The National Institute of Education invites suitable applications for the position of Research Assistant on a 13-month contract at the Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group.

Project Title: Embodiment and Social-Emotional Learning: A Comparative Study of Immersive Virtual Environments and Drama Processes.

Project Introduction: This project is a comparative study of 360˚ immersive virtual environments (IVEs) and drama processes for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in the Citizenship and Character Education (CCE) classroom. Both IVEs, facilitated by Virtual Reality (VR) devices involving head-mounted displays (HMDs), and drama processes, such as role-playing or dramatizing, are embodied experiences which allow one to be another or be 'in the shoes' of another and assume his/her perspective. They thus lend to a necessary comparison as potential ways of effective SEL teaching in the CCE context. Specifically, the project seeks to measure the effectiveness of both modalities in encouraging students to take another's perspective, empathize (aspects of the Social Awareness competency in MOE's SEL framework (2016)) and, in turn, how this affects responsible decision-making, another competency in the framework. This will be done as a problem-based scenario fashioned to the respective modality (IVE or drama), with opportunities for students to provide solutions to the problem encountered.

The project will be a small-scale, comparative quasi-experiment. The team will collaborate with Xinmin Secondary School to facilitate two CCE lessons as experimental sessions where quantitative and qualitative data will be obtained. Three classes from the Secondary 3 cohort will be selected by the school: one will experience the problem-scenario as IVE, the other will experience it as facilitated drama processes; the third will have students undergo a CCE lesson, taught with current conventional approaches, albeit of a similar topic and focus as the other two treatment groups.

There will be two rounds of data collection for which the processes are identical although a different scenario will be presented each time. A pre- and post-test survey will be given to all students and the self-reporting measures will be presented as a Likert-scale questionnaire as well as open-ended short questions. Students' written solutions to the problems would also be coded for qualitative data. Subsequently, interviews will also be done with selected individuals based on the quantitative and qualitative data evaluated; the interviews desire to investigate, in greater depth, the impact of IVEs on their solution and their empathic and perspective-taking responses.

Requirements:

• A good honours degree in the relevant fields (social science, psychology, education)
• Proficient knowledge in quantitative and qualitative analysis
• Relevant skills in academic research (e.g., conducting literature review, interviews)
• Prior experience in research either at the undergraduate or postgraduate levels
• Technologically competent: able to exploit hardware and software for quantitative and qualitative data analysis
• Good communication and interpersonal skills
• Ability to work independently

Responsibilities:

• Conduct pre- and post- surveys after each session (total of two sessions)
• Conduct interviews with selected students (multiple sessions)
• Code, organise and analyse all data and present the findings
• Conduct literature review in the relevant fields (immersive virtual environments and learning, drama and social emotional competencies)
• Assist with the final report

Application

Applicants (external and internal) will apply via Workday. We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.

Closing Date

Closing date for advertisements will be set to 14 calendar days from date of posting.

Hiring Institution: NIE