Collaborative Research Design Research Articles

English Desires at an English‐Medium Instruction University: The Journeys of First‐Year Students in Hong Kong

AbstractThis study used the concept of desire in language learning to explore the first‐year English journeys of undergraduates at an English‐medium instruction (EMI) university in Hong Kong. Desire in language learning is an underexplored area in EMI research but a relevant concept for gaining a multilayered picture of the incentives and pressures of English. Using a collaborative research design, the study offers an account of 10 first‐year students with an IELTS band of approximately 5.5, lower than the institution's average. Thirty written reflections and 30 semi‐structured interviews formed the main data collection, gathered over the academic year. Thematic analysis showed that the learners desired more connection and confidence with English so that they could access academic and professional opportunities and identities. They desired a new English experience in which they could interact authentically and gain acceptance of their English skills. They encountered pressure and frustration with the EMI experience, ultimately making compromises in their imagined trajectories with English. Their strong desires for English, however, remained intact. The study shows the need for a well‐architected English experience for universities to fulfill the promises of EMI, especially for learners in the lower bands of English proficiency expected for EMI study.

Deep nutrients and soil fungal communities support tomato fruit yield and quality in dry farm management systems

Changing climates are causing agricultural water shortages at unprecedented scales and magnitudes, especially in regions historically reliant on irrigation. Identifying and understanding systems of farming that allow continuity in agricultural operations in times of water scarcity are increasingly urgent needs. Vegetable dry farming relies on winter rains stored in soils to reduce irrigation to 0–2 events per season and has become prevalent on California’s Central Coast in recent decades. Until now, this system has been unexplored in scientific literature beyond extension publications, despite its promise as a model for low-water agriculture in arid regions. Dry farm management presents a unique challenge given that low water content restricts nutrient access in surface soils, which farmers typically target for fertility management. Managing soil nutrients at depth, as well as microorganisms that help plants access nutrients and alleviate water stress (e.g. arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, or AMF) could be crucial to dry farm success. We engaged in a collaborative research design process with farmers managing seven commercial dry farm tomato fields to identify and answer three key management questions: 1. What are the depths at which nutrients influence harvest outcomes given low water content in surface soils?, 2. Are commercially available AMF inoculants effective at improving harvest outcomes?, and 3. How does the broader fungal community change in dry farm soils, and are those changes associated with harvest outcomes? Only soil nutrients below 60 cm depth were correlated with tomato yield and fruit quality. We identified a fungal class, Sordariomycetes, as a ‘signature’ fungal group in dry farm soils that distinguished them from irrigated management and correlated with positive fruit quality, while commercial AMF inoculation showed little benefit. These findings can inform management practices that optimize fruit yield and quality, and can guide farmers and policymakers alike in efforts to minimize agricultural water use.

Enabling collaborative lesson research

AbstractIn this paper, we interrogate and justify the design of a local project that used collaborative design research in a secondary school in England. As authors, we represent teachers and teacher educators engaged in design research, whereby we acknowledge the difficulties implicit to university and school collaborations within a performative culture. Our analysis recognises the struggle for research‐informed professional judgement in the decision‐making and actions of educators that are situated in schools. A professional learning project is analysed to position teachers and teacher educators as practitioner researchers. In this respect, Stenhouse's work provides an analytical framework that is both a lens through which to interpret the nature of collaborations, as well as a methodology that allows us to understand the way in which we navigate the gap between educators' aspirations and the curriculum design and teaching within the project. The collaborative design research project was stimulated by an aspiration to make trigonometry accessible to low prior attaining pupils in a secondary mathematics classroom. This provides a stimulus for understanding the conditions that enable collaborative lesson inquiry and to question whether it can provoke raised aspirations for young people in inclusive classrooms. This allows us to understand the work of teachers as researchers and research users in an increasingly messy teacher education context. We interrogate the potentially problematic connection between research and practice within collaborative inquiry, as we understand how we enable research that is “held accountable for its relevance to practice” because “that relevance can only be validated by practitioners” (Stenhouse, 1988, p. 49).

