Education

9.00 - 9.30

Registration & Welcome: Dr Wan Ng

9.30 – 10.15

Keynote: Associate Professor Bernie Neville
Paradigms in Research Methodology

Parallel sessions
(25 mins each)

10.15 – 10.40

10.40 - 11.05

Room 318 (Boardroom)
Chair: Dr Wan Ng

Yusri Yamin
Comparative study in vocational education and training (VET) –Australia/Malaysia

Penkhae Wongsuriya
Teaching Interactive Listening Comprehension Via ICT

Room 329
Chair: Dr Howard Nicholas

Iris Dumendun
The poetic representation of research findings

Peter Farrell
Fostering culture in schools: a comparison of teaching and non-teaching principals

11.05 – 11.30

Morning Tea

11.30 – 12.00

Publishing during your candidature
Beth Zielinski, Dang Tan Tin and George Yang

12.00 – 12.30

Undertaking a research degree: experiences from past students
Beth Zielinski and Hui Huang

12.30 - 1.30

Lunch

1.30- 2.15

Hafizoah Kassim (PhD proposal)
The impact of multimedia instructional materials on engineering students’ creative thinking
Assessors: A/Prof Bernie Neville, Dr Kirsten Hutchison, Dr Howard Nicholas

Parallel sessions
(25 mins each)

2.15 – 2.40

2.40 - 3.05

3.05 – 3.30

Room 318 (Boardroom)
Chair: A/Prof Bernie Neville

George Yang
When motivations are interwoven: research results analysis

Mei Fang Gu
Mindset, a bridge between the thinkers and the doers

Hui Min Low
Do your children speak your language?A sociolinguistic report of Malaysian-Chinese families in Penang

Room 329
Chair: Dr Audrey Grant

Drs Audrey Grant & Kirsten Hutchison
Creative pedagogies:’Art-full’ reading and writing

Kyi-Kyi Thatun
Why case study?

Wafaa Jan
Ego Identity Formation among Gifted Adolescents in Saudi Arabia

3.30 – 3.45

Afternoon Tea

3.45-4.30

Interactive session with staff panel: A/Prof Bernie Neville, Dr Howard Nicholas & Dr Wan Ng

Group may be split into 3 groups initially for discussion: students at the beginning stages of their candidature, those midway and towards the end of their candidature and those with coursework components. Session will focus on topics such as:

• Organising timelines
• Supervisors & Supervision
• Writers block & difficulty with writing
• Presenting at conferences
• Writing up a research thesis
• I am stuck, what do I do?

    Iris  Dumenden
The Poetic Representation of Research Findings

Abstract: Laurel Richardson (1994), in answering the question, “How are poems ethnography?” replied:

If the goal of ethnography is to retell “lived experience,” to make another world accessible to the reader, then, I submit that the lyric poem, and particularly a sequence of lyric poems with an implied narrative, come closer to achieving that goal than do other forms of ethnographic writing.  Lyric poetry comes closer to presenting “lived experience” for literary, sociological, and cultural reasons. … Like the lived experiences they represent, poems are emotionally and morally charged.  Lyric poems concretise emotions, feelings, and moods – the most private kinds of feelings – so as to recreate experience itself to another person.  A lyric poem “shows” another person how it is to feel something.  Even if the mind resists, the body responds to poetry.  It is felt. 
  (pp. 8-9, emphasis in the original)

In this paper, I will discuss writing up research findings as poetry and demonstrate it using data from my doctoral research project.

    Peter Farrell
Fostering culture in schools: a comparison of teaching and non-teaching principals

Abstract: This is an investigation into the fostering of culture in Victorian government primary schools. It was conducted using an interpretive / constructivist perspective and uses George Kelly’s RGT (repertory grid technique) and Edgar Schein’s PEMs (primary embedding mechanisms) to compare and contrast two groups of principals. One group, the TP (teaching principal) group, has significant classroom responsibilities. The other group, the NTP (non-teaching principal) group, has a significantly smaller teaching load. It was concluded from the research that there were differences in how culture is fostered by the two groups studied.

     Mei Fang Gu
Mindset: a bridge between the thinkers and doers

Abstract: By describing constructivism as a kind of mindset, there are two kinds of mindset existing: ideal constructivism mindset from thinkers, and partial constructivism mindset from doers. Mindset, as a concept tool, provides us a new way to probe primary school teachers’ responses to a nation-wide curriculum reform in China. The author tried to define the concept of “mindset” and to point out the reasons and significances to use this concept in such kind of change analysis.

    Dr Audrey Grant and Dr Kirsten Hutchison
Creative pedagogies:’Art-full’ reading and writing

Abstract: This paper reports on a small-scale resrach inquiry, designed to support teachers in a Melbourne primary school to bring together the arts, reading and writing in their classrooms in ways that create possibilities for ‘art-full’ teaching and learning.

    Waafa Jan
Ego Identity Formation among Gifted Adolescents in Saudi Arabia.

Abstract: The research uses an exploratory approach, where the participants "Gifted Adolescents" are encourage to interpret their experiences of identity formation phenomenon via specific techniques. The psychosocial of Erikson (1955, 1964) and Personal construct Psychology of Kelly (1955) are the two theoretical frameworks of this study .

    Hui Min Low
Do your children speak your language? A sociolinguistic report of Malaysian-Chinese families in Penang

Abstract: The multilingual sociolinguistic situation in Malaysia has added substantial complexities to the investigation of early vocabulary development in Malaysian children. This presentation focuses on reporting the findings of a survey of 100 mothers of Malaysian-Chinese children in downtown Penang, Malaysia. The findings include the language backgrounds of these mothers, their contextual uses of multiple languages, and the language or languages they use in the interactions with their children. These findings are intended to serve as a background to inform a larger investigation of early vocabulary development of Malaysian-Chinese children from a sociolinguistic perspective. The larger investigation ultimately aims to contribute useful information for educators and other language practitioners in planning pre-school language teaching and intervention programs for this population of children.

     Kyi-Kyi Thatun
Why Case Study?

Abstract: Researcher will share why and how case study approach is applied to define the role and functions of private schools in Myanmar

    Penkhae Wongsuriya
Teaching Interactive Listening Comprehension Via ICT

Abstract: This thesis aims to investigate the influences of the use of ICT (VoIP and Podcasting)  on teaching interactive listening comprehension in students of English as a foreign language in Thailand.

    Yusri Yamin
Comparative study in vocational education and training (VET) –Australia/Malaysia

Abstract: To be recognized as an economically developed country by 2020, Malaysia needs to restructure its workforce. Bakar and Hanafi (2007) point out that Malaysia needs to increase its workforce by having highly skilled workers at the technician level. The changing nature and demand of the workplace, needs to be the focus for a future workforce. Thus, the demand for quality workers in the twenty first century is becoming more challenging and more competitive in a global workplace. In view of this finding, a comparative study of Australian and Malaysian vocational education and training system (in terms of the training quality) will help to check and balance the Malaysian’s approach in order to develop a highly skilled workforce. This PhD study is making a comparison between TAFE in Australia and Community Colleges in Malaysia, in terms of how students are prepared for the workplace in comparison of curriculum content, teaching and learning (pedagogy) and program implementation. In this regard, to develop a world-class quality education system this will realise the full potential of the individual and fulfil the aspiration of the Malaysian nation.

    George Yang
When motivations are interwoven: research results analysis

Abstract: This presentation explores the complexity of motivation in the literature and its application to current study. A high achieving student was selected to identify how different motivational features were interwoven and how intrinsic motivation was developed via extrinsic influences.