effective method by which to prepare students as life-long learners. Our findings illustrated how the community-based nature of the overseas experiential learning enabled the acquisition of knowledge and translatable skills, which could be applied in personal and professional contexts. The findings confirm how students understand the value of such engagements and their role in helping them contribute productively to society.

 

REFERENCES

Backman, M., Pitt, H., Marsden, T., Mehmood, A., & Mathijs, E. (2019). “Experiential Approaches to Sustainability Education: Towards Learning Landscapes.” International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 20(1), 139-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-06-2018-0109

Flood, L. D. (2019). A new way forward for social justice researchers: Development and validation of the social justice behavior scale. Research in Educational Administration & Leadership, 4(2), 303. http://dx.doi.org/10.30828/real/2019.2.4

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning. Prentice Hall Books.

Lovett, K. (2020). Introduction: Listening and Learning from Experiential Learning Educators. In Lovett, K. (eds), Diverse Pedagogical Approaches to Experiential Learning: Multidisciplinary Case Studies, Reflections, and Strategies (pp. 1-11). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42691-0_1

Moon, J. A. (2004). A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning: Theory and Practice. Routledge.

Roberts, J. W. (2012). Beyond learning by doing: Theoretical currents in experiential education.  Routledge.

Opportunities From Engaging Students In Hands-on Learning  

cdtlsd Poster , ,

N. L. YAKOVLEV 

Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, NUS 

phyny@nus.edu.sg  

Yakovlev, N. (2024). Opportunities from engaging students in hands-on learning [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-nlyakolev/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Engaging Communities 

KEYWORDS

Experiments, hand-on learning, creativity 

CATEGORY

Poster Presentation

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

When a student comes to a professor to do a project (which can be within an FYP, or UROPS, or SRP, or SMP, or similar)1, the professor asks: “Why did you choose my project?”  The students would say: “I am fascinated with your science and would like to learn more.”  Some professors would then give papers to the student saying: “Read this, so that you understand what you will do.”  Other professors would suggest: “Try to do these experiments, so that you use your data to understand what you will read.”  Which approach is more productive and—speaking about students—more instructive?   

 

As an example, let us consider student “T”, who came to me in 2022 to do his final year project (FYP) entitled “Fundamentals of precision ellipsometry”.  Ellipsometry is an analytical technique that uses polarised light to measure properties of ultra-thin films on reflective substrate.  Precision ellipsometry (PREL) uses polarisation modulator, which makes it even more sensitive down to sub-nanometre range (Yakovlev, 2019).  His aim was to quantify parameters, which are responsible for this high sensitivity.  

 

At first, he did experiments on PREL made by me, then made his own modulator as a copy of mine.  And when he experimented with his own modulator, he was excited to see its high sensitivity and asked me, why is it such.  This is when I gave him a book with all the necessary formulae, and he readily did the relevant calculations. Imagine, if he had seen that math at the start of his project, he would consider it boring from the beginning.   

 

Another example from the project of student “T” is measurement of the effect of refractive index of liquids used.  Though it was possible to measure it in a standard device, I suggested that he use the  available fluidic system similar to that described in Lau (2017).  This engaged his creativity, and after several attempts, he came up with the design as in Figure 1.  And again, he readily did relevant calculations using concepts from the physics curriculum.  

 

Figure 1: Schematic of refractive index measurement (left) and the scale made by the student, placed on laboratory wall and showing the position of refracted laser beam.

 

Over last two decades, I supervised more than a hundred students doing experimental science.  Within a broad area, where each student expressed interest, I let him/her start from trying various experiments.  Then it becomes evident what is the student good at and what ignites his/her passion, so that this would be developed into a specific project. Feedback from the students and numerous awards that they obtain at student competitions show the advantages of this approach.  

 

In guiding student projects, it is also a beneficial approach to supervise a team of students.  For the professor, it certainly saves time, because introduction to the topic takes the same time as to one student, but two students can obtain twice more results. As for the students, they can practically help each other and those who understand first can explain to those who did not get the point.  This process of explaining to others makes the knowledge more logical and it leaves a stronger impression in their memory.  Every year, I take several teams of students from various colleges and observe how they exchange practical skills and conceptual ideas.  They also learn to share equipment, working space and the supervisor’s time.  By the end of the year, that all creates a team and eventually a community of future scientists.  

 

In conclusion, the approach to “let the students do something, so that they understand what they read” appears to be engaging from the beginning of their laboratory practice and motivating them to learn through the course of their project.  

ENDNOTE

  1. The abbreviations stand for the following: Final-year project (FYP); Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme in Science (UROPS); Science Research Programme (SRP)

REFERENCES

Lau H.H., Murney R. et al. (2017). Protein-tannic acid multilayer films: A multifunctional material for microencapsulation of food-derived bioactives.  Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 505, 332-https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2017.06.001  

Yakovlev N. L., Kwek H. C., Dabrowski K. M. (2019). Kinetics of small molecule adsorption studied using precision ellipsometry. Surface and Interface Analysis, 51(7), 697-702. https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.6637

Opportunities for Students’ Wellbeing: Enhancing Perceptions of Data Science through Data Storytelling in a Diverse Classroom Context

cdtlsd Poster , , , ,

Yiyun FAN1,*, Amanda Wan Mei SOON2, and Kah Loon NG1,*

1Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore (NUS)
2Office of Provost, NUS

*yiyunfan@nus.edu.sg; *kloon@nus.edu.sg

Fan, Y., Soon, A. W. M., & Ng, K. L. (2024). Opportunities for students’ wellbeing: Enhancing perceptions of data science through data storytelling in a diverse classroom context [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore.https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-yyfan-et-al/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Wellbeing

KEYWORDS

Student wellbeing, data storytelling (DS), learning perceptions, data science, diverse classroom

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

Data science has emerged as a prominent discussion topic in education. Increasingly, students from underrepresented majors in non-STEM fields are showing interest in the data science industry, recognising its potential to enhance their research or employment opportunities. This trend is underscored by workplace phenomena, for instance, where recruiters in the UK may be more inclined to favour STEM students over non-STEM ones due to the latter often lacking STEM skills such as mathematics application and programming and being more difficult/expensive for employers to train (Grinis, 2017). This has highlighted the growing importance of such skills and the advantages they confer in the job market. However, as more entry-level courses in data science are introduced at university levels to address this trend, students, particularly non-STEM ones, have reported experiencing difficulty in learning courses that seem unrelated to their professional fields. This increased workload exacerbates their academic challenges and adds to their overall stress levels. For instance, feedback from a general introductory data science course revealed that 5.8% of comments were negative. Students expressed their stress from learning data analysis software. This rate increased to 10.4% the following semester and 12.1% the semester after (personal communication, June 20, 2024).

