Participants’ Reflections after the AURA Programme’s Research One (R1) Learning Intervention

There has been an increasing stream of feedback since October 2015 that indicates the potential benefits of AURA programme impacting individual participants at different levels.  What follows is a short summary of the key moments.

Application of critical skills in information literacy

One of these concerns application of critical skills in information literacy. One participant, a young scholar, began reading more widely on the topic of her PhD concept note and made an effort to contact the author of a paper she felt contained content that was core to the concepts of her research. She received positive feedback from the author and was motivated to keep working on the paper and has since gone on to present a poster at the GKEN4Africa 5th International Multidisciplinary Conference 2015 .

Opening up research opportunities to undergraduate students

The other area is the effort to open up research opportunities to undergraduate students, especially using approaches that impact society. One of the participants has demonstrated how the learning obtained in the AURA programme’s R1 face to face learning intervention has encouraged him to involve his students in research activities that have an impact in their communities. One of the student teams went on to present a poster on this initiative at an internal research event at Strathmore.

 These developments indicate the potential impact of the AURA intervention in promoting research amongst Strathmore students. Therefore,  it is becoming clearer how learning interventions can be beneficial in supporting young scholars in fostering confidence, in developing skills to develop their work and to take up opportunities to communicate about this both internally and externally.

Application of critical thinking skills

Another area is the application of critical thinking skills. One of the participants has been conceptualising a difficult research topic concerning the need for research outputs to contribute to the transformation of the society. In the local setting, most research findings remain on the shelves as scholarly outputs that do not influence policy or practice in the industry or within the communities.

The participant benefited from the R1 learning intervention and became more confident that the chosen topic was researchable and could be actualised, especially following detailed feedback from scholars in the AURA network.  It will be interesting to see how this student’s work progresses.

Concluding remarks

These developments indicate the potential impact of the AURA intervention in promoting research amongst Strathmore students. Therefore, it is becoming clearer how learning interventions can be beneficial in supporting young scholars in fostering confidence, in developing skills to develop their work and to take up opportunities to communicate about this both internally and externally.

Stephen Ng’ang’a and Cavin Opiyo are based at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya.