scholarly journals English as Medium of Instruction for Subject Courses in Tertiary Education: Lessons Learned from Thai Undergraduate Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (27) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Pennee Kantavong
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
English Language ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Medium Of Instruction ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Action Research Cycles

<p>This is a classroom action research project conducted in an undergraduate course using English as a medium of instruction. The objectives were to identify good approaches to developing students’ capacity to understand English and to promote a positive attitude towards the English language. Two cycles of action with various instructional approaches were administered. By the end of the action research cycles, 80% of the students showed a positive opinion towards learning with English. During the sessions, 20% of the students needed help regularly. The cooperative learning model was found to be one of the more effective leaning activities, stimulating students to develop their learning and relieve their tensions in using a foreign language. The reflections from students revealed that the learning approaches employed in this study helped students to develop both their English comprehension in the written material and a positive attitude towards learning in English.</p>

Enhancing Student Engagement Using a Blended Learning Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
M. Mahruf C. Shohel ◽  
Rosemary Cann ◽  
Stephen Atherton
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Student Engagement ◽  
Blended Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Action Research Cycles

Student engagement is the core of the teaching and learning practice in higher education. This exploratory action research project was designed to enhance teaching and learning using a blended learning approach to increase student engagement prior, during, and after lecture and seminar sessions of a module run for first-year undergraduate students. Within an academic semester, three action research cycles were carried out to collect data and redesign the classroom practice. Different data collection techniques were used along with Microsoft OneNote Class Notebook. This article presents three case studies of individual students to demonstrate how the digital workspace helped to develop the practice of participatory teaching and learning during a first-year undergraduate module. This study indicates that listening to students' voices through a blended learning approach helped to increase student engagement, thus increasing student participation in shaping and redesigning teaching and learning to engage them within the classroom and beyond.

scholarly journals Learning Approaches, Learning Difficulties and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students of Physiotherapy

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreemathi Mayya ◽  
A. Krishna Rao ◽  
Ramnaryana K.
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Learning Difficulties ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Academic Problems ◽  
Significant Positive Association ◽  
Surface Approach

A locally developed ‘Approaches to Learning Inventory (ALI)’ was administered to explore the learning difficulties and learning approaches of undergraduate students of Bachelor of Physiotherapy, College of Allied Health Sciences, Manipal. University examination marks of these students were also collected. Learning approach and learning difficulties were summarized by computing mean, standard deviation and percentage of students experiencing some of the academic and non-academic problems. Spearman’s correlation was computed between standardized scores of examination marks, learning approach and learning difficulty scale scores. Academic performance has shown significant negative correlation with surface approach and various problems of learners like fear of failure and lack of confidence, non-academic distracters and poor English language ability. This study demonstrated significant positive association between surface approach and various problems of the learners. The students have also reported a number of academic and non-academic problems.

The challenges of participation in doing community-based participatory action research: Lessons from the Kwithu Project

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalis G Wamba
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Random Group ◽  
Running Water

The Kwithu project started when a volunteer who joined Kwithu, a community-based organization in Mzuzu, Malawi (Africa), to teach English gave a diagnostic test to a random group of forty 7th and 8th graders (20 boys and 20 girls) and discovered that most of them could hardly read or write in English. The test results prompted Maureen, the Kwithu director and co-founder, the teacher and myself to meet with the headteachers of the three schools mostly attended by Kwithu children. The headteachers appreciated our concerns about the English proficiency of the children, but they advised us to focus on more urgent matters if we truly wanted to help, e.g., lack of teaching and learning materials, lack of running water in schools, hunger, teacher qualifications, etc. This advice shifted our initial inquiry goal—from English language teaching—to a community-based participatory action research project designed to address the school conditions in Luwinga. In this paper, I describe the community-based participatory action research inquiry and I reflect on the process of participation.

scholarly journals The Teaching/Research Nexus And Internationalisation: An Action Research Project In Radiation Physics

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-80
Author(s):  
Susanna Guatelli ◽  
◽  
Catherine Layton ◽  
Dean Cutajar ◽  
Anatoly B. Rosenfeld ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Heterogeneous Computing ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Radiation Physics ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Teaching Research

This paper attempts to unpack the teaching and learning experiences of academics and students when a new way of teaching radiation physics was introduced. In an attempt to articulate the University of Wollongong’s commitment to the enhancement of the teaching/research nexus and to the development of learning communities, staff of the School of Physics in the Faculty of Engineering at University of Wollongong (UOW) implemented an action research project teaching scientific computing methodologies used in radiation physics to a combined laboratory class of postgraduates and undergraduates. The design of the practical laboratory classes took account of the expected heterogeneous computing skills and different knowledge of radiation physics of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Based on an earlier study, it was presumed that postgraduate students would be in a good position to support undergraduates. We illustrate how broad-based conceptions of the value of learning communities and their role in fostering the teaching/research nexus may be challenged by an internationalised student body. In this case, the previous patterns of undergraduate and postgraduate enrolments, which the pilot study had canvassed, did not hold true; almost all of the postgraduate students were international students, only recently arrived in Australia. This, along with other factors, meant that learning outcomes and students’ responses to the innovation were not what were expected. We suggest a path forward, both for the specific subject in which the innovation occurred, and for other similar attempts to bring together academics, postgraduate and undergraduate students in a nascent learning community, in the light of ongoing trends towards internationalisation.

scholarly journals Teaching for autonomy: what do the students think?

