By Sam Sophorn
After 10 long years of working with the World Bank and the Ministry of Economics and Finance the DHE was able to secure funding for higher education research projects in Cambodia under the HEQCIP. HEI’s across Cambodia began working on a number of different research projects in response to the new funding in 2012. The workshop, held from June 2nd-6th in Siem Reap province, aimed to review the
progress of the research projects thus far and provide feedback and further training on research related processes.
The conference was led by many members of the Royal government as well as other members from international funding and research organizations, including; H.E. Mak Nhoy, Director General of the Department of Education; Dr. Un Lean, Deputy Director of the Department of Education; Mr. Seng Simeth, a World Bank Representative; Dr. Nith Bunlay, Deputy Director General of Higher Education;
and Professor Dr. Trude Jacobson from Northern Illinois University.
The first two days of the conference were allotted for project presentation. There were 46 research projects to present, so the conference created categories for research type; pure research, experimental research and curriculum design. The University of Cambodia’s research project was classified as ‘experimental research’, thus Dr. Sovathana Sokhom and Mr. Sam Sophorn presented UC’s research project to that group.
UC has been conducting a research project based on the hypothesis that encouraging student’s to have high self-esteem and self-confidence will increase their ability to function in their daily lives and ultimately translate into a wider spread of a positive social outlook within an economic context.
The project began in 2012 and consisted of training teachers, holding self-esteem and motivational enhancement trainings and giving surveys to both the test group who participated in the trainings, as well as a control group to compare findings. Similar trainings and surveys were taken twice more, each three months after the prior. The research team is still working on compiling and analyzing the data.
A brief training was given on quantitative and qualitative data analysis, evaluating research, how to format final reports and how to search for funding sources. The conference also created an open dialogue about the necessity of creating a Cambodian Professional Research Network.
H.E. Mak Nhoy, Director General of Department of Higher Education shared his concern about the lack of effort to look for grants to support research activities and increase the research capacity development in HEIs and stressed the importance of harnessing these opportunities to further Cambodia’s research capacities as a whole.