 

Data Storytelling (DS) utilises storytelling elements to compress information and convey key elements through narratives and data visualisations (Ryan, 2016), and holds the potential for enhancing learning experiences. It has been reported by recent scholars that DS elements, albeit with limited pedagogical constructs, have a promising future in educational settings (e.g., Chen et al., 2019; Echeverria et al., 2018; Martinez-Maldonado et al., 2020).

 

Many previous scholarly works have tackled the challenge of developing course curriculum that not only attract students from diverse backgrounds (e.g. gender and ethnicity group disparities) but also foster “communication, reasoning and collaboration that cross disciplinary boundaries” (Dierker et al., 2017, p. 55). However, few studies have investigated the impact of students’ academic major backgrounds and their related concerns, which are becoming increasingly relevant in today’s job market. Building upon this gap, this study examines the role of DS as supplementary material in the curriculum to introduce elementary data science skills to students through engaging narratives and data visualisations. By integrating DS into the course, this study aims to help students, particularly those with non-STEM backgrounds, better adapt to the current educational trend, thereby reducing their stress and improving their perceptions of learning data science.

 

The primary analysis method in this study involves qualitative analysis of students’ written and interview feedback after engaging with data stories based on the content of a general data science course at a prestigious university in Singapore. This study explores students’ perceptions of DS and their expectations of its role in future application in educational settings. Notably, feedback from non-STEM students, collected after their review of DS based on a random dataset, reveals their overall positive perspectives on the use of DS to support and improve the curriculum. Recurrent feedback items include students’ desire for more concise data stories integrated into data science skill introduction and their interest in engaging with more stories like these. This feedback highlights the potential of DS to assist students from various academic backgrounds, particularly non-STEM ones, in understanding and appreciating data science, thus reducing their stress in learning.

REFERENCES

Chen, Q., Li, Z., Pong, T.-C., & Qu, H. (2019). Designing Narrative Slideshows for Learning Analytics. In Proceedings of the IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium, PacificVis’19 (pp. 237–246). https://doi.org/10.1109/PacificVis.2019.00036.

Dierker, L., Ward, N., Alexander, J., & Donate, E. (2017). Engaging underrepresented high school students in data driven storytelling: An examination of learning experiences and outcomes for a cohort of rising seniors enrolled in the gaining early awareness and readiness for undergraduate program (GEAR UP). Journal of Education and Training Studies, 5(4), 54–63. https://doi.org/10.11114/jets.v5i4.2187

Echeverria, V., Martinez-Maldonado, R., Shum, S. B., Chiluiza, K., Granda, R., & Conati, C. (2018). Exploratory versus explanatory visual learning analytics: Driving teachers’ attention through educational data storytelling. Journal of Learning Analytics, 5(3), 72– 97. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18608/jla.2018.53.6

Grinis, I. (2017). The STEM Requirements of “Non-STEM” Jobs: Evidence from UK Online Vacancy Postings and Implications for Skills & Knowledge Shortages. Systemic Risk Centre.

Martinez-Maldonado, R., Echeverria, V., Nieto, G. F., Shum, S. B. (2020). From data to insights: A layered storytelling approach for multimodal learning analytics [Paper presentation]. In CHI ’20 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA.

Ryan, L. (2016). The Visual Imperative: Creating a Visual Culture of Data Discovery. Elsevier Science.

Using Hashtag Introductions To Promote Psychological Safety

cdtlsd Poster , , , ,

Jingwen CHAI

Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), NUS 

jwchai@nus.edu.sg

Chai. J. W. (2024). Using hashtag introductions to promote psychological safety [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-jchai/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Wellbeing 

KEYWORDS

Inclusivity, diversity, psychological safety, engagement

CATEGORY

Poster Presentation

 

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

Diversity and inclusivity are key elements in creating classroom environments that are psychologically safe. According to Christiansen et al. (2024), psychological safety and inclusion supports diversity, which strengthens learning outcomes and wellbeing among students. Yet, diversity and inclusivity tend to be at odds, such as the belief that a diverse team is less effective because members from different backgrounds do not work well together (Edmondson & Roloff, 2009). For educators, prioritising psychological safety is demanding as students do not work inclusively on their own – we need to guide them. 

 

Diversity can take on different forms and in higher education contexts, variety diversity is common and this is defined as diversity in skillsets and expertise (Edmondson & Roloff, 2009). Overcoming variety density necessitates helping students feel safe to be their true selves, be open to sharing their skills, and making inclusion explicit from the start (Thriving Talent, 2022).  

 

Here, I share a self-introduction activity using hashtags. It is easy to implement, and it helps students and instructors break the ice and recognise one another’s strengths. Engaging in this activity early the semester helps instructors set the tone of inclusivity. It is particularly suitable for smaller class sizes such as tutorials. 

 

When semester begins, I create a spreadsheet containing the names of the students in the tutorial class. Next, I identify a few hashtags. The hashtags represent skills that may be helpful to students for their group work. Using the course I have taught, GEI1002/GET1030 “Computers and the Humanities”, where students are taught the basics of programming, I chose the following hashtags: #programmer, #writer, #designer. Recognising that some students may not identify with the hashtags, I include #learner to encourage inclusivity. 

