EFL motivation development in an increasingly globalized local context: A longitudinal study of Chinese undergraduates

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yihong Gao ◽  
Xiaoying Wang ◽  
Yan Zhou

AbstractAs part of a larger longitudinal study, this paper examines the development of Chinese students' EFL learning motivation throughout university undergraduate study, in an increasingly globalized local context. The study adopted a social constructivist perspective of language learning and combined research methods; the participants were over 1,000 undergraduates from 5 universities. The quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire (based on Gao et al. 2004) including motivational intensity and motivation types – instrumental, cultural, and situational, implemented annually from university entrance to graduation. The qualitative data consisted of individual and group interviews, student journals, and observations. Integrated data analysis revealed that sustained high-level long-term instrumental motivations coexisted with an increase of L2- oriented cultural motivations and situational motivation, particularly in the first and fourth year. The increased L2-oriented cultural motivations indicated neither ``ntegrativeness'' in the sense of becoming a member of the native English speaker community, nor a culturally neutral ``global identity.'' The increase of such L2- oriented cultural motivations was also accompanied by a sustained ``social responsibility'' motivation oriented to learners' home culture. Such complexities of motivational development call for further investigation in increasingly globalized EFL contexts.

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Niloofar Amiri ◽  
Mandana Yousefi

<p>English language learning is an important issue whose impact on identity change is remarkable. This study attempted to explore the relationship between Home Culture Attachment (HCA) and Iranian students’ translation ability. To this aim, 75 participants were selected and homogenized by administering Oxford Quick Placement Test. To determine the students’ HCA levels, they were administered the Home Culture Attachment Scale. Meanwhile, a literary text selected from the book “Dubliners” was used to measure their translation ability. The translations were rated by three raters based on Waddington’s Holistic Scale. Finally, Vinay and Darbelnet’s Model of Translation was used to determine the applied translation strategies. To analyze the data, Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression, independent-sample t-test, and one-way ANOVA were used. The findings indicated that 69.1% of the students had high HCA and 30.9% had average HCA. Also, there was a significant correlation between the students’ HCA and translation ability. Yet, HCA subscales had no correlation with the translation ability. Moreover, it was found that there was a significant correlation between the students’ HCA at the average level and their translation ability and no correlation at the high level. Finally, it was revealed that the most frequent translation strategy was modulation.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming-Chen Zhang ◽  
Lin-Xin Wang ◽  
Kai Dou ◽  
Yue Liang

Cyberbullying is a major youth social problem over the world and it has been associated with a variety of negative outcomes. However, few studies investigated how offline peer victimization affect cyberbullying and the potential relations between family factors and cyberbullying remains unknown. The current study addresses this gap in knowledge by examining the victimized by peers is associated with higher moral disengagement which further promotes college student’s bullying online. A three-wave longitudinal study, each wave spanning six months apart, was conducted in a sample of 521 Chinese college students (Mage = 22.45, SD = 4.44, 59.3% girls). Results of moderated mediation model shown that peer victimization at T1 predicted more cyberbullying at T3 through moral disengagement at T2, after controlling for demographic variables and cyberbullying at T1. T2 moral disengagement significantly mediating the association between T1 peer victimization and T3 cyberbullying. In addition, high level of negative parenting strengthened the effect of moral disengagement at T2 on cyberbullying at T3. The prevention and intervention for both offline and online bullying victimization are discussed.


2020 ◽  
pp. 174619792097729
Author(s):  
Marlana Salmon-Letelier ◽  
S. Garnett Russell

