More than 300 participants attend the HPE Virtual Student Conference 2021/22

The Department of Health and Physical Education (HPE) organised the HPE Virtual Student Conference on 12 April 2022 for the second year in a row. In it, 29 Honours Projects and 15 Capstone Projects were presented by final-year students from the department’s Bachelor of Education (Honours) (Physical Education) (BEd(PE)) or Bachelor of Science Education (Honours) (Sports Science) (BSc(SS)) programmes. More than 300 participants, including students and staff members from HPE, and colleagues from other departments of EdUHK, attended the whole-day online conference.

Twenty-nine final-year students from the BEd(PE) programme presented 29 Honours Projects, which were research-based projects delving into kinematics, injury studies, performance and recovery analysis, biomechanics, sports psychology and the like. A total of 85 students from the BSc(SS) programme shared their findings in 15 Capstone Projects, which focused on how to combine and apply the subject knowledge of sports science with pedagogical theories for different teaching scenarios.

“We introduced Capstone Projects to this year’s student conference. Students presenting Capstone Projects were required to develop a set of teaching materials based on different sports science theories. They also needed to demonstrate the use of innovative ideas, communication skills, as well as knowledge in information technology in their presentations,” said Dr Eric Poon Tsz-chun, Assistant Professor of HPE and one of the two project conveners of the conference. Dr Sophia Ha, also from HPE, was the other project convener. 

The one-day conference was divided into two panels: Panel A (Sports Science and Exercise Science) and Panel B (Physical Education and Special Educational Needs). Panel A was dedicated to presentations on a wide variety of research topics related to sports science, including how athletes can raise their performance and avoid injury, the comfortability of sportswear, and investigations into the motivations of football spectators. Panel B was focused on discussions about the implementation of school-based physical education. In this panel, students also shared research findings about how students with special needs learn physical education.

Students presenting in the conference, either individually or in groups, proposed a case as their research project. Then, they applied related theories and research methods learnt in their programme and drew references from relevant literature to carry out their respective research studies. They also needed to explain how to apply the knowledge they had acquired in class to suggest a solution for the case under their scrutiny.

After giving their presentations individually or as a team at the virtual conference, participating students took questions from the floor. An overall mark was given to the research project according to the content, as well as organisation and presentation skills.

“The conference gave students a good opportunity to present their final-year projects. I saw a great deal of enthusiasm and efforts students put in their research and presentations under the guidance of their supervisors. On the whole, the quality of their research and presentations were satisfactory. Students not only exchanged ideas with academic staff in the conference, but also had the opportunity to practice how to do online presentations under the ‘new normal’. We are confident that all students and participants found this conference stimulating and rewarding,” Dr Eric Poon concluded.

Click here for more details of the conference.