Middle-range theorising supporting and supported by action research: focusing on practitioner preparedness

Increased demand for actionable knowledge in operations- and supply chain management has fuelled the interest in collaborative, action-oriented research design as well as modes of theorising that generate adaptable and actionable frameworks. Whilst action research (AR) design as well as middle-range theories (MRT) offer guiding principles herein, they are researcher centric in nature. It is taken for granted that practitioners that enter such an endeavour have a certain level of knowledge or experience prior to the initial stages of formalising the research problem. Practitioners in non-academic, operations management-intensive industries or craftsmanship-based industries, such as construction or carpeting (often in the SME range) are often neither prepared nor equipped with the principles necessary to convey their managerial challenges into collaborative research design. This risk limiting or even hindering altogether such participation. This paper elaborates on combining the logic of AR and MRT. By conceptualising a preparatory phase for initiating practitioner engagement, complementing the conventional AR cycle, a four-step approach is presented: (1) Identifying a joint interest; (2) Teaching – Awakening interest in the topic through MRT frameworks; (3) Accepting buy-in to the AR cycle and determining the problem; and (4) Proposing MRT frameworks for analysis and entering the traditional AR cycle.

Approaches to protocol standardization and data harmonization in the ECHO-wide cohort study.

The United States (U.S.) National Institutes of Health-funded Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO)-wide Cohort was established to conduct high impact, transdisciplinary science to improve child health and development. The cohort is a collaborative research design in which both extant and new data are contributed by over 57,000 children across 69 cohorts. In this review article, we focus on two key challenging issues in the ECHO-wide Cohort: data collection standardization and data harmonization. Data standardization using a Common Data Model and derived analytical variables based on a team science approach should facilitate timely analyses and reduce errors due to data misuse. However, given the complexity of collaborative research designs, such as the ECHO-wide Cohort, dedicated time is needed for harmonization and derivation of analytic variables. These activities need to be done methodically and with transparency to enhance research reproducibility. IMPACT: Many collaborative research studies require data harmonization either prior to analyses or in the analyses of compiled data. The Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort pools extant data with new data collection from over 57,000 children in 69 cohorts to conduct high-impact, transdisciplinary science to improve child health and development, and to provide a national database and biorepository for use by the scientific community at-large. We describe the tools, systems, and approaches we employed to facilitate harmonized data for impactful analyses of child health outcomes.

IMPROVING THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY THROUGH PROBLEM BASED LEARNING AT SMKN 1 PENUKAL

The purpose of this study was to improve the writing abilities of eleventh grade students at SMKN 1 Penukal by using Problem-Based Learning in the academic year 2023–2024. 34 students participated in the study, which used a Collaborative Classroom Action Research (CAR) design. The writer and the English instructor worked together as partners on the project. The research employed the Kemmis and McTaggart paradigm, which included three cycles of three meetings each for the purposes of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Tests and observation were used in the gathering of data. The findings demonstrated that students' writing skills had improved; their mean scores increased from 63.82 in the first research to 89.71 in the third cycle, above the Minimum Mastery Criterion (KKM) of 75. The English teacher's affirmative reaction demonstrated the effectiveness of the activity that was put into place. Finally, it can be said that problem-based learning improved the writing skills of students.

Improving undergraduate students’ learning through Online Educational Guidance Meetings (OEGMs)

This study aimed at obtaining reflections on Online Educational Guidance Meetings (OEGMs), executed in the English preparatory program during COVID-19 Pandemic in a university in Istanbul. The OEGMs were voluntary meetings between a student and the instructor. Students were able to ask for suggestions to study more effectively via an online meeting platform. The qualitative collaborative action research design was operated in the study. One-on-one interviews with 8 instructors and focus group interviews with 12 students were conducted to obtain the data. Content analysis method was employed to analyze obtained data. The findings revealed that this new method, which brought the students together with their instructors in personal one-to-one meetings, provided numerous advantages psychologically and academically in the learning process.
 Received: 28 February 2022Accepted: 24 July 2023

Improving Access to Safe Water in Rural Schools of Kenya: Qualitative Multisectoral Insights.