Human rights education (HRE) is an emerging practice across formal and informal educational sectors worldwide. However, most literature and theory on HRE emphasize the importance of imparting knowledge about human rights. In this paper, we argue that increasing tolerance among students is a vital but understudied aspect of HRE. This paper is based on the results of a mixed methods longitudinal study conducted in three classrooms across two New York City public high schools. Our methods include a pre-/post- survey, classroom observations, and semi-structured individual and group interviews. The findings indicate that merely teaching about human rights issues is necessary but not sufficient to shift deeply embedded attitudes that contribute to the transformative nature of the human rights framework. We present tolerance as a necessary precursor to positive social change and sustainable human rights implementation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Hartley ◽  
Robert D. J. Smith ◽  
Adam Kokotovich ◽  
Chris Opesen ◽  
Tibebu Habtewold ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The African Union’s High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies identified gene drive mosquitoes as a priority technology for malaria elimination. The first field trials are expected in 5–10 years in Uganda, Mali or Burkina Faso. In preparation, regional and international actors are developing risk governance guidelines which will delineate the framework for identifying and evaluating risks. Scientists and bioethicists have called for African stakeholder involvement in these developments, arguing the knowledge and perspectives of those people living in malaria-afflicted countries is currently missing. However, few African stakeholders have been involved to date, leaving a knowledge gap about the local social-cultural as well as ecological context in which gene drive mosquitoes will be tested and deployed. This study investigates and analyses Ugandan stakeholders’ hopes and concerns about gene drive mosquitoes for malaria control and explores the new directions needed for risk governance. Methods This qualitative study draws on 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Ugandan stakeholders in 2019. It explores their hopes for the technology and the risks they believed pertinent. Coding began at a workshop and continued through thematic analysis. Results Participants’ hopes and concerns for gene drive mosquitoes to address malaria fell into three themes: (1) ability of gene drive mosquitoes to prevent malaria infection; (2) impacts of gene drive testing and deployment; and, (3) governance. Stakeholder hopes fell almost exclusively into the first theme while concerns were spread across all three. The study demonstrates that local stakeholders are able and willing to contribute relevant and important knowledge to the development of risk frameworks. Conclusions International processes can provide high-level guidelines, but risk decision-making must be grounded in the local context if it is to be robust, meaningful and legitimate. Decisions about whether or not to release gene drive mosquitoes as part of a malaria control programme will need to consider the assessment of both the risks and the benefits of gene drive mosquitoes within a particular social, political, ecological, and technological context. Just as with risks, benefits—and importantly, the conditions that are necessary to realize them—must be identified and debated in Uganda and its neighbouring countries.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Cable ◽  
Patricia Driscoll ◽  
Rosamond Mitchell ◽  
Sue Sing ◽  
Teresa Cremin ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yılmaz Köylü

Abstract This article details how introductory linguistics courses can increase student engagement and learning through a project-based approach, whereby the students first study the subfields of linguistics with a view to complete the main project of the course, namely to construct a novel language. I provide information from a semester-long course with specific project-based activities teachers could utilize in their classes. I also thoroughly examine the constructed language projects based on 33 student submissions in an introductory linguistics course in the US. The analysis indicates a high level of engagement and creativity by the students in creating a distinct orthography, phonetic, morphological, and syntactic rules and semantic properties for their constructed languages. The results from a 20-item questionnaire and student exit interviews indicate that the project-based approach adopted in the completion of their constructed languages proved effective in (a) improving student motivation and engagement; (b) helping students apply the knowledge of the material to carry out linguistic analysis; (c) enhancing students’ language learning skills; (d) encouraging them to study additional foreign languages; and finally (e) promoting linguistic diversity. Hence, as an innovative and effective method still in its infancy, project-based learning should be more widely implemented in linguistics instruction.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jeong Mi Moon

Over the last three decades in the U.S., schools have endeavored to provide more equitable access to rigorous courses, especially for racially or socioeconomically marginalized students, and increased those students' participation in higher level courses. Despite such improvement, the gaps in high level courses enrollment among racially or socioeconomically different student groups still remain with those marginalized students underrepresented in the high level courses. The present study focused on another marginalized group of students, English language learners (ELLs) and sought to identify school practices that may improve ELLs' access to advanced math courses in high school. Using the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, the present study examined three key school practices in association with ELLs' taking advanced math: i) student choice-based math placement policies, ii) math encouraging programs for underrepresented studentudy found that only math PLCs had a statistically significant association with the probability of taking advanced math courses, net of prior achievement and other student- and school-level factors. The math PLCs examined here represented a collaboration among math teachers to learn effective teaching methods and discuss their teaching/learning belief for students including ELLs or under-performing students. It found no differential effects of school practices and ELLs' taking advanced math courses, the main focus of this study. However, the findings indicate that ELLs can also benefit from high quality math PLCs as much as other students. The key finding of the present study suggests the possible area that school leadership and educators should develop to improve students' access to advanced math courses net of their prior achievement. Particularly for ELLs, the finding suggests that training content area teachers may help ELLs more readily access academicarformance. Most importantly, considering taking advanced math in high school is a critical issue for ELLs in regard to their participation in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workforce in the future, there should be more research that explicitly investigates school policies and practices that may facilitate ELLs' access to higher level courses in high school. keywords: English language learners, High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, math professional learning communities, student choice, advanaced math


