My family & I attended the VMPGA Third Academic Coffee Session today conducted as usual at the Malaysia Hall, starting from 2.15 p.m. to almost 5 p.m. The presenters were:

Rohani Mohamed (Ph.D. Student, University of Melbourne)
Title of thesis - Secondary Mathematic Teachers Assessment Practice

Wan Fauziah Wan Yusof (Ph.D. Student, Victoria University)
Title of thesis - Characteristics of Board of Directors Members, Board Effectiveness & Corporate Governance

Hoo Chiew Ping (Ph.D. Student, La Trobe University)
Title of thesis - The United States and Northeast Asia Security : The Dynamics of Korean Peninsula on Regional Strategic Stability.

Mohd Hanif Yaacob (Ph.D. Student, RMIT)
Title of thesis - Investigation of Nanostructured Tungsten Trioxide for Gas Sensing Application

I am really interested in the first two presenters, Kak Rohani & Kak Wan, because they focused on interviews as one of the methods of data collection. Kak Rohani had just received her green light from her ethics board. She discussed thoroughly the obstacles that she needed to face and the steps she took in order to get the approval.

Kak Wan had recently returned from her data collection in Malaysia. She interviewed all the top managing directors of public listed companies back home. Her data analysis was done in Excel instead of NVivo, very much suitable because her thesis is not exploratory. Well, it actually made her work much easier. She also mentioned some of the issue facing her when trying to get a ‘few’ government officers to be interviewed, such as bureaucracy, lack of response, no response or just being passing around. Hmmm…takutnya!

Most of everyone that attended also discussed on the problem in getting the approval to do research by EPU and what should we expect when applying to them. Hmmm…ngerinya! Semoga aku dapat menghadapinya sebaik mungkin…Insya Allah.