Two PhD students first to win Outstanding Research Postgraduate Student Award

To honour outstanding research outputs by our students, and to build a vibrant research community, FLASS introduced the Outstanding Research Postgraduate Student Award (OPSA) in the 2022/23 academic year. This year, two PhD students were the first to win what will be an annual award: Ms Venus Liu Hok-ling from the Department of Health and Physical Education (HPE), whose research is about the impact of physical activity on motor proficiency and sleep quality in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Ms Yang Yin from the Department of Mathematics and Information Technology (MIT), whose thesis deepens the understanding of self-regulated vocabulary learning (SRVL) for primary students using a mobile app with a self-regulation scheme.

Professor Li Wai-keung, Dean of FLASS, presented the awards to the two winners at the Faculty Assembly-cum-Awards Presentation Ceremony on 21 July, 2023. Professor Li congratulated the two awardees for their excellent work in conducting their doctoral research projects, saying: “Having research capacity means you have the ability to define problems, set objectives, collect and analyse data, and suggest answers to existing problems. In all these aspects, the two awardees have demonstrated high-quality work. The skills they have learnt from their thesis supervisors – Dr Andy Tse Choi-yeung from HPE and Dr Song Yanjie from MIT – will continue to serve them as they move on in the academia or pursue other career goals.”

Ms Liu, who obtained her Bachelor of Science Education (Honours) (Sports Science) at this University, started her Doctor of Philosophy programme in Sports Science under the supervision of Dr Andy Tse Choi-yeung, Associate Professor and Acting Head of Department of HPE, in 2019. “I knew Dr Tse when I worked under him on my honours project for my undergraduate studies. As my honours project was related to children with special education needs (SEN), I began thinking more and more about the difficulties they face and whether I can do something to help them, and make society more accepting of SEN students,” Ms Liu said.

Children suffering from ADHD often have problems with their motor proficiency and sleep. Ms Liu’s PhD studies examined the impact of physical activity on motor proficiency and sleep quality in children with ADHD. Her study was comprised of three parts: first, it conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of empirical studies about the effects of physical activity on motor proficiency among those with ADHD. This was followed by a randomised controlled trial (RCT) that examined the impact of physical activity on the sleep quality of children with ADHD. Finally, Ms Liu supervised an in-depth case study to observe the effect of physical activity on motor proficiency and sleep quality in the concerned population.

Apart from the difficulty of gathering data because of the pandemic, Ms Liu faced a psychological challenge. “Every time I met my peers and former classmates, I found that they were making good progress in their careers. This made me doubt whether I had made the right decision to pursue my doctoral studies instead of leaving school to develop my career. Luckily, my family was very supportive of my decision to pursue my PhD. With the support from my family and my thesis supervisor, I convinced myself that my study was meaningful, as it could help SEN students to improve the quality of their lives,” she said.

She thanked Dr Andy Tse for coaching her during her undergraduate and doctoral studies at this University. “Dr Tse gave me a lot of space and freedom to explore my own research interests. His advice on the overall design and the logical connections between different parts of my research were very useful. Apart from teaching me knowledge, Dr Tse set himself as a role model for what it would be like for me if I chose to continue to develop my career in the academia. He inspired me, and helped me understand that we need to defend our position and the things that we believe in with reasoning and evidence,” Ms Liu said.

Ms Yang Yin commenced her Doctor of Philosophy programme under the supervision of Dr Song Yanjie, an Associate Professor in MIT, in October 2019. While self-regulated learning (SRL) is an important 21st-century skill, there was a lack of comprehensive review about self-regulated language learning (SRLL) and self-regulated vocabulary learning (SRVL), making it challenging to identify research gaps and trends in the field.

By reviewing published studies on technology-enhanced SRLL from 2011 to 2020, Ms Yang’s research first identified the three research gaps regarding the role of technology, research contexts, and research methods. Under the guidance of Dr Song, she then conducted two empirical studies – one spanning four months and the other seven months – to evaluate the effectiveness of vocabulary learning for primary schoolers who used a self-regulation scheme on a mobile vocabulary learning app designed by Dr Song's research team. Furthermore, she used learning analytics to analyse the self-regulated vocabulary learning behaviours of these primary school students.

Dr Song observed Ms Yang’s ability to study for a doctoral programme when she worked as her research assistant. “When Dr Song asked me whether I was interested in pursuing a PhD in technology-enhanced education, I had little idea about what doctoral research was about. It was Dr Song who reassured me that I have the ability to do such research. She encouraged me to attend seminars and invited me to co-author journal papers to build up my research skills and confidence. Dr Song was always positive and supported me whenever I encountered difficulties during my research. I am very grateful for Dr Song’s mentoring throughout my studies,” Ms Yang said.

Ms Yang’s research shows that the mobile app with a self-regulation scheme can effectively raise primary school kids’ ability in self-regulatory and vocabulary learning. The thesis deepens our understanding of the effectiveness of the mobile application in facilitating primary school students’ SRVL activities outside the classroom. It expands the current literature on technology-enabled SRVL, providing researchers, language teachers, and learners with theoretical and practical insights while ultimately laying the groundwork for larger-scale implementation in more schools, especially in the post-pandemic era.