 

Prior to the first tutorial, I have students fill up the excel spreadsheet with the instruction, “choose, copy and paste, or add your own hashtags”. I include myself in the spreadsheet as example, making sure to include #learner to encourage my students to do the same. During the tutorial, I ask students to give a brief introduction of themselves using their hashtags. After the tutorial, they form up into groups of their choice1.  

 

Figure 1 below are two samples of completed spreadsheets, one for each semester that I taught the course. 

Figure 1. Samples of anonymised hashtag self-introductions (Click on the image to view a full-sized version).

 

From these samples, it can be observed that a handful of students identify themselves as #programmer, #writer or #designer. A larger proportion of students chose #learner. Diversity is observed as students added hashtags of their own, e.g. #photography, #maps, #naturelover, #performer, #history etc. At the same time, I found students to be excited when they identify others in the class sharing hashtags. Moreover, students with #programmer, #writer or #designer tags tended to distribute themselves evenly across groups even though there was no explicit instruction to do so. 

 

Although I did not survey students on their perception on their readiness to work with their group members as a measure of accomplishment of inclusivity2, I observed that students were more ready in engaging one another in conversations, presumably because they perceived psychological safety. Additionally, in comparison to another course that I teach using a more traditional self-introduction activity, I observed that it was for this course that students gave positive feedback for my sensitivity to their wellbeing and interests.  

 

In conclusion, creating psychologically safe spaces are important for diversity and inclusivity to flourish. While it might be a challenging ideal to achieve, I adopt the view that psychological safety can be promoted through simple steps. The hashtag self-introduction activity was conceived to help students overcome variety diversity by promoting safe and friendly disclosure, through recognising individual strengths and identifying common goals. It is easy to implement and has the potential to help educators take the first step in embracing an inclusive class culture. 

 

ENDNOTES

  1. The implementation of group formation can be flexible based on the learning outcomes that the instructor intends for. For some courses such as the example quoted in this abstract, I would instruct students to form groups of their choice with the suggestion to find friends with different strengths. In other courses, I would use the hashtags to assign students to groups. Students will be informed of the group that they are assigned to, their group mates and their hashtags. This helps students to understand the instructor’s intention to form groups with diversity in mind.
  2. We did not perform a quantifying assessment of inclusive class culture on overall student wellbeing because the activity is intended as an easy-to-implement activity with the role to warm up students, for them to be ready to embrace bigger learning outcomes of the course. We therefore assume that inclusivity promotes better learning outcomes. Future pedagogical assessments may seek to clarify the assumption.

 

REFERENCES

Christiansen, K., McKenzie-Cox, M., Korczak, P., & Lane, K. (2024, January 29). Psychological Safety: The foundation for wellbeing and inclusion. EdCan Network. https://www.edcan.ca/articles/psychological-safety-the-foundation-for-wellbeing-and-inclusion/ 

Edmondson, A., & Roloff, K. (2009). Leveraging diversity through psychological safety. Rotman Magazine, 1(2009), 47–51. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/afriberg/files/leveraging_diversity_through_psychological_safety_hbs_article.pdf

Thriving Talent. (2022). Why Psychological Safety Matters In Diversity and Inclusion. https://www.thrivingtalent.solutions/blog/why-psychological-safety-matters-in-diversity-inclusion 

Using Generative AI in Design Thinking Courses: Towards Educators’ Guidelines

cdtlsd Paper Presentations , , , ,

Kate Sangwon LEE1,* and Jung-Joo LEE2

1Engineering Design and Innovation Centre, College of Design and Engineering (CDE)
2Division of Industrial Design, CDE

*katelee@nus.edu.sg

 

Lee, K. S. W., & Lee, J. J. (2024). Using generative AI in design thinking courses: Towards educators’ guidelines [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-kswlee-jjlee/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Generative AI

KEYWORDS

Generative AI, Design-thinking, UIUX course, students assignment

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

 

INTRODUCTION

Generative AI (GenAI) applications have been extensively used in students’ assignments in design thinking courses (Hsiao & Tang, 2024) to express ideas and complete tasks (Chung et al., 2024), as shown in Figure 1. However, there are few clear guidelines about their usage due to GenAI’s novelty (Sun et al., 2024; Tholander & Jonsson, 2023; Wadinambiarachchi et al., 2024). This lack of guidance may confuse students and instructors regarding assignment guidelines and evaluation (Chung et al., 2024; Wadinambiarachchi et al., 2024). Therefore, this paper shares findings from observations on the current usage of GenAI by students in three design thinking courses at the College of Design and Engineering (CDE) at NUS during 2023-2024, aiming to identify challenges and opportunities. Finally, this paper proposes guidelines outlining students’ usage of GenAI at each stage of the design thinking process.

HECS2024-a39-Fig1Figure 1. Observed GenAI usages on the design thinking process.

METHOD

The three courses of CDE, including CDE3301R “Ideas to Proof-of-Concept”, CDE4301A “Ideas to Start-up”, and CDE5311 “Essential Skills in UI/UX Design”, were observed by instructors in 2023-2024, and students’ assignments served as supplementary material. All three courses were design thinking-based, and students conducted relevant methods in each phase as their projects progressed. They used GenAI in this process, and the lecturer and teaching assistant analysed the submitted assignments in terms of the GenAI usage’s relevance and effectiveness.

FINDINGS

Inspired and restricted at the same time by conceptual images (Discover phase)

  • In CDE3301R, students used the GenAI, Midjourney, to create conceptual images (Figure 2) by inputting project keywords as prompts to get inspiration for prototypes. Though the images helped specify initial ideas, they sometimes restricted students’ imagination boundaries.

HECS2024-a39-Fig2

Figure 2. An example of a GenAI-generated conceptual image.

