Muhammed Yaqoob, a PhD student in Education at the Northern University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, has come to Queen’s University to work with Dr. John Kirby on his dissertation that focuses on the relationship of student’s attitudes, anxiety and their achievements in statistics at the higher secondary level (Grades 11 and 12) in Pakistan.
Mr. Yaqoob hopes that his research will be helpful for policy makers, teachers and curriculum developers. His work will allow teachers to implement learning strategies that will enable students to acquire more positive attitudes towards statistics – helping to decrease anxiety around the subject.
Mr. Yaqoob said of his experience so far, “I am enjoying working with Queen’s Faculty of Education. My supervisor Dr. John Kirby has a lot of experience in the field of research and educational psychology. He is very kind, supportive, committed and dedicated person. I have learned a lot from him.” Dr. Kirby is helping Mr. Yaqoob analyze the data he collected which consists of questionnaire results of 600 students in addition to results for the subject of statistics.
After encouragement from the Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at Northern Univeristy, Prof. Dr. R.A. Farooq and his Supervisor, Prof. Dr. Rabia Tabassum, to travel abroad to work on analyzing the data he collected, Mr. Yaqoob chose Queen’s because of its stellar reputation. The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan helped to make the scholar visit happen through the International Research Support Initiative Program scholarship.
He is enjoying his time in Kingston – which he describes as a clean and beautiful city – even with the “snow, snow and more snow.” He is hoping he will have the opportunity to come back to Canada after he finishes here in May.