PolyU SPEED academics received research funding from Research Grants Council

PolyU SPEED academics received research funding from

Research Grants Council

Three research teams of PolyU SPEED have been granted research funding under the Research Grants Council (RGC)’s Competitive Research Funding Schemes for the Local Self-financing Degree Sector 2016/17. The three principal investigators, namely Dr Artie Ng, Deputy Director, Dr Adam Wong, Lecturer, and Dr Calvin Wan, Senior Lecturer, believe that the support of RGC serves as a testament to the research quality of PolyU SPEED, and motivates more academics to engage in research work.

The research projects of the three academics cover different academic areas. Below is a gist of the three projects:

(1)Organise international workshops and seminars to promote Social and Environmental Accounting and Responsible Investment

Being a Certified Public Accountant, Dr Ng endeavours to study issues such as Social and Environmental Accounting, Sustainability Accounting, Responsible Investment, etc. He starts this research project in collaboration with the University of St Andrews-affiliated Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) in the United Kingdom, aiming to organise a series of workshops, seminars and a regional conference to be delivered and participated by international experts in the pertinent academic areas. These events will be arranged so as to bring in experts from CSEAR’s global network of in-depth research experience and journal publication track record in the specified areas of study. These international experts are
senior academics affiliated with overseas universities who will explore with local participants about emerging research agendas that are internationally and locally relevant.

Through this collaboration, Dr Ng hopes that local scholars and researchers will be able to build up their research capability and professional knowledge in conducting research in pertinent areas which have been gaining attention across the disciplines of accounting, business and finance. Knowledge exchange will be facilitated in the proposed workshops, seminars and a North Asia regional conference in which local academics will interact with a group of seasoned academics and journal editors. As a result, the local participants will be able to broaden their international outlook by learning from the research experience of the invited speakers from overseas universities. He believes that through such knowledge exchange, local academics with a scholarly interest in these areas will not only be able to develop their own research agendas but also be better informed for teaching about corporate social responsibility with an international perspective.

(2) Encourage lecturers to use smart mobile phones to facilitate teaching and improve student engagement in class

Dr Wong says that student engagement is crucial to achieving learning outcomes. However, when lecturers call on volunteers to answer a question in class, there may not be much useful feedback because only a few most confident students will volunteer to answer questions and engage in discussions. Some other students may suffer from the “continuous partial attention” syndrome owing to the distractions caused by their smart mobile phones. Therefore, Dr Wong studies how to turn the tables by encouraging lecturers to teach with smart mobile phones in order to improve student engagement in class.

Many researchers have investigated the use of digital technology in class to improve student engagement by collecting instant feedback from all students. The smart mobile phones today have graphics display and provide virtual keyboards for text entry. Therefore, Mobile phone-based Student Response System (mSRS) is easy to use and likely to be accepted by lecturers and students. However, there is currently very little research on mSRS. More importantly, there is no research on the factors that motivate lecturers’ utilisation of mSRS. Therefore, Dr Wong hopes to help those lecturers adopt mSRS, and fill the knowledge gap about mSRS.

Dr Wong believes that this research project will help identify the factors that affect lecturers’ adoption of mSRS, so that higher education institutions can devise suitable methods to motivate and facilitate their teaching staff to use mSRS for more effective learning in class.

(3) How can Urban Green Spaces usage be encouraged from the socio-psychological perspective?

Dr Wan states that Urban Green Spaces (UGS) is an essential element in land use planning. Although the local government acknowledges the importance and positive aspects of UGS and has instituted planning standards in the provision of UGS, Hong Kong currently suffers from inadequate UGS. Existing UGS areas are often small, poorly designed and managed. Some are even located along the road and affected by noise and air pollution. As Hong Kong’s physical constraints may limit the provision of large and high-quality UGS, Dr Wan will integrate both the urban design and socio-psychological perspectives to understand UGS usage, and adopts both qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys to examine the key factors influencing the use of UGS. Dr Wan believes that the findings would enable the authorities to better understand the key UGS attributes to be improved and how UGS usage can be encouraged from the socio-psychological perspective.

The three PolyU SPEED academics feel honoured to receive research funding from RGC and believe that it could improve the quality of their teaching and the School’s competitiveness. After receiving the funding, they could explore more research areas and transfer the research experience and new knowledge into quality teaching in order to benefit students. Besides, they could improve the competitiveness of the School by attending international conferences, absorbing new knowledge and research materials from worldwide institutions as well as promoting the research works of PolyU SPEED to academics from other regions.

They thank PolyU SPEED for its support for their research projects and assistance during their application for the research funding. Dr Ng points out that the School has offered hardware assistance such as research office, computers and software for data analysis. Dr Wong appreciates the School for adjusting his class schedules so that he could balance his time between teaching and research. Dr Wan states that the School has provided administrative assistance in applying for the research funding so that he could focus on his research work.