FCI lecturer and team won Bronze at MaGIEx

Faculty of Creative Industries academic Dr Hooi Chee Mei and her team consisting of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) PhD student Raganeswari Ramasamy, and USM academics Mariam Mohamad and Mageswaran Sanmugam were awarded the Bronze medal at the Malaysia Grand Invention Expo 2023 (MaGIEx), held on 15 November 2023. Awarded under the tertiary category, the team took home the medal for their research project titled “Utilising writing skills through online mobile application among Form 4 ESL learners in Malaysia”.

The research focused on the effectiveness of online mobile applications in developing writing skills among Form 4 high school ESL learners. The team created a writing module which was to be integrated by the online mobile application to enable the participants to practice the elements of writing skills. The elements included identifying the main ideas, organisation skills, grammar, and vocabulary features. Consequently, 55 ESL learners from two high schools took part in the treatment phase for 10 weeks. The high schools involved were located in Penang and Kedah respectively.

She said, “The findings displayed that ESL learners were able to develop their writing skills through the online mobile application because the school in Penang established that the mean difference of 6.24 between the pre-test and post-test scores is statistically significant, (24) =15, p=.00, while the school in Kedah, it is designated that the mean difference of 5.20 between the pre-test and post-tests scores is statistically significant, (29) =17, p=.00. The qualitative findings have emphasised that policymakers and educational technologists, with the collaboration of educators, in the future need to design an appropriate mobile writing application for Malaysian national schools by including grading system and parents’ involvement, and nurturing various types of writing skills with the integration of writing modules from the primary level to the secondary level before ESL learners enter their tertiary level programme. The objective is aligned with the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and 5.0.”

MaGIEx is an event organised by DIGIT360, a startup company of Universiti Teknologi MARA. With a focus on showcasing the latest inventions and technologies, MaGIEx serves as a platform for researchers, academics, and industry professionals to come together and share their ideas.

Dr Hooi’s medal

The project

Certificate