Ambiguity in AI-generated images for storyboard (Define phase)

  • Students used GenAI to create storyboards in CDE5311 (Figure 3). However, many of the storyboards were abstract and ambiguous, which is not aligned with the method’s purpose. A storyboard as a UX method should convey an accurate environment or facial expressions, which are desired to be shown to describe the exact situations and users’ pain points, such as in a student’s drawing storyboard (Figure 4). Current GenAI applications are not capable enough of generating accurate images. Thus, using GenAI to create a storyboard may not be recommendable.

HECS2024-a39-Fig3

Figure 3. An example of a GenAI-generated storyboard.

 

HECS2024-a39-Fig4

Figure 3. An example of a storyboard drawn by a student.

 

Quality gap in ideation and prototyping (Develop phase)

  • In CDE4301A, students used GenAI for UI ideation in the early stage of UI prototyping as an inspiration tool (Figure 5). When compared to the UI created by the student (Figure 6), he reflected, “It is hard to generate specific UI details with acceptable quality…It is more suitable for ideation or early prototyping.”

HECS2024-a39-Fig5-6

Figure 5. An example of UI created by GenAI (Left),
Figure 6. An example of UI created by a student (Right).

 

Generic draft required refinement (Deliver phase)

  • In CDE5311, students used ChatGPT to generate a user test protocol. GenAI effectively created a draft, but it lacked specificity about the project context; thus, the experienced instructor needed help refining it.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In the divergent phases (Discover and Develop), GenAI can be used as a supporting tool to get inspiration (Tholander & Jonsson, 2023). However, in the convergent phases (Define and Deliver), GenAI’s ambiguity did not effectively convey the exact ideas needed due to its lack of specificity and accuracy, which are attributes required in those phases (Tholander & Jonsson, 2023). Furthermore, depending on the students’ ability in each phase, the effectiveness of GenAI can differ (Cai et al., 2023). For example, if a student is a design novice, they would not have enough ability to discern the most effective and relevant outcomes from GenAI. Educators must selectively recommend using GenAI regarding students’ expertise and experience in each phase. Our proposal includes a few suggestions for the Usage of GenAI in the design thinking courses as below:

  • In the divergent phases (Discover and Develop), instructors should advise students to use various prompts to generate more diverse outcomes that can support ideation processes.
  • In the convergent phases (Define and Deliver), students can use GenAI to create initial drafts, but experienced instructors should assist in refining them to increase specificity reflecting project context.

REFERENCES

Cai, A., Rick, S. R., Heyman, J. L., Zhang, Y., Filipowicz, A., Hong, M., Klenk, M., & Malone, T. (2023). DesignAID: Using Generative AI and Semantic Diversity for Design Inspiration Proceedings of The ACM Collective Intelligence Conference. https://doi.org/10.1145/3582269.3615596

Chung, A., He, Y. C., Lin, L. F., & Liang, Y. W. (2024). Importance of Different AI-Generated Journey Map Modules from Industrial Design Students’ Perspectives. 2024 IEEE 7th Eurasian Conference on Educational Innovation (ECEI).

Hsiao, H. L., & Tang, H. H. (2024). A Study on the Application of Generative AI Tools in Assisting the User Experience Design Process. In International Conference on Human- Computer Interaction (pp. 175-189). Springer Nature Switzerland.

Sun, Y., Jang, E., Ma, F., & Wang, T. (2024). Generative AI in the Wild: Prospects, Challenges, and Strategies. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-16).

Tholander, J., & Jonsson, M. (2023). Design Ideation with AI – Sketching, Thinking and Talking with Generative Machine Learning Models. Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563657.3596014

Wadinambiarachchi, S., Kelly, R. M., Pareek, S., Zhou, Q., & Velloso, E. (2024). The Effects of Generative AI on Design Fixation and Divergent Thinking. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Exploring The Potential Of Mentorship Programmes In Supporting Students’ Wellbeing

cdtlsd Paper Presentations , ,

Hui Ting CHNG1, * and Golda Zhizhen WANG2

1Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Science, NUS
2Department of Pharmacy, Alexandra Hospital, Singapore

*phacht@nus.edu.sg

Chng, H. T., & Wang, G. Z. (2024). Exploring the potential of mentorship programmes in supporting students’ wellbeing [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-chng-wang/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Wellbeing

KEYWORDS

Mentorship, wellbeing

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

INTRODUCTION

Mentorship plays an important role in the academic and professional development of individuals across various fields. Effective mentorship is not only beneficial for enhancing learning outcomes and career advancement, but could potentially impact the wellbeing of mentees. Burnout, defined by the World Health Organization as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, is characterised by: (1) Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, (2) Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and (3) Reduced professional efficacy. Health professions students are particularly susceptible to burnout due to intense academic pressures, long hours, and emotional demands (Dyrbye et al., 2006; Hirsch et al., 2009; Ishak et al., 2013). Effective mentorship can mitigate burnout in various ways. Mentors can provide a social support system (Haase, 2020), role-model (Hagemann et al., 2020) and foster resilience among mentees, a quality that protects against burnout (Tan et al., 2022). Mentors can also provide advice on work-life balance (Raub et al., 2015).

 

Since 2021, an alumni mentorship programme (INSPIRxE) for pharmacy and pharmaceutical science undergraduates in the National University of Singapore (NUS) was launched where alumni mentors mentored students for nine months-long in a group format. The aim of the programme is for mentees to enhance their skills and knowledge, seek feedback for personal and professional development, and gain insights about their passion and interests. While it was not formally briefed to mentors and mentees that the mentorship programme could also support mentees’ wellbeing, topics on managing stress, conflicts, and work-life balance were included in the mentor/mentee guidebook as suggested discussion topics.

 

This presentation explores the potential of mentorship programmes in supporting students’ wellbeing. Specifically, we present findings from NUS Academic Year (AY) 2022/23 INSPIRxE, evaluating if the topic of burnout was discussed amongst mentors and mentees.

