Tuesday Onsite Presentation Session 4

Higher Education

Session Chair: Elaine Ah Heung Chan

15:35-16:00

68912 | How Did Traditional Nomadic Herders Increase in the Past Decade?

–The Relations of Higher Education, TVET, and Career Trajectory

Eri Nakamura, Chiba University, Japan

This study aims to reveal the growth factors in nomadic herders, featuring the relations of higher education, TVET, and the job market in Mongolia. Past studies demonstrated the dramatic decrease of herder households in young generations in Mongolia due to the vulnerability under climate change and preference for an urban lifestyle after the mobility to the capital city owing to the transition to higher education. On the other hand, government statistic shows that the rate of herder households in the early twenties has increased in the past ten years. Analyzing qualitative data collected from the interviews with ten young nomadic herder families, four vocational and technical education institutions, and two higher education institutions in October 2022, the author discovered both negative and positive factors of why people chose to be nomadic herders despite the hardship. First, the high unemployment rate impacts the negative choice of nomadic herders. Another accelerating factor is the government policy to support poor herders under thirty-five years old. In this policy, young people register as poor herders to receive grant funding, although they do not make a living by raising cattle. Positive factors are the firm belief and respect for nature and animals. Young nomadic interviewees showed sound responsibility to succeed in their family business without wondering about other directions. This study also clarified the contradiction between government statistics and the actual number of young herders. In the research target area, young herders exist in statistical data, but the absolute herders decreased in the past decade.

16:00-16:25

67670 | Higher Education Students’ Perceptions towards Future Tourism in Hong Kong

Ah Heung Elaine Chan, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Tourism is one of the four pillar industries in Hong Kong. Due to COVID-19, the consumption pattern of travellers, especially for young generations, has been changed. COVID-19 has transformed the future development of tourism (e.g. sustainable tourism, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in tourism, smart tourism, etc). Therefore, this study aims to gain an in-depth understanding about the trend, and future development of tourism in Hong Kong from higher education students’ perspectives using a qualitative approach. Four focus groups from the tourism and non-tourism programmes from the higher education sector were conducted. They were asked to attend an one-hour lecture on the topic of “future tourism towards sustainability” and then joined the focus group. Themes were emerged from the focus groups in terms of (1) Immersive VR/AI (2) Robotics, (3) Eco-tourism and (4) health tourism. A conceptual framework was developed based on the focus group findings. The developed questionnaire from the findings will be prepared for collecting data in a cross-sectional study. The findings of the study can contribute to future curriculum development of tourism and hospitality management programme.

16:25-16:50

67764 | The Innovative Approach of Integrating Play in Management Higher Education

Samer Sarofim, California State University, Fresno, United States

Play has been shown to foster creativity, alter behaviors, and promote happiness. Both companies and educational institutes have started to utilize play programs to increase employee engagement, facilitate product development, and implement creative strategies. One of the main objectives of management higher education is to equip students not only with knowledge but also with the skills required to become future business leaders. The adoption of one of the most innovative learning methodologies, namely LEGO® Serious Play, enables students to develop a more effective set of skills that are needed to excel in the marketplace. The LEGO® Serious Play Methodology fosters creativity among students by adapting the “Think with Hands” approach. For instance, in one exercise, students are instructed to individually create 3D LEGO® models to metaphorically represent their ideas and strategies. Afterward, each 3D LEGO® model, built by each student in the group, has to be integrated into a bigger model that represents the overall group work. This process helps each student to generate ideas and force the entire group towards more inclusive dynamics, in which each student’s work has to be integrated into the overall model. More formal and rigorous research is required to quantify the impact of Play Methodologies on achieving learning outcomes within various marketing courses. Comparing “Play” to “Non-play”, different forms of play, and various play tools, shall enhance the exposure of educators to the antecedents and consequences of employing play learning methodologies in different higher education disciplines that vary in scope and learning goals.

16:50-17:15

68055 | Sentence Openers in Academic Writing

Tanju

Deveci, Khalifa University, United Arab Emirates

The language used to report research findings and put forward arguments is at the heart of effective communication with readers. To this end, scholars use a variety of stylistic features. One of these is variety in language, which includes structures, lexis, and organization markers. Although much research has been conducted on these aspects, a particular feature has received limited interest from researchers: sentence openers, strategic use of which helps authors develop an individual style, and avoid stagnant prose. This helps them maintain readers’ interest while communicating scientific knowledge. Due to the importance of sentence openers in scientific prose, university students’ awareness should be raised about this aspect of academic writing. This requires the identification of commonly occurring sentence openers in the texts they study. It is also useful to identify student tendencies regarding sentence openers and their perceived competence in varying sentence openers. In this session, I will present the results of a study investigating a 10,949 running-word corpus compiled from professionally-written texts used in a first-year writing course, as well as a 42,070 running-word student corpus compiled from the reflective writing papers of 35 first-year students. I will discuss the results and make recommendations for increasing students’ skills in composing effective academic texts.