In order to carry out a communication needs analysis for the food science undergraduates, our team conducted an interview with Senior Lecturer Dr. Leong Lai Peng from the NUS-FST Programme. Our team's interview questions were mainly focused on:
1) Understanding the curriculum for FST students.
2) Finding out any relevant module(s) aiming to develop communication skills.
3) Gaining insights on how FST students are trained in effective communication
4) Identifying the different sectors within the food industry and her opinion on the most-vied for sector to focus on.
5) Comprehending the job responsibilities and level of importance of communication skills for that sector.
From that interview, our group learnt that the most essential training for an FST student to mature and to improve on his or her respective skills – including communication skills – is to do industrial attachment, or better known as the Professional Placement Program (PPP). Besides PPP, group projects, lab reports and class discussions are all part of the coursework to improve communication skills, even though the FST Program itself does not offer a specific communication module for its students. Furthermore, the product development sector is the most popular and the most communication-centric sector as it has plenty of opportunities to liaise with other departments, such as the marketing and the quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) teams. Fresh graduates will need to work in teams, write reports and proposals as well as work with other departments, rendering communication skills an important factor for success, especially for those in managerial positions.
After much discussion, our team decided to carry out surveys and interviews for our primary research. The interview with Dr. Leong aided in crafting and designing the questionnaire for employers and survey questions for employees in the food industry. To make our surveys more accessible to our respondents and to cope with the tedious task of summarizing the survey data, we chose to carry out our surveys online. Hence, our team decided to use surverymonkey.com. The user-friendly layout of surveymonkey.com was a bonus point.
Our primary research focuses mainly on the employers at various companies and the FST alumni in order to identify commonly-seen communication problems within the workplace. An email was sent to many employers in the food production sector to find out:
1) The communication skills undergraduates – and more specifically NUS undergraduates – lack
2) The training program(s) provided by a company for fresh graduate employees to improve communication skills
3) Whether job applicants who have completed the industrial attachment have an edge over those who have not.
6.1 Challenges met in the primary research
Initially, our team sent out emails using Gmail and unfortunately we did not receive any response. After analysing this problem, we deduced that it may be due to the domain “@gmail.com”. It has potential for some servers to block or flag as spam. Some employers may not even pay attention to a free mail domain like “@gmail.com”. Therefore, we sent out emails again using our NUS email wherein we immediately received acknowledgement letters from two companies.
6.2 Further research
Due to the low respondent rate of employers in Singapore, we had to think of other means of obtaining responses from elsewhere in order to make our research conclusive. Hence, the team decided to collect data not only locally, but also from MNCs and universities in foreign countries to compare and contrast the opinions of both NUS and universities overseas on the communication requirements of FST students. Moreover, a new decision was made to introduce survey questions to undergraduates in NUS who have completed or are completing PPP in order to understand their takes on the communication needs of their workplace and gain their reflections on their internship.
As a result, survey links were sent out to a total of 30 targeted NUS alumni employees in the food industry and 60 targeted undergraduates who have finished PPP. Since survey questions are designed in multiple choice formats, enabling ease of answering questions, a higher response rate is expected. For such survey-based research, the more data we have, the more accurately we can identify, analyse and interpret the problem. The aim of the survey questions is generally the same as that of the email questions to employers, which is to evaluate the communication skills required in the new product development sector in the food industry. Therefore, survey questions comprise questions from three main focuses:
1) Identifying which communication skills are most required - which undergraduates lack
2) Understanding the importance of PPP and ways of improving it
3) Identifying which module(s) will be able to help FST students to improve any lacking communication skill(s).
On top of the survey to undergraduates, we will also be sending out email requests for online interview to the direct superiors of these undergraduates:
1) To understand more about what they think is lacking in undergraduates during the PPP
2) To know if the undergraduates “matured” during the PPP, i.e. if the PPP is helpful in the development of character of undergraduates.
Finally, we will conduct online interviews with universities overseas regarding their student development programs for ideas on the modifications that we could make to the university curriculum.
By carrying out further research, the interview responses and survey questions analysis will enable us to identify and evaluate communication needs in the workplace, which will allow us to proceed further with our proposal.
I think it is a great idea to put the objectives of the interviews and surveys in point form as it is very easy to read and understand.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I was wondering if it would be better to summarise all the challenges faced as the last paragraph? (:
I like how you placed the aims for the interview into bullet points, it is much easier to see the layout of the various points and breaks the monotony of reading paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could place the discussion on why you chose interviews and surveys as your primary research before placing the paragraphs on the interview with Dr Leong Lai Ping.
Maybe you could mention how you got the contacts of the various companies and the alumni. Like using portals such as facebook or through friends?
I realized that the whole methodology is written out chronologically. Maybe a good idea would be lump the surveys and interviews together and place the challenges at the end.
This is an impressive discussion of your methodology. Like the other readers, I think your use of bullet points is useful, making everything quite clear and concise. You also clearly show how the info provided in your first interview laid the groundwork for your otjher research.
ReplyDeleteI do have a couple questions:
1) You write "...we will also be sending out email requests for online interview to the direct superiors of these undergraduates." Who might those be?
2) In the last paragrpah, who's carrying out further research?