Establishing the ground for multidisciplinary collaboration

From fourth left: Dr Gan, Dr Lee, Wirawahida, and Dr Latha along with participants at the seminar

Centre for Applied Psychology (CAP) Annual Seminar was organised by CAP on 18 April 2019 at UTARKampar Campus. The seminar aimed to stimulate new research ideas and discover collaboration opportunities among the participants.

Themed ‘Establishing the Ground for Multidisciplinary Collaboration’, the opening ceremony was officiated by Faculty for Arts and Social Science (FAS) Dean Dr Lee Lai Meng. Also present was CAP Chairperson Dr Gan Su Wan, Organising Chairperson Wirawahida binti Kamarul Zaman and Keynote speakers Dr Latha Ravindran and Dr Mohammed Yusof bin Dawood Gany.

Wirawahida emphasising the importance of the seminar

“The CAP Seminar is not only a platform for academics and students to share their research knowledge and experience, but it is also a platform to strengthen our relationship as we come together and interact with each other. Through such interaction, we are able to widen our networks, and most importantly, to form possible collaborations that would further our research to yield better findings,” said Wirawahida.

Dr Lee explaining the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration in her speech

“The theme of the seminar is very timely as we now live in challenging times in which cutting-edge research is needed to help solve the world’s major problems and challenges. Multidisciplinary collaboration is also seemingly becoming a trend in research. It represents a progressive scholarly method to find creative and innovative solutions for solving global problems. The multidisciplinary approach uses several disciplines to a given problem and is supplementary to one another in such a way that it is possible to draw findings. The individual findings of the disciplines involved are brought together in a cumulative finding to conclude possible solutions to a problem. Therefore, modern research is tending to be more and more multidisciplinary,” said Dr Lee.

She continued, “Since current global problems are complex in nature and require knowledge in all aspects, thus their solutions through research also ask for a multidisciplinary approach. An effective multidisciplinary process is also likely to require softer human skills such as teamwork, leadership, tolerance of differences, ambiguity and selflessness. Thus, this will help build up our researchers’ interpersonal skills and EQ skills. With that in mind, this seminar has been organised to share and discuss various topics under this approach.”

Prior to the seminar, a book launching ceremony was held to celebrate the first publishing of the centre’s book titled “Reflections on Social Issues and Malaysian Adolescents”. Person-in-charge of the launching FAS Academic Christina Ong Sook Beng explained that the book dwells into the issues of Malaysian adolescents who are assumed to be one of the most vulnerable groups in the society who needs support and attention. The book contains four themes; parenting style; economic, social and politics; behavioural problems; and the internet. The book is also available for reading at UTAR Library. Four copies of the book were also donated to the National Library. Due to the limited amount of books available, to those who are interested to buy the book “Reflections on Social Issues and Malaysian Adolescents”, can contact Dr Gan at swgan@utar.edu.my.

From left: Dr Gan, Dr Lee and Ong at the book launch

Two workshops were also conducted by the keynote speakers. Dr Latha’s workshop was titled “What’s real about Bringing Relevance to Multi-disciplinary Collaboration to attain Visibility”. Dr Latha explained about multidisciplinary collaboration and its benefits. Meanwhile, Dr Mohammed’s workshop was titled “Conflict between Religious and Sexual Identity among same-sex attracted Muslim Men”. 

From left: Dr Latha and Dr Mohammed conducting the workshops

The other researchers who presented were Kiran Saba Anwar on “The Impact of Work Family Conflict on Organisational Commitment among Educators”;Cheng Yee Ching, Brenda Lynn Julianose, Jason Ng Jun Mun, & Sie Shwu Yuen and Dr Kok Jin Kuan on “Exploring the Perspective of Family Life, Happiness and Sadness among Refugee Children in Malaysia”;Amutha Kunalan on “Student-centered Teaching: An Approach towards Excellent Teaching among Higher Education Academics”; Dr Lee Ai Suan on “The Role of Language and Culture in Looking Strategy and Verbal Descriptions on Scene Processing”; Adiwira bin Mohd Zin on “The Effect of Music towards Achieving Flow for Obese People When Performing Exercise”; Pragash Muthu Rajan on “Ethnocentrism and Intercultural Willingness to Communicate: A Study of Malaysian Private University”; and Aluwiya Alhamed on “Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions on Effects of Long School Hours on Primary Students Learning in Nairobi, Kenya”.

Presenters displaying their certificates of participation

Click here to read the full abstracts of the presenters.