Yuen Fook Chan

Establishing a Holistic Approach for Postgraduate Supervision

The internationalisation and democratisation of higher education in the twenty-first century has raised myriad issues surrounding postgraduate supervision. Research supervision which was once regarded as a ‘private space’ defining a narrow and intense relationship between an academic and a research student is today viewed as a multidimensional relationship involving a fabric of interwoven experiences which necessitate a more holistic approach to postgraduate research supervision. This paper proposes to put forward a holistic approach to support postgraduate supervision based on the findings derived from a study conducted in two public universities in Malaysia. The study involved a total of 66 Malaysian postgraduate students and 30 supervisors. Data were collected using questionnaires and semi structured interviews. The study investigated aspects such as the roles and responsibilities of supervisors, qualities of the good supervisor, supervisory practices and challenges faced by both parties. Initial findings indicated that there were differences between supervisors’ and supervisees’ expectations of the roles and responsibilities of their supervisors and supervisory practices. Nevertheless, both supervisors and supervisees highlighted similar issues and challenges such as the need for research students to develop competence and confidence in the following skills: academic reading, writing, research and conceptual skills. Postgraduate supervision should be viewed as a facilitative process involving a number of domains and processes that can help student progress their candidature through effective mentoring and providing support for student participation in academic practice. Therefore, based on the findings the proposed holistic approach for postgraduate supervision takes into consideration the tenets laid down by educationists such as Maslow, Rogers, Gardner and Vygotsky alongside the four main domains of the Malaysian National Education Philosophy so that students are cognitively, spiritually, emotionally and physically balanced.

Anxiety in Learning English as a Second Language (ESL) Among Tertiary Students

In Malaysia, English is taught as a compulsory second language in all public schools. However, when students move from schools to tertiary institutions where the medium of instruction is English, there is bound to be a feeling of anxiety. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the anxiety levels of tertiary students in an institution where English is the medium of instruction. This descriptive study involved 376 students from three branch campuses and data were collected using a mixed-methods research design through the use of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings of the study revealed that a majority of the students indicated that they possessed a moderate level of anxiety. Nonetheless, they took little initiative to work on their limitations and a majority indicated that they were not autonomous language learners. The findings imply that tertiary language learners must be helped to equip themselves with skills, so that they can learn on their own.

Examining Contributory Factors and Barriers to Success in Academic Writing Among Undergraduates

Writing in higher education has been linked to assessments and student success. Thus, this study examined factors that contributed to success and those which were barriers to success in first-year undergraduate’s academic writing. The study involved 56 randomly selected students from the social science and science disciplines from a local public university. Data were collected using a questionnaire and interviews. Findings showed that the students faced challenges with the academic writing requirements in higher education and language. The students looked to themselves, i.e., their motivation and self-responsibility to address these challenges. Besides, they also relied on the internet, peers, and instructors to help them in their academic writing. These findings provide insights into support that can be provided to first-year undergraduates to promote success in academic writing.

Standard-Based Performance Assessment’s Scoring Practice in Primary Schools

There is a global shift from teaching of learning to teaching for learning in school. The Ministry of Education (MOE), Malaysia, is also emulating the global shift by implementing standard-based educational system starting from 2011. The system upholds formative assessment as a tool to integrate assessment into teaching and learning. However, the scoring in formative environment that is supposed to be conducted as authentic assessment is subjected to reliability issues. Hence, this study was conducted specially to identify the reliability of teachers’ scoring in formative assessment environment and to identify whether there was a significant difference between formative and summative assessment scoring in the study. A total of 11 teachers and 530 students from grade A national primary schools in Selangor have been selected for the study. The data collected from test instruments and performance reports were analysed using quantitative method. The Cohen’s kappa statistical test indicated that teachers’ scoring in formative environment was subjected to low reliability. The result of inter-rater scoring agreement indicated that most of the teachers overestimated their students’ performance level (>80 %, n = 423). In terms of inter-rater agreement in teachers’ scoring, the chi-square analysis showed that there was no significant difference between scoring practices with three variables, namely (1) students’ grade level, (2) students’ gender, and (3) teachers’ option in teaching. The analysis found that there was a significant difference between scoring practices based on school location. The findings further indicated that there was a higher agreement (14 %) identified on scores given to rural students as compared to urban students (7 %). Hence, better professional development and training in quality standard-based performance assessment scoring are seen as ways to improve teachers’ scoring practice in standard-based performance assessment.