Comprehensive strategies in water, sanitation, and appropriate hygiene behaviors can improve school enrolment and improve gender parity disparities. Lack of safe drinking water negatively impacts the social capital of people, especially school-going children in rural areas. In this study, we systematically evaluated and documented evidence on the barriers and facilitators in the access and adoption of safe water practices in rural schools in Laikipia County, Kenya. An ethnographic formative, collaborative implementation research design was used in an iterative and participatory process to evaluate community, socio-economic, and health system-related factors affecting water, hygiene, and sanitation strategies. Qualitative data was collected using key informant interviews (n=5) and focus groups (n=3) from various multisectoral participants. Directed content analysis was used to develop codes, categories, and themes from textual data. Data was organized according to the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework. The findings were classified and described under three key elements: context, evidence, and facilitation. Contextual elements showed an association of diarrhea outbreaks with unsafe hygiene practices compounded by water scarcity. The evidence elements were indicative of the applicability of water backpacks in strengthening handwashing, storage, and transport of water. Facilitation elements indicated evidence of gaps in synergy between the school health and public health systems, necessitating multisectoral collaboration and social capital capacity building. The national and county governments play an imperative role in ensuring access and continuous supply of safe drinking water in schools. This is fundamental in efforts towards reducing social inequalities of health among school-going children and building their social capital. Participatory, collaborative, multisectoral interventions and decision-making are crucial, leveraging on creating local ownership, in meeting the water consumption needs of children and communities in water-scarce regions.

Promoting Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration among Mathematics and Special Education Researchers

This manuscript provides a theoretical framing of a collaborative research design effort among mathematics education and special education researchers. To gain insight into the current state of research on mathematics learning, we drew on how researchers in mathematics education and special education have defined and operationalized the term ‘mathematical concept’ related to the learning of fractions. Using this information, we designed a future study that focuses on and connects prior research in mathematics and special education. We conclude by discussing the implications of such collaborative research efforts.

“Working together… I can't stress how important it is”: Indigenous Health Liaison Officers’ insights into working with speech-language pathologists and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with stroke and TBI

Purpose Providing culturally safe speech-language pathology services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with acquired communication disorders (ACDs) may be challenging for non-Indigenous speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Indigenous Health Liaison Officers (IHLOs) may share common histories and culture with patients, and provide valuable insights about cultural safety. The study aim was to explore IHLOs’ experiences of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults post-stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI), and with the SLPs who provide services to these peoples. Method Using an interpretive description collaborative research design informed by culturally responsive principles, IHLOs (n = 7) participated in interviews facilitated by Aboriginal researchers and the principal investigator. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis, informed by perspectives of Aboriginal researchers. Result Two themes, Connection and Spirit and Emotion, and six interdependent categories described how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have, and need, strong connections to family, country, health professionals, and ACD practices. Without these connections, patients’ wellbeing may be deeply affected. Conclusion SLPs must collaborate with IHLOs and patients’ family members and draw on their cultural knowledge, expertise, and guidance when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and ensure connections are created. These connections contribute to culturally safe and responsive speech-language pathology practice.

Designing immersive stories with novice VR creators: a study of autobiographical VR storytelling during the COVID-19 pandemic

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly being used as a tool for eliciting empathy and emotional identification in fact-based stories. However, it may not be clear whether VR stories authentically deliver the protagonists’ perspectives if the works are not created by or with the protagonists themselves. Therefore, it is crucial for the VR community to explore effective methods for democratizing VR storytelling, and to support novice VR designers in creating autobiographical stories. In this paper, we report findings from a collaborative design research project that aimed to create autobiographical stories with novice VR designers who lacked experience in VR storytelling. We collaborated with university students in Canada to design eight individual VR stories that expressed each student’s experiences of lockdown, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted interviews with the students to understand how VR contributed to conveying their individual experiences. Our findings demonstrate how immersive VR can be used as a meaningful tool for sharing autobiographical stories by delivering the character’s feelings, creating a sense of confinement and isolation, expressing inner worlds, and showing environmental details. Our discussion draws attention to the significance of careful camera positioning and movement in VR story design, the meaningful use of limited interaction and disorienting components, and the balance between spatial and temporal information in a three-dimensional environment. Our study highlights the potential of VR as an autobiographical storytelling tool and demonstrates how VR stories can be created through iterative collaboration between VR experts and novices.

