2.1

Background

Student research projects are increasingly common at the K-12 level; in Singapore, research programmes for high school students are not uncommon (Hwa Chong In-stitution 2017; Lai et al. 2002), with an ecosystem of competitions (Science Centre Singapore 2017) to boot. This can be explained by a recognition for a shift towards a knowledge-based economy (Yue 2001); the idea of a knowledge-based economy was first mentioned by Peter Drucker in his book The Effective Executive (Drucker 2006). Since 1997, Singapore’s education system has oriented itself towards such a knowledge-based economy (Boon and Gopinathan 1965, p. 29), funding talent development programmes such as the Gifted Education Programme and the Music Elective Programme. For instance, the Science Research Programme (SRP) is organised by the National University of Singapore (NUS) in collaboration with local high schools, allowing students at the K-11 level to undertake research projects alongside mentors from universities and other research organisations (National University of Singapore 2017). Each research cycle lasts about a year. As compared to intra-school science re-search activities, these interactions with external mentors are closer in nature to that of research in academia, with mentors a part of academia themselves.

High school research projects in photonics take place in this environment; Hwa Chong Institution, a high school in Singapore set up a photonics lab more than ten years ago, with attempts to teach photonics concepts (namely polarisation) (Erkan Polatdemir 2015), as well as facilitating research projects in photonics.

2.2

Project goals and objectives

The goal of my photonics research project was to build a grating monochromator. A monochromator selects a single wavelength of light from a polychromatic source, typically using a diffraction grating (Loewen, Neviere, and Maystre 1977). This monochro-mator is aligned to the HeNe laser line at 632.8 nm, with the intention of extending this technical capability to characterise the breakdown flash of avalanche photodiodes at the single-photon level. The research activities in the project were thus to characterise the resolution of such a grating spectrometer, along with its collection efficiency, beam profile, and other related properties.

3.1

Setting of proximal sub-goals

This experience was instructional as it was a clear demonstration that substantial progress could be made through the setting of immediate and achievable goals, as compared to goals that lacked a clear deadline and a set of requirements. The setting of immediate, or proximal goals has been shown to have positive motivational effects by providing immediate incentives and guides for improvement (Bandura and Schunk 1981). Goals can affect performance through four mechanisms: directing attention, motivating effort, affecting persistence, and help to lead to the discovery of relevant knowledge and skills. (Locke 2002, p. 3) With these proximal goals, there was thus a sense of urgency and forward momentum, helping to enable and motivate experimental progress.

FIGURE3:

Sample plot obtained during preliminary prototyping. Note the relative lack of attention with respect to the error analysis, curve-fitting, as well as the labelling of axes.

FIGURE4:

The Python package numpy was used to generate a set of pseudorandom numbers that follow a Gaussian distribution; the data was binned and fitted to such a Gaussian distribution. The error estimators are the standard deviation at each point. Having the fit equation and statistics inside the plot makes them easier to interpret. The X² statistic suggest overfitting, where the error estimators used here are too large.

FIGURE5:

HeNe laser spectrum as measured by the Oceanoptics USB4000 spectrometer, fitted to a bi-Gaussian. Error-bars are the computed standard deviation at each point.

FIGURE6:

HeNe spectra as measured by grating setup. These peaks have a FWHM of less than 0.1 nm, suggesting that these features are artifacts, as the grating cannot resolve details beyond 0.1 nm, the theoretical resolution limit.

This preliminary prototyping also provided a reference on which subsequent efforts built on. For instance, having built a prototype for a grating monochromator, I was then able to make further improvements in alignment, swapping one of the multi-mode fibres for a single-mode fibre, as well as to characterise the noise at the light collecting device, and so on.

In the following section, I will examine the implications of this reiteration on an emotional level, bringing in the socio-psychological model as proposed by Carol Dweck et. al.

3.2

Performance vs. Learning outcomes

In an intensely competitive education system with multiple high-stakes exams, “exposing students to high-stakes assessments in which there must be necessarily winners and losers … is likely to produce detrimental effects ” (Gregory and Clarke 2003).