METHODS

In AY2022/23, 38 mentees were mentored by 22 alumni mentors in 11 groups. Mentors and mentees were invited to participate in a survey to evaluate the impact of INSPIRxE on mentee’s professional development in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude. A subset of five questions related to burnout was included in the survey to assess if mentees and mentors discussed this topic during their interactions.

RESULTS

Thirty-six (95%) mentees and 16 (73%) mentors responded to the survey. After being presented with the WHO definition of burnout, 63.9% of the mentees agreed that they were experiencing burnout in their studies. 47.2% felt that their mentors taught them strategies to prevent burnout. This was comparable to 68.8% of mentors who responded that they taught their mentees strategies to prevent burnout. 52.9% of mentees felt that they were inclined to approach their mentors in times of difficulty. This was consistent with 43.8% of mentors who agreed that their mentees approached them in times of difficulty.

CONCLUSION

The extent of burnout reported by the mentees was alarming. While providing support on wellbeing was never specified in the aims of the mentorship programme, it is heartening to note that mentees sought mentors’ support during challenging times, and mentors provided tips on ways to prevent burnout. In the context of INSPIRxE, the alumni mentors are working adults with rich work and life experiences. These mentors bring in a different dimension of advice which complements that of academic mentors. We posit that students may feel less inhibited to confide with the alumni mentors especially if the concerns are studies related. They may also trust the advice of the alumni mentors given their wealth of experience in the “real-world”. Our findings suggest that mentorship programmes hold a great potential in supporting students’ wellbeing.

REFERENCES

Dyrbye, L. N., Thomas, M. R., & Shanafelt, T. D. (2006). Systematic review of depression, anxiety, and other indicators of psychological distress among U.S. and Canadian medical students. Acad Med, 81(4), 354-373. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001888-200604000-00009

Haase, K. K. (2020). Addressing burnout in clinical pharmacy: What can we learn from other health care disciplines? JACCP: JOURNAL OF THE American College of Clinical Pharmacy, 3(3), 645-654. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/jac5.1189

Hagemann, T. M., Reed, B. N., Bradley, B. A., Clements, J. N., Cohen, L. J., Coon, S. A., Derington, C. G., DiScala, S. L., El-Ibiary, S., Lee, K. C., May, A., Oh, S., Phillips, J. A., & Rogers, K. M. (2020). Burnout among clinical pharmacists: Causes, interventions, and a call to action. JACCP: Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, 3(4), 832-842. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/jac5.1256

Hirsch, J. D., Do, A. H., Hollenbach, K. A., Manoguerra, A. S., & Adler, D. S. (2009). Students’ health-related quality of life across the preclinical pharmacy curriculum. Am J Pharm Educ, 73(8), 147. https://doi.org/10.5688/aj7308147

Ishak, W., Nikravesh, R., Lederer, S., Perry, R., Ogunyemi, D., & Bernstein, C. (2013). Burnout in medical students: a systematic review. Clin Teach, 10(4), 242-245. https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.12014

Raub, J. N., Thurston, T. M., Fiorvento, A. D., Mynatt, R. P., & Wilson, S. S. (2015). Implementation and outcomes of a pharmacy residency mentorship programme. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 72(11_Supplement_1), S1-S5. https://doi.org/10.2146/ajhp140884

Tan, Y. Z., Chong, J. J., Chew, L. S. T., Tan, K. H., & Wang, A. (2022). Burnout and resilience among pharmacists: A Singapore study. JACCP: Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, 5(1), 75-84. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/jac5.1551

Empowering Student Engagement and Community Impact Through Codesign: A Case Study in Health District

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Bina Rai1,*, Brian R. STONE2, and William SIEW3

1Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS
2Division of Industrial Design, CDE, NUS
3Spark-a-life, Singapore

*biebr@nus.edu.sg

 

Rai. B., Stone, B. R., & Siew, W. (2024). Empowering student engagement and community impact through co-design: A case study in health district [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-rai-et-al/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Engaging Communities

 

KEYWORDS

Codesign, empathy mapping, community engagement, health district, student empowerment

 

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

 

INTRODUCTION

In the realm of design innovation education, the challenge of instilling empathy among engineering students is pervasive. Conventional methods like persona readings or video observations often fall short in equipping students to truly understand and address user needs effectively. This gap not only impedes innovation but also results in prototypes that remain unutilised, failing to serve their intended communities.

PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH

To address these issues, a codesign approach was adopted, augmented by two novel empathy mapping methods: Care Circle (CC), and See and Shoot (SS) (Siew W, et al., 2022; Siew W, et al., 2023). Unlike traditional design processes, codesign involves stakeholders—including those directly impacted by designs—from the outset, fostering joint inquiry and ensuring solutions resonate with real-world needs. Our research questions were:

  1. How does the integration of CC and SS empathy mapping methods in a codesign approach influence engineering students’ understanding and application of inclusive design principles?
  2. Would collaborative experiences with community partners, industry experts, and residents enhance students’ problem-solving skills and innovation in empathic design?

IMPLEMENTATION: CODESIGN WEEK

We organised Codesign Week, which is a design sprint focused on developing transformative technologies for senior communities in a health district precinct. Undergraduate students from the autonomous universities in Singapore collaborated with community partners, industry experts, and senior residents from Queenstown and Whampoa. Guided by the CC and SS empathy mapping methods, interdisciplinary student teams engaged in problem-solving through empathic technology design. Students went on site visits (Figure 1), and engaged in focus group discussions with the community partners and seniors (Figure 2). They were then introduced to insights translation, problem-to-opportunity identification, brainstorming, and validation of solution ideas. The sprint culminated in a pitch and poster presentation by the students for the seniors on the final day.

HECS2024-a14-Fig1

Figure 1. Photographs of students on site visits with community partners at Lion Befrienders, ComSA (Tsao Foundation), and Huawei AI Lab.