Honor, Build, and Restructure

School leaders enrolled in CPED-influenced and practitioner focused doctoral programs require specific research-based skills and knowledge that bridge both educational scholarship and practice in order to be relevant for both their dissertation process and school practice. In doing so, these doctorate in education (EdD) programs must critically exam their qualitative research methods courses to honor the professional practice of their adult learners and usher in innovative, collaborative, transformative, and participatory research design courses to meet this demand. As such we present our methodological course sequence built on principles of adult learning and a signature pedagogy, the first course is a reimagination of the qualitative research course and the second is a reconceptualized transformative capstone.

Tracking Sonny: localised digital knowledge of an urban fox

This paper outlines the practice of a novel digital method in animal geographies: etho-ethnographic citizen science. I describe a project using this participatory method with local residents in inner-city London, where we worked together to use camera traps to record video footage of red fox behaviour. The research sought to build an etho-ethnographic account of fox life by tethering data collection and interpretation to local knowledge. The paper focuses on the familial relations of one particular fox, a young male living on an allotment, who plotholders call Sonny. It begins by outlining how research objectives emerged through the process of collaborative research design with plotholders, premised on their own knowledge of fox personalities, and their storied accounts of individual foxes. It then considers how the practical planning of camera placement was directed through the plotholders own socioecological knowledge of the site. Lastly, it outlines how participants continual use of the traps, and their own analysis of footage, embeds digital data within vernacular understandings of Sonny’s world. In doing so the paper outlines how etho-ethnographic citizen science can potentially amplify, affirm and digitise vernacular knowledges of urban fox ethologies and geographies.

Encountering drawing

This project report outlines the research-led exhibition, Drawing Room – part of an ongoing collaborative design research project focusing on drawing – exhibited at Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art Christchurch (CoCA), New Zealand. The research interrogates drawings that move – made by light, shadow and animation – and our encounters with drawings through the manipulations of scale and virtual reality (VR). The research investigates the relationship between scale, moveable drawings and bodily engagement in architectural drawing and the speculative nature of VR in architectural drawing. The research places architectural drawing within an expanded practice – shifting its generation from the architectural office – by way of critiquing the normative ways of representing the discipline of architecture. This project demonstrates that the making of architectural drawings and their encounter engages the entire body; in encountering these, we occupy and inhabit the spaces of these drawings. The project investigates the influence of speculative drawing practices on the conceiving and developing of developing architectural built work through the use of exhibition.

The Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO)-Wide Cohort.

The Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO)-Wide Cohort Study (EWC), a collaborative research design comprising 69 cohorts in 31 consortia, was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2016 to improve children's health in the United States. The EWC harmonizes extant data and collects new data using a standardized protocol, the ECHO-Wide Cohort Data Collection Protocol (EWCP). EWCP visits occur at least once per life stage, but the frequency and timing of the visits vary across cohorts. As of March 4, 2022, the EWC cohorts contributed data from 60,553 children and consented 29,622 children for new EWCP data and biospecimen collection. The median (interquartile range) age of EWCP-enrolled children was 7.5 years (3.7-11.1). Surveys, interviews, standardized examinations, laboratory analyses, and medical record abstraction are used to obtain information in 5 main outcome areas: pre-, peri-, and postnatal outcomes; neurodevelopment; obesity; airways; and positive health. Exposures include factors at the level of place (e.g., air pollution, neighborhood socioeconomic status), family (e.g., parental mental health), and individuals (e.g., diet, genomics).

Preferences and perceived barriers to pursuing energy sovereignty and renewable energy: A tribal nations perspective

This paper proposes two contributions to the literature on the social acceptance (SA) of energy systems and public perceptions of renewable energy (RE) transitions. The first contribution is methodological, recognizing more effective and inclusive forms of engagement begin with building reciprocal relationships and collaborative research partnerships operationalizing the tenets of energy justice. Employing these methodological recommendations, we conducted a collaborative, inclusive, and equitable research design and engagement practice by collaborating with Tribal members on research with expressly mutual benefits. In this work, a years-long collaboration of Tribal members and non-Tribal researchers developed a methodology to survey respondents at an accessible and culturally relevant community event to learn about preferences and perceived barriers to transitioning to RE. A second contribution is empirical. The results suggest shared priorities for energy solutions that enhance energy sovereignty, i.e., community control and ownership of energy services provisioning. They also demonstrate widespread awareness regarding barriers to a RE transition and simultaneously, some potential misperceptions about the challenges to transition. This study reinforces the need for SA research to move beyond asking what technologies receive public support and where those technologies should be sited to consider how access and transparency in planning processes, collaboration, engagement, development, ownership, and benefits are organized and can be radically reconfigured to enable the just transition to a decarbonized energy system.

