Leadership Symposium 2020: Enhancing Professionalism & Leadership – Practitioner Research Approach

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I delivered an online talk yesterday in conjunction with UTMLead’s Leadership Symposium 2020. The synopsis of the talks was as below:

This online session will introduce participants to practitioner research. Practitioner research is one of the various approaches in enhancing professionalism and leadership through research in which it assists practitioners in pursuing their continuous professional development (CPD) endeavor within the higher education landscape. Participants will be exposed to the elements of critical reflective thinking and reflexivity that serve as the two main fundamentals of practitioner research. In addition, its distinctive methodology includes a variety of qualitative research designs such as narrative inquiry, self-study, autoethnography and qualitative case study, which will be discussed in this session. Ethical considerations in practitioner research will also be highlighted during the session. For academics who are undergoing CPD programmes such as industrial training or attachment, this session would provide insights and guidance in preparing their final reports or publications upon programme completion. Participants are encouraged to actively engage in the discussion, with a Q&A session that welcomes enquiries related to the topics.

It was an hour talk, and so I have outlined the talk into three main parts:

  • Fundamentals of practitioner research
  • Critical reflection & reflexivity
  • Qualitative research designs for conducting practitioner research

This idea of conducting this webinar was originally stemmed from a participant’s concern during the previous talk delivered by AP Dr. Noraffandy (SOE). The participant was especially concerned over the ethical issue he faced while preparing his final reports after completion his attachment programme at an industry. I was later contacted by AP Dr Sharifah Hafizah (UTMLead) and was asked to share my knowledge on research designs that could accommodate those who are undergoing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes. Thus, I decided to introduce the audience to practitioner research, which is one of the possible approaches that could be employed for CPD programmes. I hope it gave some insights to those who had attended online.

Hands-on workshop on Sumitomo Grant application 2020

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The half-day workshop on Sumitomo grant application was held yesterday, Wednesday, 23 September 2020 at Seminar Room 1, Language Academy (DO5). The workshop was facilitated by Mr. Kumaraguru Ramayah (fondly referred to as our “Sensei Kumar”) and AP Dr. Abdul Halim Abdul Raof who had the experiences in applying for the grant. In fact, Sensei Kumar is the recipient of the grant in 2019.

Sensei Kumar and Dr Halim were listening to a presentation by the participant

During the workshop, Sensei Kumar and Dr. Halim shared with the participants some analysis done on successful projects. For instance, last year Malaysian HEIs submitted 225 applications, but only 10 proposals were accepted and approved. It was competitive indeed (with only 4.4.% success rate), but according to the facilitators it’s worth trying. Sensei Kumar succeeded in securing the grant after three attempts himself.

Some of the tips given during the workshop

Among the tips shared by Sensei Kumar and Dr. Halim:

  1. Always look into the details.
  2. Make sure there’s no careless mistake, e.g. follow strictly the Japanese way of writing the dates.
  3. The title of the proposal must include “Japan” or “Japanese” i.e. it must be Japanese related research.
  4. Avoid “regular research”.
  5. Budget wise, it it suggested within 0.2-1million Yen.
  6. Group members must be between 3-4 researchers.
  7. The concept of research project must be presented in diagram.
  8. Methodology must be in point-form.
  9. The summary needs to be translated to Japanese.
  10. PI needs to contact his/her Japanese collaborator for consent.
  11. Letter of recommendation must be included; RMC will assist on this.
Since mine was not successful last year, I believe there’s no harm in trying again for this year.

 

EEG test runs

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Yesterday our research group conducted test runs for Fatini’s and Shanthini’s PhD projects. As usual, Taha assisted us with the technical part while Sayyid served as the subject. Dr Zuri and Dr. Norlaili offered the technical expertise as well.

Sayyid was the subject for the test runs
Testing Shanthini’s intervention using Rapid Automatised Reading (RAN)

Song of the Day #6

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“And I bow and I bow down to you
To the grace that it takes to melt on through

This is in praise of the vulnerable man
Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home

This is a thank you for letting me in
Indeed in praise of the vulnerable man…”

 

In Praise of The Vulnerable Man – Alanis Morissette (2008)

Flavors of Entanglement