Factors affecting scientific research activities of students. Case study of “Euréka Student Science Research Award”

Executive summary ............................................................................................. 4 1. Introduction................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Center of Science and Technology development for Youth ............... 5 1.2 Euréka Student Scientific Research Award......................................... 5 1.3 Problem Finding Process ....................................................................... 6 1.4 Symptom.................................................................................................. 7 2. Problem justification .................................................................................. 10 2.1. Initial Identification of Problem ...................................................... 10 2.2. The Existence problem...................................................................... 14 2.3. Cause validation................................................................................. 16 2.4. Final Cause-Effect Map .................................................................... 22 3. Solution for Solving Problem..................................................................... 22 3.1. School ........................................................................................................ 22 3.2. Lectures..................................................................................................... 23 3.3. Students..................................................................................................... 24 Appendix ............................................................................................................ 28 3 Executive summary This thesis examines the factors affecting students' scientific research activities at universities in Ho Chi Minh City. The topic is made based on data from the Euréka Scientific Research Student Award. With the criterion of the award is to promote the scientific research movement of students, the award has been gathered by nearly 50 of universities, colleges and institutes in Ho Chi Minh City. However, the level of participation of many schools is limited. This study will explore the factors affecting students' scientific research activities at universities in Ho Chi Minh City, thereby proposing solutions to promote this activity in universities which limited. 4 1. Introduction 1.1 Center of Science and Technology development for Youth Center of Science and Technology development for Youth (known as TST) is a unit directly under Ho Chi Minh City Communist Youth Union. TST was found in August 03th 1989 by People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City. Our mission are mobilize and promote the movement of scientific and technical activities and creative capacity of the youth. There are several programs that Center being as organizer such as Euréka Student Scientific Research Prize, International Students Science Forum, etc. 1.2 Euréka Student Scientific Research Award Student Scientific Research Award (known as Euréka Award) is the national wide prize for scientific research and creativity of students from universities and colleges. It was established in 1999 and fasten become the only prize of Youth Union for student who have passion in term of scientific research. Table 1 Euréka Award data from 1999 to 2019 Euréka award data from 1999 to 2019 2263 2069 1758 708 709 878 734 768 844 1064 1200 1407 596 1198 1106 1165 1385 1435 648 621 777 903 858 156 430 334 257 493 97 373 324 398 345 371 409 496 500 507 516 517 106 100 19 21 18 17 24 21 23 23 22 27 26 30 34 34 34 36 46 75 85 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Number of Subjects Number of Schools Number of participants Source: Euréka Award’s announcement from 1999 to 2019 The purpose of Euréka Award is to discover and foster the creative ideas of students, promote the scientific research movement among students of universities, 5 colleges and institutes in the direction of development, with the high scale and quality of research works. Besides that, the prize contribute to improving the quality of training, encouraging students to develop their potential in research and innovation. Moreover, Euréka Award is also contribute to the application of science and technology into production, business and life. The table 1 illustrate that Euréka Award is develop in terms of the number of participating schools as well as the number of topics. From the beginning until 2014, Euréka Award organized only in Ho Chi Minh City. The award officially deployed widely in 2015 in the southern region and expanded nationwide in 2016. The Prize includes 12 fields, which presentative Chemical Engineering, Food Technology, Information Technology, Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering, Training and Education, Law and Legal, Economics, General Engineering, Agriculture - Forestry - Fishery, Urban Planning – Architecture – Construction, Resources and Environment Management, Social Sciences and Humanities. 1.3 Problem Finding Process In order to find out the problem of Center of Science and Technology Development for Youth, the process will be conducted: - Collecting the data from Euréka Award’s annual report and Projects’ collection announcements of Euréka Award from 2014 to 2019. - Referring the feedback from contestants on December 2017 - Conducting in-depth interview with contestants, employees, representatives of participating schools, and science council’s members. - Conducting the survey for contestants and representatives of participating schools. - Reviewing literature related to problem. - Conducting second in-depth interview with the manager to determine existed problem. - Reviewing some theory framework to validate the problem importance. 