Author(s):  
Dawn Everington ◽  
Zhiqiang Feng ◽  
Kevin Ralston ◽  
Chris Dibben

BackgroundThe high level of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) has been an important long-standing issue in Scotland. The experience of being NEET has long term detrimental effects. Main AimIdentify risk factors that could inform interventions aimed at reducing the number of NEETs. MethodsWe use the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS) which provides a 5.3% representative sample of Scotland’s population based around the Censuses of 1991, 2001 and 2011. The SLS includes Vital Event data, Census data for the SLS sample and also those living in the same household and, since 2007, school census data. This allows us to study two cohorts of 16-19 year olds (the ages used in Scotland when considering NEET status) over a period of 10 years: those 6-9 years old at the time of the 1991 Census to the 2001 Census when they were 16-19 years old those 6-9 years old at the time of the 2001 Census to the 2011 Census when they were 16-19 years old We used logistic regression to investigate whether NEET status is associated with individual, family and household characteristics measured 10 years previously and later data including school qualification, school behaviour, areal characteristics and teenage pregnancy. ResultsThese analyses found several factors were associated with the likelihood of being NEET for both cohorts, including having no qualifications, teenage pregnancy and living in an area where there was a relatively high level of NEETs (100% census data). For the later cohort, school census data were available and school behaviour were important factors, whereas household characteristics at childhood were important factors for the earlier cohort. ConclusionA number of factors are associated with NEET but those closer in time to the NEET ages of 16-19 appear to be more important than childhood factors.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Zhan ◽  
Zhi Hong Wan

<p>In the field of second language learning motivation, the studies on process-oriented nature of possible L2 selves are scarce. In order to address this research gap, this study explored how a group of five Chinese non-English-major undergraduates developed their possible L2 selves during the transition year from high school to university. The content analysis of 4 focus group interviews, 202 journal entries, and 50 post-diary interviews show that in the first academic year, the five participants experienced a four-stage cyclical process of developing their possible L2 selves, namely, (a) generating multiple possible L2 selves, (b) selecting a possible L2 self to pursue, (c) realizing the selected possible L2 self, and (d) incorporating the realized possible L2 self into the present self scheme. More specifically, the selected possible L2 self was realized through elaboration of relevant imagination and alignment with a larger community. The study has enriched our understanding of the mechanism of possible L2 self development and shed light on motivating undergraduates to learn English in an EFL context.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 604 (9) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Joanna Kołodziejczyk ◽  
Bartłomiej Walczak

The article poses a question about the scope of information concerning parental involvement, the collection of which results from the provisions of the educational law. The characteristics of the “Parents are school’s partners” requirement have been referred to the framework proposed by Epstein (1995). The analysis of the amendments of the Regulation demonstrates some slight changes in the approach to parental participation, limited to the four types in Epstein’s model (out of the six proposed by this researcher): parenting, communication between the school and the students’ homes, parental volunteering and decision-making participation. The changes are aimed at subtly limiting the of parents' influence, there are no attempts to extend the provisions of the Regulation to include other forms of participation. Then, based on the data collected during external evaluations in 94 schools (survey study on a non-random sample of 6676 parents and 86 group interviews with parents), a descriptive and comparative analysis of individual indicators was carried out, as well as thematic coding of fragments of the transcription of group interviews. Parents declare a relatively high level of satisfaction with the received support and decision-making participation, slightly lower with communication. These results vary depending on educational level and school type, which may be explained by the connection between involvement and child’s age and the differentiation in class allocation. The qualitative analysis shows that the decision-making participation, in most cases, does not exceed the minimum required by the educational law, and the exceptions to this rule are mostly artifactic activities.


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