This focus on assessments can be understood as a focus on performance goals. Carol Dweck has shown goals to be “central determinants of achievement patterns” (Elliott and Dweck 1988), where two different kind of goals, performance and learning goals, can shape outcomes related to motivation and achievement. Learning goals involves learning at the risk of displaying mistakes, leading to mastery-oriented responses, where “individuals seek to increase their ability or master new tasks”. Performance goals, on the other hand, is correlated with a “learned-helplessness response in problem-solving and negative affect”. In a later paper, Dweck explains that:

These terms help to understand the research experience at the high school level. In an environment that prioritises performance goals that demonstrate student competency, students who have low confidence in their abilities take setbacks badly; this can develop into a sense of helplessness as documented by Dweck; students attribute their failure to a lack of ability, and respond “with negative affect” (Dweck and Leggett 1988; Diener and Dweck 1980). As much as proximal sub-goals may help to frame research problems into achievable and immediate goals, attitudes towards goals as performance or learning based will shape student response. Given that many students do have low confidence in their research abilities - having minimal prior experience - a sense of powerlessness with regards to perceived ability is explainable and understandable.

How then, might we encourage an orientation towards learning outcomes? In Singapore, high school research programmes are formalised to the extent where an entire ecosystem of competition exists, and research is to some extent functionalised. In this light, learning-oriented goals in an environment prioritising assessment and performance seem dichotomous. The interaction between the student researcher and the mentor, a separate environment in itself, is thus particularly important in attempting to cultivate a learning-oriented mindset. In the research process, my mentor would repeatedly emphasise the goal of research as a learning process, as opposed to obtaining results as an end in itself, helping to improve affect.

4.1

Attention to detail

In the course of emailing, one skill that was repeatedly emphasised was an attention to technical detail in planning, which included an awareness for scheduling, as well as setting proximal sub-goals: laying out the individual steps required for a certain goal. This provides a structured framework which can then be referenced to during experimental work. This is particularly pertinent in photonics projects, where

An excerpt of such a plan is provided below:

second iteration: tear down the first one. build a basic michelson interferometer again, but now:

This was a plan for building a prototype meant to perform Fourier spectroscopic measurements. With a structured framework, there are immediate motivations and indicants of self-mastery. (Bandura and Schunk 1981). Communicating these plans helps to formalise the procedure, as well as to obtain feedback at various junctures of execution.

Not discounting the utility of emails in helping to facilitate mentor-mentee inter-action, along with preparing one for experimental work, I have personally found it an emotionally-taxing time sink. Aside from the interaction between low confidence and an orientation towards performance goals as described in the section above, it seemed as if, during the course of the research that emailing started to feel a little impersonal.

To provide some context, there were two other students in the research group; they had difficulties communicating with the mentor over the course of the research cycle. The mentor-mentee communication started in May, with the research work meant to end the following January. The above excerpt was sent in the middle of November, at 4:41 pm, and was at that point mildly stress-inducing. In retrospect, the instructions and requests were fairly reasonable, and were valuable pieces of instruction in data plotting and the interpretation of fit statistics. Put into context however, it sounded harsh and felt excessively demanding. The following section will discuss how electronic communication reduces the number of social cues, which can make communication appear more impersonal.

4.2

Computer-mediated communication as impersonal

It has been noted that emailing, under the category of ‘Computer-mediated communication’, can be seen as impersonal. (Walther 1996). It is suggested that the lack of nonverbal social cues present in electronic communication as compared to face-to-face meetings leads to more impersonal interaction. (Hiltz, Johnson, and Turoff 1986) Emailing separates the human from the task, and although this does appear to improve task quality (see Hiltz et. al), there are fewer avenues for the diffusion of tension, the communication nuanced expectations and statements, leading to emails that are perhaps a little blunt.

It is important to realise that communication is not an end in itself; it is meant to fa-cilitate mentor-mentee interaction, given that mentors are often busy. Writing emails with detailed plans, schedules, and contingencies, better prepares one for experimental work. Not discounting its importance, in the context of the high school research programme, emailing should perhaps a degree of restraint, with more mentor-mentee interaction taking place via face-to-face interaction. In the following section, I will discuss the research experience as it was closer to the end of the research cycle, involving data collection and report writing.