6 1.4 Symptom I used the result from the survey that TST conduct on December 2017 (see appendix B) and also conducted depth interview with two students, who are contestant Euréka Award in 2017 and received the First prize and the Third Prize (see appendix G and H). I used finding from the survey and depth interview to create questionnaire (see appendix I) for participants who took part in Euréka Award. The purpose for this action is to have an overview and find out the symptoms. I collected data for this research through email survey in the early of September 2018 by sent for about 500 contestants and received 100 responses. The result illustrated that only seven respondents know about Euréka Award through website and 60% of participants know about the Euréka Award by school deployment. The application of social media in implementing prize information is limited. The information about Euréka Awards is directly transmitted in the form of issuing documents and announcements from Ho Chi Minh City Youth Union to the School Youth Union. This shows that the access to Prize’s information of the student depends heavily on the implementation of the school. In addition, I created depth interviews with two employees, who have been working in the center over 6 years. The interview guide (see appendix C) was about evaluation of the Euréka Award from 2014 to 2019, especially to explored the reason why the number of project in 2016 is dramatically decrease although the Prize was expanded national wide at that time. They believed that the expansion is quite fast, and the Euréka Award’s awareness is still low and lack of widespread. The schools play an important role in term of encouraging student take part in research activities; especially participate in Euréka Student Scientific Research Award. 7 Table 2 Proportion of top 4th university dominate Euréka award Total number of subjects (1) = (a)+(b)+(c)+(d) Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (a) Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City - University of Sciences (b) 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 216 244 184 266 313 261 46 65 56 97 137 97 76 65 49 82 62 67 Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City - University of Technology (c) 48 58 44 41 60 60 Ho Chi Minh City Open University (d) 46 56 35 46 54 37 Ho Chi Minh city’ Number of projects (2) 517 608 466 593 687 649 Proportion (3)=(1)/(2)*100% 42% 40% 39% 45% 46% 40% Source: Euréka Award’s announcement from 2014 to 2019 The Statistics of the number of projects involved Euréka Award from 2014 to 2019 (appendix A) showed that there are four universities included Ho Chi Minh City University off Technology, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City – University of Sciences, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City – University of Technology , Ho Chi Minh City Open University dominated the prize. The total number of projects participating in awards from these four universities is high in Ho Chi Minh City, accounting for over 40%. This means that the total number of projects for the remaining 44 schools is only 60%. The development of students' scientific research movement is uneven across schools in Ho Chi Minh City. 8 Table 3 The number of school have low performance Total number of 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 School 40 40 40 40 48 49 Total number of Project 517 608 466 593 687 649 Average number of project per school 12.92 15.2 11.65 14.82 14.31 13.24 The number of schools with project less than the average 21 27 26 27 32 33 Source: Euréka Award’s announcement from 2014 to 2019 The table 3 above illustrations that the average number of project in each school participating in the Euréka award is 13 projects in 2019. However, that up to 33 schools (accounting for 67%) have a lower number of projects less than 13 projects. Most school have low performance in term of participating the Euréka Award. 9 2. Problem justification Part 1 presented background information about the Euréka Student Science Research Prize as well as how to find symptoms. Part 2 will describe the use in-depth interview and literature review to find potential problems causes of this symptom, which includes identification problems, problem exist, and problem importance. 2.1. Initial Identification of Problem In order to find the problems for the symptom, the in-depth interviews were conducted with several characters that may be symptom related from inside and outside. The informants ‘profiles be listed as below: - Mrs. Vo The Hanh, Chief of Office and Accountant of Center of Science and Technology development for Youth, 6 years’ experience - Ms. Ngo Thi Tu Trinh, Head of Department of Creative Movement Development, Center of Science and Technology Development for Youth, 10 years’ experience. - Mr. Nguyen Thanh Luan, Manager of External Communication and Science Technology Services, 7 years’ experience - Prof. Thai Van Nam, Deputy Director of Applied Sciences Institute, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, 20 years working at school. - Ms. Le Thi Ngoc Tram, employee at Science and Technology department, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. - Huynh Tan Long, contestant participated in Euréka Award in 2017, Fourth year student at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, the Third place in 2017 Euréka Award with the project belong to Urban Planning – Architecture – Construction filed. - Nguyen Thanh An, candidate participated in Euréka Award in 2017, student at Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City - University of Sciences, the First place in 2017 Euréka Award with the project belong to Information Technology filed. - The report of the 20th years Euréka Student Scientific Research Award Seminar. 10 To be find out the causes of symptom, the study gather several results from the interviewees. Ms. Tu Trinh admitted that the trend of credit training and graduation exam is a reason that lead students just concentrated on leaning to complete and disregard science research activities. This creates many obstacles in encouraging students participate in research activities at the school. That also lead to the quantity and quality of research is low. Besides, the deployment of prize information depends heavily on the direct relationship with the Science Department and Youth Union of the schools. TST cannot control does the Science Department or Youth Union of School deployed the information to students, who actually concern about doing Science Research. Therefore, the Schools play an important role to support and encourage student do research. Both of Ms. Tu Trinh and Mrs. The Hanh agreed that TST still apply ineffective communication method to spread out the prize information, such as sending announcements by mail, poster, banner, telephone. However, Mrs. The Hanh notice that media is only a small part of the impact on students’ awareness. The lack of instructed by supervisors is a difficulty for student to undertake science research. Besides that, according to Mrs. The Hanh, the council’s evaluation the quality of projects is stable. There are several filed did not have The First Prize as well as The Special Prize. As an accountant of TST, Mrs. The Hanh believe the media budget is quite low, and cannot meet the demand of the prize communication and the employees do not have breakthrough in