Student community engagement : insight from Australia / Ellen Chung and Hamish Coates

Student community engagement is a form of experiential education where students engage in activities that address community needs. This form of learning emphasizes collaboration between students, faculty, and the community partner. By using Student Community Engagement Benefits Questionnaire, data was collected from 151 students in four Australian universities. This study has identified the various community engagement activities they participated either in Australia or overseas; whether voluntary or compulsory. Analysis of variance and paired sample t-test showed that there was a statistically significant gain in Career, Diversity, Interpersonal and Civic skills among the respondents after the community engagement activities. By incorporating three demographic and contextual characteristics, analysis of covariance showed that the changes after community engagement in these four skills were not significant between the two types of projects (compulsory and voluntary projects). When data was analysed by age group of respondents, there was a significant difference after community engagement only in Civic skills. Analysis by community engagement durations also showed that there was a significant difference in Career skills, Interpersonal Skills and Civic skills. This paper sheds light on what students learn from community engagement in the context of Australian higher educatio

A journey to measure student community engagement benefits: evidence from Australia / Ellen Chung and Hamish Coates

Community engagement is a phenomenon that has received increasing attention among institutions of higher learning in recent years, and students engaging with communities are generally seen as beneficial. Given this, surprisingly little is known about this form of engagement in Australian higher education, let alone methods to measure its benefits on students. This study discussed the development of the Student Community Engagement Benefits Questionnaire (SCEBS), a questionnaire that measures the perceptions of community engagement benefits among undergraduate students in Australia. The final questionnaire has 32 items allocated to four benefit scales: (1) Career skills, (2) Diversity skills, (3) Interpersonal skills, (4) Civic skills. Most benefit items had a factor loading of at least 0.40 with its own scale. The results of the factor analysis revealed that the four scales accounted for 53% of the total variance. The alpha reliability coefficient for the four scales ranged from 0.79 to 0.91. Based on these findings, the Student Community Engagement Benefits Scale (SCEBS) is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used in the field of education. Undergraduate students also reported statistically significant changes in the four dimensions after participating in community engagement activities

Recent Development on Information System Capabilities and Sustainable Competitive Advantages: A Research Model, Review and Directions for Future Research

In today's competitive environment, maintaining a competitive advantage to achieve high performance is a significant challenge for businesses. To succeed, organizations must not only develop competencies in their focus areas but also be able to adapt, change, and realign those competencies in a dynamic and competitive corporate environment. As a result, information system (IS) capabilities are growing in significance as a strategic element that supports the development of competitive advantages and organizational survival. By examining the gap from the prior research, this study intends to answer questions about the link between information system (IS) related capabilities and the sustainable competitive advantages of an organization. The dimensions of information system capabilities (Personnel capability, Administrative capability, Infrastructure capability, and Information management capability) are factors that could explain a firm's sustainable competitive advantage and the theory of dynamic capability is used as the guiding theory, as guidance, and to support the conceptual framework. This will clarify how firms may use their resources and capabilities to boost the effectiveness and utilization of information systems (IS) in daily operations, processes, and people's performance

Audiological Follow-up Results after Newborn Hearing Screening Program

ObjectivesTo investigate the validity of newborn hearing screening protocol using automated auditory brainstem response (AABR) with a confirmation method using click auditory brainstem response (ABR) and to evaluate changes in hearing status of infants with confirmed congenital hearing loss.MethodsNeonates in the well-baby nursery were screened by staged AABR. Subjects whose final AABR result was "refer" were tested by diagnostic click ABR and 226 Hz tympanometry within 3 months of age. Changes in hearing status of subjects with confirmed hearing loss were analyzed by follow-up ABR at 3-6 month intervals.ResultsOf the 12,193 healthy babies born during this period, 10,879 (89.22%) were screened by AABR. Of 10,879 neonates screened by AABR, 148 (1.36%) were "referred"; of these, 45 subjects showed ABR thresholds over 30 dB nHL in at least one ear. Thirty-four subjects underwent serial follow-up ABR tests, with 11 (32.4%) found to have normal ABR thresholds. Most subjects with mild to moderate hearing loss were found to be normal before 1 year of age, whereas all infants with severe or profound hearing loss were identified as having congenital hearing loss.ConclusionThe referral rate and the positive predictive value of our protocol were acceptable. We have also found here that substantial temporary hearing loss can be included in the first confirmative diagnosis. Temporary hearing loss of our study on follow-up give emphasis to need of further differentiation using the testing for bone conduction and middle ear status

Does language context impact the neural correlates of executive control in monolingual and multilingual young adults?

Some previous studies have shown that creating a language context in which words from both languages are interspersed into a flanker task improves executive control performance for bilinguals, but these studies have produced inconsistent results. The studies have used different versions of the task and not included monolinguals, limiting generalization. Here, English-Chinese multilinguals and English monolinguals performed a flanker task while EEG was recorded. There were three language context blocks – English, Chinese, or both – and participants were instructed to ignore the interspersed words. Multilinguals displayed faster flanker RTs and earlier P2 and N2 waveforms than monolinguals. There was also a significant correlation between the P2/N2 latency and reaction times, connecting these waveforms to behavior. Finally, P2 amplitude differed between groups in the mixed context, and language context impacted P3 amplitude for monolinguals but not multilinguals. These results are interpreted in terms of language context effects on monolingual executive function processing and possible difference in bilingual experience between current participants and those in previous studies

Undergraduate-community Engagement: Evidence from UiTM Sarawak

Undergraduate-Community engagement is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs. In Malaysia, most undergraduates have at one point or another taken part in community engagement activities. However, the outcome of participating in community engagement has not been properly measured. This study was conducted to investigate the benefits undergraduates gain as a result of community engagement experience, as there is limited studies done in the Malaysian context. This study adopted Student Community Engagement Benefits Questionnaire (SCEBQ) by Chung and Coates (2016). SCEBQ has four benefit constructs, namely career skills, diversity skills, interpersonal skills and civic skills. A total of 143 responses were analysed and results showed that female undergraduates, those who participated in voluntary projects and respondents between 21 to 23 years old reported higher mean gains across the four benefit constructs. Nevertheless, these mean gains did not show any statistically significant difference between gender, community engagement projects types, except age groups. The study is important as it lays the foundation in the process of creating a better understanding of what students learn outside the classroom and it contributes to the practical knowledge of undergraduate-community engagement experience in the context of Malaysian higher education

Undergraduate-community engagement: Evidence from UiTM Sarawak / Ellen Chung and Vloreen Nity Mathew

Undergraduate-Community engagement is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs. In Malaysia, most undergraduates have at one point or another taken part in community engagement activities. However, the outcome of participating in community engagement has not been properly measured. This study was conducted to investigate the benefits undergraduates gain as a result of community engagement experience, as there is limited studies done in the Malaysian context. This study adopted Student Community Engagement Benefits Questionnaire (SCEBQ) by Chung and Coates (2016). SCEBQ has four benefit constructs, namely career skills, diversity skills, interpersonal skills and civic skills. A total of 143 responses were analysed and results showed that female undergraduates, those who participated in voluntary projects and respondents between 21 to 23 years old reported higher mean gains across the four benefit constructs. Nevertheless, these mean gains did not show any statistically significant difference between gender, community engagement projects types, except age groups. The study is important as it lays the foundation in the process of creating a better understanding of what students learn outside the classroom and it contributes to the practical knowledge of undergraduate-community engagement experience in the context of Malaysian higher education