Perceived improvement of postgraduate students' fundamental human virtues through a research proposal refinement course

Abstract

An authentic learning opportunity was presented to twelve postgraduate students in the format of a well-planned course over five days by experts to refine their research proposals for submission to various committees at the university. The purpose of the authentic learning opportunity was to improve the students’ fundamental human virtues, which in turn was expected to contribute to personal and professional development of the postgraduate students in terms of their research progress and research output. The perceived improvement of fundamental human virtues was described through Zuber-Skerrit’s CRASP model of action research. The students used a Likert-scale to indicate their perception of improvement in fundamental human virtues, and reflective notes on their experiences of the course. The researcher kept a reflective diary to note observations during the facilitation of the course. The results indicated that all the students perceived their fundamental human virtues to have improved, especially motivation, perseverance, common sense and responsibility, and that they found the course beneficial to their research progress. It was concluded that the research proposal refinement course contributed to the students’ perceived fundamental human virtues. A follow-up study needs to be done to describe the association between the results of this study and the actual research progress and output.