Capitalizing on the success of similar workshops in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City over the last two years, Aus4Skills organized a Training Workshop on Research Design on 6 May 2017 at Thai Nguyen University. This is the first time this workshop has been organized in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam.
The workshop was attended by 38 participants including Australia Awards Scholarship and Vietnamese Government Scholarship alumni, academia and researchers of Thai Nguyen University and Tay Bac University, two regional universities in the northern mountainous region.
Former International Academic Advisor for Australia Awards Vietnam, Dr. David Annandale talking about turning a research into published articles
Facilitated by Dr. David Annandale, former International Academic Advisor for Australia Awards Vietnam, the workshop introduced academia and researchers how to structure their research in an effective and academically acceptable manner so as to have research papers published in international journals.
Participants asking questions to the facilitator
‘I got a lot of helpful advice through presentations of the facilitator and discussions with other participants. For example, I should start by choosing journals with suitable ranking to my abilities and strengths. More importantly, in order to have papers published in international journals, I need to find out who will be the reviewers so that I can include arguments from their articles into my paper to improve its persuasiveness,’ said Mr. Nguyen Van Minh, an Australia Awards Scholarship alumnus and lecturer at Tay Bac University.
The workshop was designed to provide participants with a mixture of lectures and interactive sessions. Each session was conducted with a presentation by the trainer on concepts and best practices for specific topics with time for questions and answers. Participants, then, were divided into small groups to discuss the topic and their findings.
Dr. Nguyen The Hung, Vice Rector, Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry Australia engaging in group discussion
Responding to the post-training survey, participants were very satisfied with the workshop. All participants agreed that the workshop objectives were clear and achieved and the acquired knowledge was very helpful for their work.
‘I applied knowledge from the workshop to draft an article entitled ‘Use of Mobile Devices in Teaching and Learning English: A Systematic Review’. After finalization, I will submit to the British Journal of Educational Technology’, Minh expressed the impact of the workshop when asked some weeks later.
The workshop showcased Aus4Skills’ support for Promoting Quality in North Western Universities of Vietnam, one key component of the Aus4Skills program.
