Two wins at MMU Press Article Writing Competition 2023 

Faculty of Creative Industries academic Dr Hooi Chee Mei won second prize under the Open Category for her article titled “Blended Learning Approach in Developing Metacognitive Strategies in Group Writing” at the MMU Press Article Writing Competition 2023 on 12 October 2023. She walked away with a cash prize worth RM500, a certificate and a medal.

Her paper examined how metacognitive strategies were developed during group work in a class consisting of 21 first-year undergraduates in an expository writing course. It also sought to analyse the students’ perceptions of blended writing experience. The findings concluded that blended learning through Wikispaces helps to make learning more efficient, meaningful and beneficial because the students become more autonomous in their learning process as they interact with one another in groups.

In the same competition, Dr Hooi and her team members, namely Raganeswari Ramasamy, Mariam Mohamad, and Mageswaran Sanmugam from Universiti Sains Malaysia won first prize under the Postgraduate Category for their article titled “A Need Analysis of Incorporating New Teaching Approach via Technology”. They walked away with a cash prize worth RM800, certificates and medals.

Their paper aimed at determining the effectiveness of using the 4C’s (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity thinking) of 21^st-century learning skills to foster students’ narrative writing skills using an online learning platform via mobile learning. The outcomes from this study could enable future researchers or policymakers to provide specific guidelines to incorporate the 4C’s in the online learning platform via mobile learning and prepare appropriate online writing modules for the students in Malaysia to progress in their writing skills since the Ministry of Education has highlighted to integrate new teaching and learning approaches, especially by using technology features in the Malaysian education system (Education Blueprint 2013-2025).