 

HECS2024-a14-Fig2

Figure 2. Photographs of students actively engaging with the elderly.

EVIDENCE OF IMPACT

Indirect Measures (Student Perception of Programme)

Based on a 7-point Likert scale, the survey results from Codesign Week 2024 (n=15) revealed a high satisfaction level among participants. The overall experience received a mean rating of 5.73 +/- 1.03, and the programme flow was rated at 5.53 +/- 0.99, demonstrating the event’s well-organised structure. Co-instructors received positive ratings, with a mean of 6.07 +/- 0.88, and community partner engagement was rated similarly high at 6.13 +/- 0.92. Mentors’ support was also positively rated, with a mean score 5.93 +/- 0.96. The venue’s suitability was rated at 5.67 +/- 1.05, showing general satisfaction with the facilities.

 

Indirect Measures (Student Perception of Learning): Pre- and post-programe surveys indicated a notable increase in students’ perceived understanding of inclusive design principles and their confidence in addressing challenges related to the elderly in Singapore. The survey results from Codesign Week 2024 (n=15) revealed that 80% of respondents rated their understanding of design thinking principles at 5 or above, resulting in a mean score of 5.60 +/- 0.99. Similarly, 80% rated their improvement in collaboration skills at 5 or above, with a mean score of 5.93 +/- 1.03. The hands-on activities were valuable for learning about inclusive and empathic design, with 80% rating them at 5 or above and a mean score of 5.40 +/- 1.24. Instructors observed that participants managed challenges effectively, demonstrating resilience and adaptability.

 

Direct Measures (Evidence of Learning): The teams successfully codesigned empathic technology solutions that met community needs, leading to significant recognition. Notably, two teams using CC/SS methods secured second place and runner-up at a national level competition, Tech4City, organised by Huawei. The solutions have been adopted by bGood (https://nusbme.wixsite.com/bgood) for development and deployment into the community.

CONCLUSION

The Codesign Week not only enhanced student learning in empathic design but also catalyzed community impact through innovative solutions. This pedagogical approach yielded academic outputs and garnered community trust and interest, evidenced by invitations to lead further codesign discussions and collaborations. This case study highlights the potential of codesign methodologies to foster meaningful collaborations and innovations that address real-world challenges, offering valuable insights for educators and practitioners seeking to integrate empathy-driven design into educational curricula and community initiatives.

REFERENCES

Siew, W., Rai, B., Stone, B. R., & Ho, D. (2022). Designing for inclusive and engaged communities. Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2022.5.2.10

Siew, W., Silva, A., & Rai, B. (2023). Using likelihood ratio table and Naïve Bayes classifier method to holistically assess codesign programmes and methods. In Proceedings of the Design Society, 3, 3751–3760. https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2023.376

 

AI And Agency: Understanding The Impact of AI on Student Agency

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Nina L. POWELL

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)

nina.powell@nus.edu.sg

Powell, N. L. (2024). AI and agency: Understanding the impact of AI on student agency [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-nlpowell/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Generative AI

KEYWORDS

Agency, generative AI, perspective-driven learning

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

Our increased reliance on automation and operation within a programmable world has consequences for our autonomy and sense of agency as human beings. This has particularly important consequences for the context of higher education and student learning. Agency in student learning is a concept emphasised in the pedagogical literature. Agency refers to students’ ability to take an active role in their learning process by making choices, setting goals, and taking initiative (Stenalt & Lassesen, 2022). Research suggests that when students have a sense of agency, they are more engaged, motivated, and empowered in their learning (Luo et al., 2019). This leads to better academic outcomes, improved critical thinking skills, and increased self-efficacy. When students feel a sense of agency, they are more likely to take ownership of their learning, set meaningful goals, and persist in the face of challenges. This active involvement in the learning process leads to deeper understanding, improved critical thinking skills, and enhanced problem-solving abilities. Encouraging agency in the classroom can be achieved through various strategies such as providing opportunities for student choice, fostering a supportive learning environment, and encouraging reflection. Further, as a mechanism of agency, non-dual thinking is argued to benefit mental health, lead to sustainable progress and goal efficacy, as well as being helpful in navigating uncertainty (Chopra & Castle, 2024). Ultimately, agentic students take control of their respective learning journeys, and develop the confidence to be self-directed in their learning (Gresham, 2019). Generative AI has the potential to impact students’ sense of agency, as perceiving generative AI as having human-like characteristics or a perspective has implications for what we think it means to be human. Our perception of AI can potentially lead to a reduction in our understanding of human agency and what it means to have a human perspective; if we see humans as programmable, this can impact how we learn and reason in the context of higher education.

 

Automation and generative AI deliver fast and convenient solutions to many of our modern problems, yet reliance on automation and generative AI has the potential to reduce our sense of control and efficacy by removing the human being from the equation, and further reducing the uniquely human qualities that we may confuse with what is programmed to look human. Further, our view of human exceptionalism may be compromised by the parallels between human and machine in that we see ourselves as analogous to the determined machine. This challenges our sense of freedom and involvement in decision-making and choice and leads us to an endlessly predictable and programmable person rather than an autonomous and agentic person. This paper presentation will focus on my theoretical and empirical work that speaks to the following questions: when using the machine mind to understand the human mind in education, do students maintain value and belief in autonomy and agency, and as students see potentially less need for human involvement in scholarship, industry, and overall decision-making. do they see themselves as capable agents of change and influence? Are there ways that we can use generative AI in the classroom that offers a clear distinction between what is truly human and agentic or perspective-driven versus programmed and without perspective? I offer some ideas for ways that we can integrate generative AI into our teaching practices that retains and even emphasises the uniquely human qualities of agency and perspective-driven higher-order thinking and scholarship.

 

REFERENCES

 Chopra, D., & Castle, R. D. (2024). Non-duality and mental health. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 10, 100934. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2024.100934

Gresham, J. D. (2019). Self-directed learning: Empowering authentic learner autonomy through self-agency in the secondary school learning environment. California Institute of Integral Studies.

