Students submitted a research report to their course instructors before they began translating their report into a poster for the Poster Presentation Day. They needed to describe their research question(s), methodology, analytical framework, findings and key arguments in the poster. It was imperative for them to consider how they could make effective use of the poster, despite its limited space, as a visual aid for their presentation.

The above helped students condense the arguments to be put into the poster. In this way, their posters could function as an effective visual aid for their presentation.

Students who performed well in their research reports were often those who could concisely present the key arguments in the poster.

This is exemplified by the poster of Group 5, who studied the policy of regulation of whaling activities of the IWC (International Whaling Commission):

As our Adjudicator Dr. Dennis Hui commented, 'The poster presents the controversies in a very stimulating manner.'

Instructors' feedback on research proposals

Group 6: 'We knew at the beginning of the semester that we needed to translate our written report into a poster. With the instructor's guidance, we had already a very clear idea about the structure of our poster as early as the stage when we started preparing our research proposal. The poster presentation workshop was very useful, because some posters designed by students last year were on display for our reference. This made the poster design a much easier task for us.'

Instructors' comments on research
reports

Knowing that they were only allowed five to seven minutes to present their research, students had no choice but to condense their key arguments when designing the poster. The poster design actually encouraged them to review their research report, and to rethink their research arguments:

Group 11: 'We initially wanted to discuss the topic of "age of consent" from 3 perspectives: biological, psychological and sociological. Having consulted the instructor, we realized that this approach seemed to simplify and obscure the complex issues involved in the topic. For instance, the debates always centre around why heterosexual young women engage in coital sex only. Through discussing our poster design, we had a chance to rethink the whole issue and our previous conceptualization.'

Poster Presentation Workshop

As our adjudicator Mr. Vic Li commented,

'To visualize one's research on a two- dimensional plane is not easy even for seasoned researchers, but many students have demonstrated much creativity and abilities to distil and frame their messages neatly on the posters.'