Teaching development grants final and financial report: Enhancing students' personal and psychosocial development with self-learning kit: A positive education approach

This project aims at developing a self-learning kit on personal and psychosocial development for students’ preparation of their Field Experience (FE) and internships. Four aspects in personal development are identified in particular which are emotional management, social relationships and communication, leadership, and self-understanding and self-esteem, according to the feedback received from internship providers, teachers and students. The learning kit will be designed taking into account the feedback collected from the collaborating partners who offer fieldwork experience placements and internship opportunities, enhancement of student learning outcomes of FE and internships, and adoption of the positive education approach (Norrish, Williams, O’Connor, & Robinson, 2013). Activities such as self-assessments, case studies, knowledge/skill enrichment exercises, reflections and mini-quizzes will be included in the kit for each aspect. One hundred students which consist of 50-60 Bachelor of Social Sciences students in Psychological Studies who will be completing their internships and 40-50 Bachelor of Education students who will be completing FE will be recruited for this pilot implementation of the self-learning kit. Students will participate in a pre-study workshop for introduction of this project and completion of the pre-study questionnaire for competency in the four aspects. Students will then be given the self-learning kits for completion in 3-4 months. After that, they will attend a post-study workshop for reflection and completion of the post-study questionnaire for outcomes of the four aspects. Data will be collected and analyzed for significant improvement in the areas. Seminars and sharing sessions will also be held for FE and internship supervisors after the study.