2010 ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Research Project ◽  
La Mancha ◽  
Second Year ◽  
The University

The following paper describes an action research project which was carried out with a class of second-year students following the Degree of English Philology at the University of Castilla la Mancha. The aim of the project was to raise students’ awareness of the need to be less dependent on their teachers and to provide the reflective and interactive scaffolding necessary to enable them to take greater responsibility for their own learning. The current paper describes the measures taken, and how students reacted to this process. It concludes by examining the lessons learned and by proposing a number of guidelines to be taken into account when attempting to promote autonomy in a similar context.

Stuck in the GeM Jam

2021 ◽  
pp. 118-134
Author(s):  
Jia Ying Chia ◽  
Shenn Ni Chow ◽  
Fang Li ◽  
Patricia Kar Wai Ng ◽  
Christian Kahl
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Industrial Training ◽  
Action Research Approach ◽  
Klang Valley

In this chapter, the researchers present the results of the action research project. The GeM (Future General Manager) Program is a specifically-designed training program for outstanding students in the hospitality school to gain specific deep-grounded work experiences in several hotels in Klang Valley, Malaysia. This study used the action research approach to understand the quality of today's industrial training programs. Four final-year undergraduate students from the hospitality school reflected on their training experiences and provided feedback on how the GeM Program can be further developed to enhance the learning outcomes for future training participants. This chapter helps to understand how to develop, design, implement, and monitor a successfully structured training program for the future of the hospitality industry. With this, hotels can acquire the best student trainees who will further their career as employees with them.

scholarly journals English-Medium Instruction in Self-Financing Tertiary Institutions in Hong Kong – Views and Practices from the Students

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Marine Yeung ◽  
Vic Lu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Medium Of Instruction ◽  
Tertiary Institutions ◽  
British Colony ◽  
English Medium Instruction ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
University Lecturers

The medium of instruction (MOI) has been a bone of contention in Hong Kong, a former British colony, since its colonial days. Despite the Hong Kong government’s effort to promote the “biliterate and trilingual” language policy, advocating Cantonese, English and Putonghua as the three official spoken languages and emphasizing the importance of literacy in both written Chinese and English, most tertiary institutions today still adopt English as the medium of instruction (EMI). However, with the expansion of tertiary education in the early 1990s and the decline in the general English language proficiency of university students, some university lecturers have found it difficult to teach in English as required. This raises the issue of the practicality of the indiscriminate adoption of the EMI policy at tertiary level, particularly at the self-financing tertiary institutions where students are generally known to have under-performed in the English subject. In order to understand whether or how the EMI policy is upheld in these institutions, focus group interviews were conducted with students from various programmes of five self-financing tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. The findings indicate these students’ strong preference for English-medium instruction with the belief that it can improve their English proficiency, though their actual approaches to coping with the demand on their limited English and how they view and use the three languages in class deserve policy makers’ serious consideration.

scholarly journals Analysis of the Problems in Language Teachers’ Action Research

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ligang Han
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Collaborative Action Research ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
Teachers Professional Development

In-service language teachers’ professional development is a crucial factor that influences the teaching and learning effectiveness. Educational action research is considered by many researchers and scholars as an effective way or approach for language teachers’ professional development. This article reports a case study of in-service English language teachers doing action research within a collaborative action research project. The focus of the case study is upon investigating the problems and difficulties that English language teachers encounter in doing action research and some solutions to the problems are provided. This research sheds light on the practice and application of educational action research.

scholarly journals Delivering extension and adult learning outcomes from the Cicerone Project by ‘comparing, measuring, learning and adopting'

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (8) ◽  
pp. 827 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Edwards ◽  
C. Gaden ◽  
R. Marchant ◽  
T. Coventry ◽  
P. Dutton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Pasture Management ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
South Wales

The Cicerone Project was a partnership between livestock producers, researchers and extension specialists on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia that investigated several complex grazing enterprise issues between 1998 and 2006. It was conducted as a Participatory Action Research project, which first surveyed livestock producers to learn of their problems and then carried out investigations according to the Project’s chosen motto of ‘compare – measure – learn – adopt’. The Project included research into footrot diagnosis and an investigation of whole-farmlet livestock and pasture management systems complemented by a multi-faceted extension and education component, which delivered findings to a wide array of stakeholders across the Northern Tablelands and adjacent regions. This paper describes the extension and education methods and outcomes and reflects on how successful the engagement of livestock producers was through a partnership, which focussed on co-learning by all participants. Several different communication approaches were used including the production of 40 newsletters and the delivery of 61 field days. Collaborators also held two symposia, which presented comprehensive overviews of the research results. In the final year of the Project, a roadshow was held to communicate results to a wider audience in neighbouring districts. The results of the two footrot trials, which were conducted as Participatory Action Research projects, led to rapid and substantial changes in the testing regime for virulent footrot, resulting in large savings for livestock producers through more accurate detection of the disease. Other valued extension and industry outcomes were the ability to compare the biophysical and economic performance of different whole farmlets, an appreciation of the value of the whole-farm system approach, the trustworthiness of the results and the stimulation of livestock producers to think more deeply about their management systems, stocking rate and risk. The Project benefited from the research efforts of four postgraduate students and was of benefit to ~300 high school and technical college students and also some 500 university undergraduate students who undertook learning projects in conjunction with Project members and collaborators. This Special Issue of 24 journal papers represents a substantial delivery of the findings from this complex agroecosystem Project, which broke new ground in terms of securing much closer working relationships between livestock producers, scientists and extension specialists. Ultimately, this volume will allow extension of the results of the Cicerone Project to reach a wider audience than has typically been achieved through other Participatory Action Research projects.

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