Extending the Deadline: Final Push to Reach All Participant Groups

-

On April 2, 2025, I launched the main survey for my PhD research exploring how China’s HEEPs influence the relationship between PNG and China. Since then, I’ve been working steadily to reach participants from seven distinct groups across PNG and abroad. While participation from some groups has been encouraging, others have proven more difficult to reach. In light of these challenges—and to ensure all voices are fairly represented—I have extended the survey closing date from July 9 to August 2, 2025.

The purpose of this survey is to gather diverse perspectives from Papua New Guineans who have participated in CGSPs, CLPs, PSTPs, as well as those who were self-funded, sponsored by the PNG government through STEM or district-level scholarships, or participated in private training programs. These respondents are grouped into seven survey categories to enable clean data collection and analysis.

To date, the strongest response rates have come from students currently studying in China and alumni of Chinese universities, with both groups approaching or surpassing the minimum target of 80 responses. These participants have shown strong engagement, not only by completing the survey but also by sharing the links within their networks and expressing interest in participating in follow-up interviews for the qualitative phase of the study.

However, the response rates from UoT and UoG Chinese Language Program students remain below expectations. As of early July, I have received only 7 responses from UoT and 10 from UoG. Similarly, participation from the PSTP groups (including SEZA, NDoH, and PNGDF/DoD) has been limited due to communication barriers and lack of response from institutional contacts. This uneven response threatens to skew the overall findings and underrepresent key subgroups in the final analysis.

By extending the deadline to August 2, I hope to reach the minimum sample size of 50–80 respondents per group, which is suitable for snowball sampling and will allow for robust comparisons across categories. This decision also gives me more time to follow up with contacts, repost on social media, and encourage those who have been sent the link—but haven’t yet responded—to complete the survey or decline so I can update my records.

The extra time will also be used to strengthen the qualitative phase that follows the survey. The insights gained from the quantitative results will guide the selection of interview participants and shape the types of questions that will be asked. Without adequate responses from each group, particularly the CLP and PSTP cohorts, it would be difficult to assess the full range of experiences and how different program types influence perceptions of China and PNG’s foreign policy decisions.

Research in a real-world context rarely goes as smoothly as planned, especially when participants are spread across institutions, time zones, and funding arrangements. Extending the deadline is a practical step to respect those complexities and give all intended participants a fair chance to take part in this important research.

If you’re a participant in any of the seven HEEP categories and have not yet completed the survey, please take a few minutes before August 2 to share your views. Your experience is not only valuable to this study—it contributes to how we understand the role of education diplomacy in shaping PNG’s international relationships.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Commercial liberalism and the six norms

-
Image
Liberal internationalism is defined by Griffiths, O'Callaghan and Roach (2008, p.190) as a project to transform international relations so that they conform to models of peace, freedom, and prosperity allegedly enjoyed within constitutional liberal democracies. The same scholars go further by dividing liberalism into three distinct groups. They say these are the three ways to implement the project. The way they present liberal internationalism as a project makes their work interesting. Three distinct groups Firstly, commercial liberalism is about free trade between states. States bilaterally or multilaterally via a platform like APEC pursue the goal of trade liberalization. Griffiths, O'Callagahan and Roach (ibid.) argued that economic interdependence would decrease the likelihood of going to war. Republican liberalism is about democratic peace. The scholars argued that the spread of democracy among states so that governments will be accountable to their citizens makes it di...
Read more

FPA: Organizational Process Model

-
This model centers on the fact that different bureaucracies have different standard operating procedures. These procedures are made in order to allow day to day operations to be carried out. Thus, a foreign policy decision is made based on these standard operating procedures. It is hard for a bureaucracy to make a decision or let alone function out of character or contrary to their standard operating procedure. The reading Chapter 4: Foreign policy shares a straight forward explanation of the OPM: "An alternative to the rational model of decision making is the organizational process model. In this model, foreign policy decision makers generally skip the labor-intensive process of identifying goals and alternative actions, relying instead for most decisions on standardized responses or standard operating procedures. For example, the U.S. State Department everyday receives more than a thousand reports or inquiries from its embassies around the world and sends out more than a ...
Read more

Allison's rational actor model

-
There are 3 common models of foreign policy decision making according to Graham Allison: rational actor model organizational process mode government politics model.  We will discuss the 3 models and compare them with the 3 levels of analysis. However, I challenge you to use your own initiative to learn about the other models of decision making. This will help you as future decision makers or analysts to understand how decisions are made and the processes. When one wakes up from bed he or she decides whether or not to brush their teeth, comb their hair and have a shower. These decisions are paramount, they affect and influence how the individual interacts in a social setting. This highlights the fact that as human beings we make decisions every day. Decision making is defined as the thought process of selecting a logical choice from the available options. In the case of the ‘Kibung peles boy’ analogy; the male student had a choice of approaching the girl to ask he...
Read more