Professor Kuo clarifies teaching and research myths at alumni talk

Professor Way Kuo, President of City University of Hong Kong (CityU), delivered a talk entitled “Teaching and Research: Dispelling Common Misconceptions” to the Convocation of CityU on 14 July, sharing his research findings on the myths surrounding teaching and research.

Professor Kuo was delivering a speech on this topic for the fourth time, following previous talks at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua Alumni Association of Hong Kong and Hong Kong University Graduates Association. “It gives me great pleasure to deliver this talk on the most interesting of subjects to outstanding alumni at ‘home’.” Professor Kuo said.

Mr Joseph Tsoi Wing-leung, Vice-Chairman (External Affairs) of the Standing Committee of the Convocation, said such talks brought alumni together and demonstrated their close ties with CityU.

Professor Kuo’s speech was based on the recently published Clarifying Some Myths of Teaching and Research, which illustrates the relationship between teaching and research. The book was co-authored with educational psychologist Professor Mark E Troy and was based on the study and analysis of the research achievements of 400 faculty members and teaching performance evaluations over a five-year period, collected from more than 10,000 students at Texas A&M University, US.

Professor Kuo said the research was driven by curiosity and was intended to clarify misconceptions regarding the relationship between teaching and research through the application of huge amounts of data. The study looked into the factors affecting the teaching and research relationship and students’ ratings from different viewpoints, such as student seniority, faculty grades, class size and research output.

“I showed the results from statistical analysis to inspire people to further study this topic,” said Professor Kuo. He illustrated his points with lively examples and engaged in a spirited exchange of ideas with alumni.

Alumna Ms Clara Lau Yun-yu is a secondary school English teacher and is studying a language master’s degree programme at CityU. Clara said the topic was closely related to her job and she could discuss ideas with other alumni during the event. “Professor Kuo explains a complex topic in a simple way. The talk enlightened me, as an educator, to the fact I need to rethink current teaching methodologies and conduct research into how to encourage students to think and learn proactively,” said Clara.

Clarifying Some Myths of Teaching and Research is now on the shelves at book shops. Professor Kuo will donate royalties from the books’ sales to scholarship programmes.