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE AND RELATED DEMENTIAS RISK AND PSYCHOSOCIAL HEALTH NEEDS OF OLDER ADULT IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES

Abstract To establish priorities for an intervention addressing Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) risk among older adult immigrants and refugees from Afghanistan and the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA). A multi-methods Community-Based Collaborative Action Research design was employed to gather qualitative and quantitative data. Twenty community leaders and stakeholders participated in interviews and community needs survey responses of 124 ethnically diverse adults over age 55 were examined. We analyzed community needs survey data using descriptive statistics. A step-wise Thematic Analysis was used to analyze interview transcripts. A major theme and standout priority was identified: needing culturally-sensitive services and resources addressing social isolation among the elderly. Other psychosocial priorities included: accessibility needs, caregiving support, safety and end-of-life resources, digital literacy, and English language services. This study exemplifies a priority-setting partnership between clinician-researchers and refugee service providers. The priorities highlighted ADRD risk factors and guide the collaborative development of a community-based intervention.

Fostering Literacy Culture through Reading and Writing Movement

The low interest in reading that occurs in children is an important reason for fostering a culture of literacy in children in Salem Village. The low level of education in a society dominated by elementary school graduates is one of the factors causing the lack of awareness of parents in briefing children on the importance of getting used to reading early because reading can be a support for the success of educational goals in Indonesia that must be used as a routine daily activity. Literacy culture is a stage in the form of the ability to read, explore, and study various information obtained to solve problems that arise in everyday life that aims to improve the quality of life. This devotion aims to improve literacy skills where the main focus is to increase interest in reading in children. This service uses a collaborative Participatory action research (PAR) design. The author collaborated with the manager of Jejer Cacaka reading house located in Salem Village. The results of the devotion showed that there was an increase in reading interest in children by 90%. The improvement of literacy skills needs support from all parties so that this success can continue to be improved again.

Application of the Iqra Method in Improving Al-Qur'an Reading Ability

The low interest in reading that occurs in children is an important reason for fostering a culture of literacy in children in Salem Village. The low level of education in a society dominated by elementary school graduates is one of the factors causing the lack of awareness of parents in briefing children on the importance of getting used to reading early because reading can be a support for the success of educational goals in Indonesia that must be used as a routine daily activity. Literacy culture is a stage in the form of the ability to read, explore, and study various information obtained to solve problems that arise in everyday life that aims to improve the quality of life. This devotion aims to improve literacy skills where the main focus is to increase interest in reading in children. This service uses a collaborative Participatory action research (PAR) design. The author collaborated with the manager of jejer Cacaka reading house located in Salem Village. The results of the devotion showed that there was an increase in reading interest in children by 90%. The improvement of literacy skills needs support from all parties so that this success can continue to be improved again.

Testing inter-observer error under a collaborative research framework for studying lithic shape variability

Evaluating error that arises through the aggregation of data recorded by multiple observers is a key consideration in many metric and geometric morphometric analyses of stone tool shape. One of the most common approaches involves the convergence of observers for repeat trails on the same set of artefacts: however, this is logistically and financially challenging when collaborating internationally and/or at a large scale. We present and evaluate a unique alternative for testing inter-observer error, involving the development of 3D printed copies of a lithic reference collection for distribution among observers. With the aim of reducing error, clear protocols were developed for photographing and measuring the replicas, and inter-observer variability was assessed on the replicas in comparison with a corresponding data set recorded by a single observer. Our results demonstrate that, when the photography procedure is standardized and dimensions are clearly defined, the resulting metric and geometric morphometric data are minimally affected by inter-observer error, supporting this method as an effective solution for assessing error under collaborative research frameworks. Collaboration is becoming increasingly important within archaeological and anthropological sciences in order to increase the accessibility of samples, encourage dual-project development between foreign and local researchers and reduce the carbon footprint of collection-based research. This study offers a promising validation of a collaborative research design whereby researchers remotely work together to produce comparable data capturing lithic shape variability.