Luo, H., Yang, T., Xue, J., & Zuo, M. (2019). Impact of student agency on learning performance and learning experience in a flipped classroom. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(2), 819-831. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12604

Stenalt, M. H., & Lassesen, B. (2022). Does student agency benefit student learning? A systematic review of higher education research. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 47(5), 653- 669. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1967874.

 

Does Grading an Assignment Matter for Student Engagement – A Case Study in an Interdisciplinary Course with Science and Humanities

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LIU Mei Hui1 and Stephen En Rong TAY2

1Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Humanities and Sciences, NUS
2Department of the Built Environment, College of Design and Engineering (CDE), NUS

fstlmh@nus.edu.sg; stephen.tay@nus.edu.sg

 

Liu, M. H., & Tay, S. E. R. (2024). Does grading an assignment matter for student engagement: A case study in an interdisciplinary course with science and humanities [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-liu-tay/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Engaging Communities

 

KEYWORDS

Interdisciplinarity, peer learning, student-generated questions, assessment, feedback

 

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

 

INTRODUCTION

The Scientific Inquiry II (SI2) course – HSI2007 “Deconstructing Food” – employed scenario-based student-generated questions and answers (sb-SGQA) previously to encourage interdisciplinary learning (Tay & Liu, 2023). In the activity, students were tasked to develop questions and answers based on the learning objectives that are contextualised to community examples beyond the classroom. This contextualisation to a scenario helps develop authentic assessment (Wiggins, 1990). To further increase student engagement with the sb-SGQA activity, the sb-SGQA activity changed to a graded assignment in AY2023/24 Semester 1. This was motivated by literature that reports how a graded assignment motivates students in their learning, specifically as an extrinsic motivator, in which students are incentivised to work towards a reward (i.e. good grade) (Docan, 2006; Harlen et al., 2002; Schinske & Tanner, 2014). Hence, this study aims to answer the following questions:

  1. Does the graded sb-SGQA improve student performance, evidenced through a comparison of the continual assessment marks between the graded and ungraded cohorts?
  2. What are students’ perceptions of the sb-SGQA approach from both the graded and ungraded cohorts?

METHODOLOGY

The graded sb-SGQA (20% weightage) was adopted in AY2023/24 Semester 1, and results were compared with data from AY2022/23 Semester 2, when the sb-SGQA was not graded. Across both cohorts, two continual assessment (CA) components, a MCQ Quiz (20% weightage) and Individual Essay (20% weightage) were analysed as these two components were present in both cohorts. Numerical data was analysed with JASP, an open-source statistical package (Love et al., 2019).

RESULTS

In Figure 1, students analysed and discussed differences between meals served to students in the East and West differ, and Figure 2 demonstrates how students employed content materials from the online community for a case study. Through these questions, students demonstrated concepts of nutrition, food microbiology (e.g., fermented foods), and health-related information.

HECS2024-a20-Fig1

Figure 1. Example of students’ work analysing meals in other communities

 

HECS2024-a20-Fig2

Figure 2. Student work in question-and-answer generation through engaging the digital community.

Though formal evidence has not been collected, we believe the project is impactful based on several observations. Participants demonstrate increased confidence and curiosity as they develop coding and robotics skills, particularly after successfully completing projects or engaging in hackathons. Exposure to tech fairs broadens their understanding of technology’s potential and encourages further exploration. These activities are designed to spark interest in technology and create a positive learning environment, which we believe is key to fostering long-term engagement in the field.

 

When the CA scores were analysed, a statistically significant difference was observed for the MCQ Quiz but not for the Individual Essay (refer to Table 1). This could be attributed to the open-ended nature of the Individual Essay assessment component, which requires student competencies in articulation of ideas and positioning their views, which may have masked the effect.

Table 1
Score comparisons for MCQ Quiz, Individual Essay, and CA across the graded (n=102) and ungraded (n=184) cohorts

HECS2024-a20-Table1

 

Table 2 represents student feedback on the sb-SGQA approach. Majority of the students in both the graded and ungraded cohorts shared that the sb-SGQA has helped with their learning. Though the activity was challenging, the students enjoyed it and recommended it for future courses. The qualitative feedback (refer to Table 3) revealed how Humanities and Sciences students appreciated how their diverse views could be incorporated through the sb-SGQA (Humanities 1, Humanities 3, Science 3). The sb-SGQA also forces students to reflect deeper on the course materials to develop meaningful questions and answers, thus aiding their learning (Humanities 2, Science 1). The contextualisation of the learning objectives to community examples was appreciated by students (Humanities 4, Science 2). The approach was also utilised by students to integrate topics taught through the entire course, thus allowing students to appreciate the course as a whole (Science 4). The themes were similar in the ungraded cohorts.

 

Table 2
Student feedback from the graded (left) and ungraded (right) cohorts separated by “/”. Responses represented as a percentage, and were obtained from 102 respondents in the graded cohort and 120 respondents in the ungraded cohort. The modes are bolded for highlight

HECS2024-a20-Table2

 

Table 3
Qualitative feedback from Humanities and Science students in the graded cohort

HECS2024-a20-Table3

CONCLUSION AND SIGNIFICANCE

The change to a graded assignment increased students’ performance in the MCQ Quiz segment but not the Individual Essay segment. Student perceptions to the approach were generally positive across both the graded and ungraded cohorts. The results suggest that students’ perceived value of a learning activity may not be solely dependent on whether the learning activity is graded or not. The significance of this study lies in how the use of sb-SGQA could aid with community engagement in the creation of case studies without software and hardware costs involved.

