Background, Benefits and Problem Statement Draft 2

Background (Part):

Society needs science, and scientists need an informed, thoughtful, and open-minded citizenry (EurekAlert, 2009). This is however not possible without the exhibition of solid scientific communication skills. Assuming that our audience has the full capacity to absorb what is presented to them, the only limitation would then be the scientific researcher's ability to translate his or her ideas across efficiently. With this in mind, we would like to consider some of the communication needs of the scientific research sector.

Firstly, writing scientific reports is one aspect of the communication needs in the scientific research field. Many tertiary students in NUS should be familiar with the numerous lab reports that are required in the various modules. Indeed, scouring through the academic requirements of various science and engineering degrees of tertiary institutions, one will recognize that scientific reports form an integral portion of one's module grade.

In addition, the writing of research proposals and grant applications are also crucial skills that numerous scientists have expressed interest in, as shown from research done by the European Molecular Biology Organization. (University of Copenhagen, 2009). From the job requirements for scientific-related positions as advertised online (Naturejobs, 2010), we can see that the abovementioned scientific writing skills are also in demand at workplaces, and hence relevant even after completing our tertiary studies.

Other than the component of scientific writing, there is also an emphasis on the aspect of scientific presentation skills as mentioned by our interviewee, Prof. Helmer. This is another important part of scientific research where the speaker presents his or her ideas directly to an audience. In the tertiary institution setting, students across the faculties are often expected to give oral and visual presentations together with the submission of their scientific manuscripts.

Outside school, the requirement of good presentation skills can also be often seen in advertisements for careers in the scientific research field. All in all, scientific communication needs to be underpinned by training and evaluation and they would be best served in the area where the needs originated- the school.

Problem Statement:

The inability to write scientific papers effectively remains a problem for many university students. To identify pedagogical constructs that help undergraduates write well in scientific formats, Jerde and Taper evaluated the effect of the number and type of college composition courses previously taken, science writing experience, and tutorial services and found that the only significant factor influencing scientific writing performance was prior scientific writing experience (Education Resources Information Center, 2009). This suggests that more emphasis should be placed on scientific writing within the undergraduate science curriculum. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore deeper into the communication needs of the scientific research industry and to propose reasonable modifications to the NUS curriculum that would best serve these requirements. 

Benefits

Undoubtedly, there are many rationales for our team to propose the extension of the above research proposal to a full-fledged study in NUS. Through further research, our team can obtain more substantial evidence to draw an informed conclusion about the current communication needs in the scientific research industry. This would then enable us to propose a more holistic recommendation to allow the NUS curriculum to meet these specific needs in the long run.