communication. Mr. Thanh Luan admit that the communication budget is not enough for apply communication methods. Although External Communications and Science Technology Services Department efforts to find sponsorship to ensure communication budget. However, it is not easy to meet sponsors demand because they demand benefits and images to appear more. Sponsors refer to sponsoring television programs, gameshow, entertainment area or environmental protection activities. They mostly do not like to fund social or educational activities. Donors desire to have images on television, newspapers, etc. The current sponsorship benefit do not meet the demand of sponsors. This led to sponsors sponsoring the Euréka Award but only for a year and could not maintain in the long term. 11 In term of being supervisor, who guide many student, Prof. Thai Van Nam admitted that implementation of scientific research is limited for the young today. The students tend to learn quickly to graduate and go to work. Many students think that scientific research takes them time, influencing their study, and they are willing to refuse to participate. In addition, financial deficits are also one of the causes, especially for some areas where experiments are required. Moreover, Prof. Thai Van Nam believe that supervisors play two roles in two metaphors, which are pull and push. In the image of pull, the teacher plays the role of orienting the project to students. The teacher based on the topics and projects that he is implementing and then divided into sub-topics for students to implement. The goals were clear and the main task was student pass it. In this case, the teacher required having a research project but otherwise it would be very difficult for the student to do it. In the image of push, teachers provide feedback based on their individual perspective, vision, judgment, and how the implementation is based on student choice. Students need to have an idea as well as individual competencies. Further, the school’s support encouraging student in scientific research. In the same view as Prof. Thai Van Nam, Ms. Tram also said that scientific research need a large amount of money to implement while the school still has limitation in financial support. Most of the funding for the project is from themselves. Besides that, students’ awareness about doing research still low and they think that doing scientific research is take time and influence to their study result. In term of contestant, Huynh Tan Long, who win the Third place in 2017 Euréka Award with the project belong to Urban Planning – Architecture – Construction filed admitted the meaningful of participate Euréka Award are having in-depth study of subject, ability to work independently and work in groups, acquire more knowledge. In addition, instructive guidance of instructor is a great motivation for him to participate Euréka Award as well as complete the project. Having different thought about Euréka Award’s benefit, Nguyen Thanh An, who win the First place in 2017 Euréka Award with the project belong to Information Technology filed, learned a great deal about the development and operation of real-world project, applying and exploring the value of theoretical research. However, Nguyen Thanh An also faced obstacles, which are balance and ensure the progress of work in a limited of time and work pressure. 12 However, his supervisor plays an important role in term of support during the implementation process. Being gather all the interviews’ result, the initial cause-effect map come up with: Limited in deployment of school Factors affecting students' scientific research activities Lack of mechanism of commendation and reward School’s scientific research activities limitation Financial funding School supports Lack of enthusiasms Uneven research activities in schools Potential Central Problems Restrict ideas and orientations Limiting the ability of scientific research Lack of doing research’s benefit awareness Low self-efficacy Faculty supports Student limitations Low performance at some school Symptom Lack of self – research funding and time Figure 1 Initial Cause - Effect Map 13 2.2. The Existence problem The figure 1 summarizes the results of interviews with subjects such as senior staff, instructors, students, and university science management personnel. It is a general picture of the factors leading to limited scientific research activities of universities leading to uneven research activities in schools. Scientific research is an essential activity in the learning process of students. There are several evidence prove that the scientific research activities play an important role contribute to quality academic result for student. Based on the Decision No.08/2000/QD-BGDDT of March 30th, 2000 of the Minister of Education and Training, which is enclosed with the Regulation on scientific studies of students in universities and colleges, indicates that the purpose of scientific research for student is contributed to improving the quality of training, access to and application of scientific research methods, solving some problems of science and practice (16). With the same point of view, “Research is a systematic and methodical process of inquiry and investigation with a view of increasing knowledge. As far as the nature of research is concerned, the above definition tells us that researchers need to use appropriate methods for collecting and analyzing research data, and that they need to apply them rigorously. The general purpose of academic research is to investigate a research question with a view to generating knowledge. A research project offers both undergraduate and postgraduate students an opportunity to identify and select a research problem and investigate it independently under the guidance of a supervisor” (17). Besides that, this research also define the research benefit is that contribute to develop skill for student, such as “to review and synthesize existing knowledge; to investigate some existing situation or problem; to provide solutions to a problem; to explore and analyze more general issues; to construct or create a new procedure or system; to explain a new phenomenon; to generate new knowledge; a combination of any of the above” (17). In the other study emphasizes that university research is “the production of disciplinary knowledge and the importance of university recognition” (18). Although all schools recognize that scientific research is important, not all schools are interested and promote this activity. Differences in the implementation, organization, mechanism, and policy of research activities among universities create 14