REFERENCES

Docan, T. N. (2006). Positive and negative incentives in the classroom: An analysis of grading systems and student motivation. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6, 21-40. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/1668/1666

Harlen, W., Crick, R. D., Broadfoot, P., Daugherty, R., Gardner, J., James, M., & Stobart, G. (2002). A systematic review of the impact of summative assessment and tests on students’ motivation for learning. https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/19607/1/SysRevImpSummativeAssessment2002.pdf

Love, J., Selker, R., Marsman, M., Jamil, T., Dropmann, D., Verhagen, J., Ly, A., Gronau, Q. F., Šmíra, M., Epskamp, S., Matzke, D., Wild, A., Knight, P., Rouder, J. N., Morey, R. D., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2019). JASP: Graphical Statistical Software for Common Statistical Designs. Journal of Statistical Software, 88(2), 1 – 17. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v088.i02

Schinske, J., & Tanner, K. (2014). Teaching more by grading less (or differently). CBE Life Sci Educ, 13(2), 159-166. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.cbe-14-03-0054

Tay, E. R. S., & Liu, M. H. (2023, 7 December 2023). Exploratory implementation of scenario-based student-generated questions for students from the humanities and sciences in a scientific inquiry course. Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/exploratory-implementation-of-scenario-based-student-generated-questions-for-students-from-the-humanities-and-sciences-in-a-scientific-inquiry-course/

Wiggins, G. (1990). The case for authentic assessment. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, 2, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.7275/ffb1-mm19

Community Engagement: Validation of Assessment Tools (NUSTA C&E Project Team)

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Misty So-Sum Wai COOK1,*, Peace WONG Yuh Ju2,*, Lydia LAU3, ZHENG Liren2, and Reuben WONG4

1Centre for English Language Communication (CELC)
2Department of Social Work, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
3Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (YLLSOM)
4Department of Political Science, FASS

*elcmsw@nus.edu.sg; swkwyj@nus.edu.sg

Wai-Cook, M. S. S., NUSTA Community Engagement Team, Wong, P. Y. J., Lau, L. S. T., Zheng, L., & Wong, R. (2024). Community engagement: Validation of assessment tools (NUSTA C&E Project Team) [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-waicook-et-al/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Engaging Communities

KEYWORDS

Assessment tools, assessment tool evaluation and validation, communities and engagement, socio-emotional competencies

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation 

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

The Ministry of Education (MOE) Singapore implemented the 21st Century Competencies framework to nurture Singaporeans into citizens capable of living in the 21st Century (MOE, 2023). In this model, socio-emotional competencies such as communication, civic-mindedness, tolerance towards others, relationship management, and social awareness have been identified as essential for a person to be able to live in harmony with the people around them (Graham, 2015; Soffel, 2016). In Singapore, service learning has been identified as the means to achieve and inculcate these essential socio-emotional competencies in students (Shumer et al., 2012).

 

Service-learning has been described as experiential learning through performing community service and reflecting on the service experience (Anderson, et al., 2001; Daniels et al., 2010). Educational institutes have implemented it to inculcate civic-mindedness and social responsibility in their students (Battistoni, 2002). Literature has shown that the service- learning curriculum has reared positive learning outcomes for building socio-emotional competencies in students. For instance, Hale (2005) found that service-learning motivated students to improve their communication skills to better engage community partners. In Indonesia, the service-learning curriculum has also reared positive results in inculcating positive pro-social characteristics like tolerance for others and caring for the community (Casmana et al., 2023).

 

In alignment with the NUS Communities and Engagement (CE) pillar, the objectives of this project are to measure the effectiveness of the course by measuring students’ ability to show empathy and communication skills, and exploring ways to assist the tutors on the ground with the best practices in teaching a CE course. We began the project by providing a landscape survey on seven CE courses to understand the challenges faced by the course coordinators and validated our proposed assessment tools with the course coordinators.

 

In our landscape survey, we aimed to ascertain: (a) the nature of CE courses being offered by different faculties, such as learning objectives, duration of the course, course credits, assessment components, and type of communities being engaged, and (b) the challenges faced by course coordinators and students. Snowball sampling was utilised and a total of 7 faculty members responded. Findings suggested that the nature of CE courses is varied and the challenges faced by course coordinators include:

a. Establishing a partnership to ensure a win-win approach.
b. Managing real-world problems: finding suitable placements for quality projects.
c. Supporting a large number of students in placements.
d. Attitudes towards service learning: ensure students are serious about learning.
e. Faculty development: teaching students how to be reflective and apply knowledge/skills confidently.

 

The relevant scales that could be used or adapted include (i) Common Outcome Measurement (COM); Service-Learning Outcomes Measurement Scale (S-LOMS); Personal- interpersonal competence assessment (PICA); Community Service Attitude Test, and Civic- minded Graduate Scale (CMGS). Each of the scales was looked at individually and their domains were compared to the learning objectives of NUS CE courses to determine the suitability in measuring the effectiveness of the course. In addition to considering validated tools, other forms of assessment were considered, such as the use of scenario-based questions.

 

Having done the literature review, the team deliberated on using validated tools to measure the effectiveness of CE courses as compared to developing assessment tools to support course coordinators, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of CE courses. As such, the following assessment tools were developed, namely, (a) reflection paper assessment rubric on empathy for use by course coordinators; (b) assessment rubric on collaboration and communication, and (c) scenario-based situations to assess students’ empathy.

 

Below are our assessment tools with feedback and recommendations shared by the course coordinators, stakeholders, and students.

Assessment tools and feedback:

  1. Reflection paper assessment rubric on empathy for use by course coordinators
    Feedback: Difficulty in developing empathy for the CE courses as there are various factors which impact their learning
  2. Assessment rubric on collaboration and communication for use by onsite supervisors
    Feedback: Onsite supervisors are mainly involved in administrative work, and generally do not have the bandwidth to support students’ learning. Students are sometimes being matched to volunteers who will co-work with them on the programme. It is hard for them to be able to make an assessment of our students’ development of personal and interpersonal skills.
  3. Scenario-based situations to assess students’ empathy
    May be helpful to elicit an understanding of students’ level of empathy or development of interpersonal skills.

 

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