Assessing Writing Skills of Postgraduate Students: Perspectives of Supervisors and Supervisees

There has been a significant increase in the number of students who have enrolled for postgraduate degrees in Malaysia for the past couple of years. However, the number of postgraduates (PG) who have successfully completed their degrees remains low due to high attrition rate. To address this problem, it is therefore important to investigate the critical factors that facilitate successful and efficient completion of the PG degree. One key factor is the writing skills of PG students as it is an essential skill for academic success. This paper aims to assess students’ readiness for PG study in terms of writing skills from the perspectives of supervisors and supervisees. The study involved 209 supervisees and 121 supervisors from two local public universities in Malaysia. Data were collected using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The results show that respondents perceived that supervisees were moderately ready for their PG study with regard to their writing skills. This suggests that PG students have adequate writing skills to cope with PG study. Additionally, the independent t test results also show that there was a significant difference between the perceptions of supervisees and supervisors regarding PG students’ writing skills. It shows that supervisees think that they have a higher moderate readiness in their writing skills as compared to the supervisors. The results also show that students were less ready to write content with clarity and needed improvement in the quality of their argument. This has implications for enhancement of supervisory practices in terms of advancing approaches to further develop postgraduate students’ writing skills that are essential for successful completion of their study.

Assessing the Critical Reading Skills of Postgraduate Students: Perspectives of Supervisors and Supervisees

The advent of the Information Age witnessed the democratization and massification of higher education in the twenty-first century all around the globe. Despite the significant increase in postgraduate study, attrition rates have been rather high, whilst graduate completion rates continue to fall. One of the reasons cited has been students’ incompetency to handle postgraduate study due to their limited academic literacy and research skills. Critical reading skills are often viewed as a fundamental pillar for postgraduate study. Therefore, the main aim of this paper was to assess the postgraduate students’ critical reading skills from the perspectives of both students and their supervisors. This descriptive study involved 209 postgraduate students and 121 supervisors from two local public universities in Malaysia. Data were collected using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference in the assessment of critical reading skills of postgraduate students from the perspectives of supervisors and postgraduate students. Students perceived that they had a higher moderate level of readiness compared to supervisors. Supervisors also felt that students possessed limited readiness in terms of critical reading skills such as questioning and evaluating texts. These results have implications for the need for innovative approaches to advance the critical reading skills of postgraduate students.

Assessing Writing Readiness for Academic Purposes Among Students in Higher Education

The ability to write well is important for academic success in higher education. The questions that arise are whether students are ready for academic writing in higher education and their awareness of their readiness. These questions were a catalyst for the researchers to develop a self-assessment checklist to investigate the readiness of students in higher education for academic writing. This paper describes the development of the writing readiness checklist based on theories and pertinent literature. The resulting checklist comprises two categories: writing skills and writing strategies. This checklist aims to create awareness among students on their readiness in writing and to guide them to obtain feedback to improve writing. A preliminary study using this checklist was conducted with a group of 40 ESL students in a local public university. This paper reports the findings for one writing skill, drafting. The students depicted higher capacity for organisation in writing their drafts but avoided writing multiple drafts. They indicated a degree of readiness for writing with regard to drafting. These findings were corroborated by interview findings and the checklist score. These findings have implications for using the checklist to guide students in higher education to develop writing readiness and proficiency and to take an active role in learning and for faculty to use the checklist to provide pertinent feedback.

Active Learning in Higher Education: A Case Study

This study is an attempt to analyse the active learning practices among students and lecturers in a higher learning institute in the United States. This study is a qualitative study with five undergraduates, five postgraduates and five instructors as the informants. The instruments used were classroom observations, interviews, open-ended section in the questionnaires and relevant document research. The high level of agreement among students indicated that active learning had been practised widely in higher education. The finding indicated students in higher education were fond of active learning to achieve optimum learning outcomes. The findings indicated that active learning is best conducted through group discussion, project and case study and is best used with strategies such as assigned reading, project paper, case study and reflective writing. The findings proposed that strategies promoting active learning be defined as instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing.

A Sociocultural Perspective of Factors Influencing Academic Writing from School to Postsecondary Education

This study examined the experience of academic writing of English as a second language (ESL) students in postsecondary education by examining their writing transition from secondary school to postsecondary level in order to obtain a rich picture. A sociocultural approach was used to look into students’ beliefs about writing, expectations of writing and desire for self-expression in writing as they moved from school to postsecondary education. The instruments used in this study were interviews, personal narratives and students’ essays. The findings depicted that students’ academic writing was impacted by students’ histories, experiences and participation in the writing community which were intertwined with individual, institutional and societal factors. This study has implications for teaching and learning of academic writing, i.e. the impact of sociocultural factors, students’ personal histories, experience and intent participation on academic writing should not be underestimated.