Browsing by Projects - Researcher "Dr. FU Wai"

Statistics is a core course in the majority of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes (with the exception of those in the humanities), as well as a prerequisite for many courses involving research methods and data analysis. Therefore, students who lack a solid background in mathematics and statistics are likely to encounter significant obstacles. Students often feel apprehensive about statistics examinations. Many students who excel in other areas exhibit poor performance in statistics examinations, reducing their overall grade point average (GPA) and adversely affecting their learning progress and prospects.

Current measures of statistics anxiety (e.g., the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale [Cruise & Wilkins, 1980], the Statistics Anxiety Scale [Pretorius & Norman, 1992] and the Statistics Anxiety Inventory [Zeidner, 1991]) are limited by a tendency to overemphasise general attitudes towards statistics without adequately considering the anxiety-related symptoms triggered by statistics. In addition, these measures tend to neglect respondents’ sense of personal control over events and belief in fate and luck (often collectively categorised under the psychological construct of illusion of control; Langer, 1978), which are common within Chinese populations.

The proposed study will aim to construct and validate a measure of statistics anxiety that is appropriate for use with Chinese university students. The first stage will involve generating item banks from the qualitative findings of interviews with statistics educators and university students. The second stage will involve item analysis and modification. In the third stage, criterion validity will be established for measures of statistics anxiety, illusion of control and various anxiety disorders. The fourth stage will involve confirmatory factor analysis to verify the structure of the scale.

The findings of the proposed study will be immensely helpful for statistics educators, university students and counsellors seeking to resolve the problem of statistics anxiety. In addition, the scale generated from the study will have considerable potential for use in future research on statistics anxiety in local populations.

The proposed study will be a historical study examining the contribution of Moism (¾¥®a), the School of Names (Mingjia¦W®a) and the School of Diplomats (ZhonghuangjiaÁa¾î®a) to psychology in Warring States (ca. 475-221 BC) China. Overcoming the seemingly esoteric and mystic layout of the texts of these schools of thought, the study will provide a new deciphering of three difficult texts, the Mozi, the Gongsunlongzi and the Guiguzi, based on the perspective of psychology. By applying Kurt Danziger's method of identifying psychological objects (Danziger, 2003), in combination with techniques for the cross-validation of texts (Wang, 2008), the study will unveil the psychological constructs adopted by Moism, the School of Names and the School of Diplomats, and uncover ancient empirical approaches to psychology and the psychological techniques used to train spies and diplomats, namely, mnemonics, guided imagery, eloquence training, humour training, drama training, voice training, and attention training. The findings of the study will be beneficial in expanding the curriculum of the history of psychology in Chinese communities, and will open up possibilities for the generation of new ideas about indigenous psychology.

Phenomenology is one of the most influential philosophical perspectives on the contemporary intellectual scene. While Positivism is the dominant philosophical mode in a range of science and social science disciplines, phenomenology remains a major approach to a range of subjects including ethics, sociology, anthropology, hermeneutics, and cultural studies, and it is the root to a range of qualitative research methods including discourse analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Phenomenology is also a major influence on existential psychotherapy. Nonetheless, most of the research methods curriculum is still Positivism orientated, and leaves little room for discussion of phenomenology. Part of the difficulty is that novice learners are alienated by the terminology adopted in phenomenology, and the central tenets of phenomenology are markedly different from Positivism-orientated methodologies.

In order to enhance public's understanding in Phenomenology, the proposed IIDS project will comprise 6 seminars and 4 workshops in total. The seminars include 1) Phenomenology: a general introduction, 2) Modern Technology in the perspective of phenomenology, 3) Phenomenology and cultural and literary criticism, 4) Phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and gender studies; 5) Phenomenology and society; 6) Phenomenology, religion and culture. The workshops include: 1) Interpretative phenomenological analysis as a methodology in social sciences; 2) Phenomenology and Existential Psychotherapy; 3) Applying phenomenology and hermeneutics in the humanities; 4) Phenomenology in applied Ethics. PowerPoints of the seminars will be uploaded for the general public.

The proposed IIDS project will greatly enhance the teaching and learning of qualitative research methods, ethics, and literal critiques in the self-financed sector in tertiary education, and will initiate a dialogue between humanities, science, social science, and human services.

This research project aims at investigating the possibility of employing Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model (1977, 1979) for the holistic analysis of gaming addiction and the development of a prevention programme in the context of burgeoning esports culture, supported by the massive promotion of e-entertainment and e-gaming entrepreneurs and the influence of a newly-evolved community of Key-Opinion Leaders (KOL). Existing models for gaming addiction include Kimberly Young’s model for Internet Addiction (Young, 1996, 2004) which focuses on personal aspects such as a preoccupation with the internet, loss of control, a resistance to cutting down on internet use, the jeopardizing or risking the loss of important aspects in life and using virtual reality as a form of escapism, Mark Griffiths’ model that aims at providing a more specific diagnosis of gaming addiction that makes a distinction between professional involvement in e-sports (e.g. Griffiths et al., 2016, Griffiths, 2019) and the current diagnostic criteria for Gaming Disorder and Hazardous Gaming from the World Health Organization 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) (World Health Organization, 2018). This study intends to extend the scope of analysis by adopting the holistic bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979) that emphasizes the need for ground work that analyses the interaction between various levels including the micro-level (neurological, physiological and motivational aspects), the meso-exo level (the meso-level mainly focuses on those who are in direct contact with the subject, for example, family, school and service providers; while the exo-level refers to stakeholders that are not directly related to the subject, but are exerting an indirect influence on them, for example, stakeholders in entertainment, e-gaming and e-sports), and the macro-chrono level (the macro-level is more concerned with policy and culture from a geographical perspective, while the chrono-level is concerned with historical-cultural changes over time). By analyzing e-gaming and esports according to Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model, a holistic intervention programme that integrates intervention at various levels could be developed. This study is divided into three phases, namely the Problem Identification Phase (meta-analysis of existing literature on gaming, e-gaming, e-entertainment, e-sports, internet addiction, internet gaming addiction, and prevention; and experiments on micro-level variables including in the neurological, physiological and motivational domains), the Programme Development Phase (interviewing various stakeholders related to the meso-; exo-; and marco-levels; and discourse analysis of macro- and chrono-level trends), and the Implementation-Evaluation Phase (provision of preventive programmes for e-gaming addiction for secondary school students, evaluation of impact, and the development of a sustainable development knowledge platform that allows the uploading of articles, announcement of events, downloading of material, and provides a forum for discussion.). Output from the project, which will include best practices, toolboxes and assessment protocols, will be available to researchers, practitioners and the general public to promote the culture necessary for the prevention of gaming addiction in the context of a burgeoning e-sports phenomenon in Hong Kong.