Teaching essential graduate attributes via digital cultural heritage: An assessment model from communication students in Hong Kong

Abstract

[EN] Through building the first digital archive about communication education history and cultural heritage in Greater China and using oral history approach involving current students and sharing from alumni, faculty, and staff over the past 50 years, this exploratory study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of using such an inside-out approach to enhance the impact on learning among students as well as cognitive and affective changes toward attaining graduate attributes in the communication profession. Students from six selected courses (N=97) participated in this project completed an online survey. Four instructors and 20 interview participants provided qualitative feedback via email. Hierarchical regression results showed that personal involvement, evaluation of interview sharing, and evaluation of teaching methods were all the significant predictors of the variance in impact on learning as well as cognitive and affective changes toward attaining graduate attributes in the communication profession. Instructors found this approach an effective way to strengthen teaching and enhance students’ learning experience from understanding the central, enduring, and distinctive features of communication school and the university. Alumni also believed that this project enabled current students to observe the important graduate attributes which lead to career success.