Psychology student wins Best Abstract at the Malaysian Psychology Student Assembly Conference 2018
The Department of Psychology is very proud to announce that graduating student from the BSc (Hons) Psychology Programme, Reneesya Panicker was picked as the winner of the Best Abstract Award at the Malaysian Psychology Student Assembly (MAPSA) Conference 2018 at University of Reading, Johor Bahru on 10 November 2018. Her submission was based on her final year project thesis entitled, “Transformational leadership on teamwork attitude: The effects of trust and collective efficacy as mediators”, supervised by Dr Michelle Lee, senior lecturer from the Department of Psychology.
Reneesya recounted that she initially hesitant to participate in MAPSA as she was anxious about public-speaking but she is very thankful that her supervisor Dr Michelle Lee and her friends encouraged her to step out of my comfort zone. She has no regrets participating because it was her first time attending such conference and she reported that it was very fruitful to her. “It was great to see many psychology students from different universities come together to present on interesting and vast research topics. Also, the keynote speeches, workshops and forum were really compelling and thought provoking”, she said. Reneesya was also surprised with her win because she was not aware of such a category and she is very thankful for all her experience which was made more memorable by the presence of her friends and lecturers, Dr Yong Min Hooi and Ms Woo Pei Jun from the Department of Psychology.
Reneesya Panicker with her award certificate at MAPSA 2018
Reneesya’s study was developed to fill in the gaps in research literature on how transformational leadership impacts on teamwork attitude. She wanted to know how transformational leadership promotes trust in leaders, members of an organizational team as well as collective efficacy of a team that, and how these factors affect teamwork attitudes. Her results support the importance of the need for transformational leaders to promote a positive teamwork attitude through trust and collective efficacy. Reneesya and Dr Lee’s investigation has been acknowledged as a very important study in the area of industrial and organizational psychology.
Dr Lee’s area of study, which is the role of trust within organisations has been one that has won her a large grant of USD 52,000 (~MYR 220,000) from the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD), that she shares with her co-investigators Assoc. Prof. Dr Lin Mei-Hua and Senior Lecturer Dr Priyadarshini Moharkonda Srinivasan, both from the Department of Psychology, as well as their collaborator from the Department of Psychology at Lancaster University, Dr Stacey Conchie in 2017.
AOARD Research Grant holders from Department of Psychology: Dr Michelle Lee flanked by Assoc. Prof. Dr Lin Mei-Hua and Dr Priyadarshini Moharkonda Srinivasan.
We wish Reneesya a bright future and also to Dr Michelle Lee and her team further successes in their research developments. The Department is very pleased with their achievements.
