Semester Of Instruction Research Articles

Intergenerational peer mentoring in an online jazz improvisation course

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to explore how an intergenerational group of music students (ages 16–71) mentored each other in an online jazz improvisation course. This study is framed in Dewey’s notion of students sharing their knowledge and experiences with the teacher as facilitator and the following research questions guided this investigation: How did the participants engage in peer mentoring? What knowledge and experiences did they share with each other? Data collection occurred during one semester of instruction and included class observations and individual participant interviews. Two themes developed during data analysis: navigating hierarchy by age and confronting difficulties in providing feedback. Findings indicated that peer mentoring was complex and multi-faceted and contributed towards redefining the notion of how peer mentoring can include students of different generations. Implications include how music teachers can use peer mentoring with students of different age groups to enhance knowledge and elevate performance skills.

Analyzing the Influence of Ambiguity Tolerance on Grammar Acquisition in EFL Learners Across Face-to-Face, Blended, and Flipped Learning Environments.

In the realm of language education, the influence of learners' personality traits on their educational outcomes within novel instructional frameworks has gained prominence, prompting an exploration into the effects of ambiguity tolerance on grammar acquisition among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. This study investigates the impact of learners' personality traits on their learning outcomes in innovative instructional models, such as flipped and blended classes. A sample of 120 EFL students was divided into four comparative groups and two control groups based on their proficiency and ambiguity tolerance (AT) scores. The study utilized a Learning Management System (LMS) to deliver instruction to the different groups. The blended group received a combination of online and face-to-face instruction, while the flipped group received online instruction using the flipped approach. The control group received only face-to-face instruction. After a semester of instruction, a posttest on grammar learning was administered. The findings showed that the blended group performed better than the flipped and face-to-face groups in terms of grammar learning. The study also found no significant differences in grammar learning between high AT and low AT participants in the flipped and blended classes. However, high AT students in the face-to-face class demonstrated higher levels of success in grammar learning compared to low AT students.

Enhancing students’ learning anxiety disorder through civic reform intervention combined with educational psychology

BackgroundAddressing the limitations of conventional Civics instruction, this study integrates educational psychology principles to optimize the teaching approach. The research aims to investigate the impact of this intervention on alleviating students’ anxiety disorders.Subjects and Methods A questionnaire-based approach randomly selected 100 university students grappling with learning anxiety disorders. These participants were equally divided into two groups: the joint teaching group and the traditional teaching group. The joint teaching group received anxiety intervention through an educational psychology-enhanced Civics teaching method, while the traditional teaching group was exposed to standard Civics instruction. The teaching intervention spanned one semester, and variations in anxiety scores were documented using a self-administered anxiety scale and analyzed using SPSS 23.0.ResultsAfter one semester of instruction, the number of students with anxiety disorders decreased in both the joint teaching group and the traditional teaching group. The number of students with anxiety disorders in the joint teaching group decreased from 100 to 15, while the number of students with anxiety disorders in the traditional teaching group decreased from 100 to 88.ConclusionsA comparative analysis of the two teaching methods reveals that Civics instruction enhanced with the insights of educational psychology theory is more effective in mitigating students’ anxiety disorders.

Construing FL writers’ meaning-making choices in a historical recount genre in Spanish

Abstract This study reports on a four-semester teaching programme for foreign language (FL) intermediate writing abilities in Spanish to be implemented in educational practice. The study conducts qualitative analysis, drawing on systemic functional linguistics (SFL), of developmental changes in twenty undergraduate, Spanish Level 4 students, based on their performance of, and comments on, pre- and post-instructional written tasks, focusing on meaning-making choices in the construction of a historical recount genre over one semester of instruction at an Australian university. Responding to the need for research on academic writing in FL, the paper shows that SFL facilitates students’ understanding of writing development in an FL as they explore textual, ideational and interpersonal meanings in conjunction with required lexicogrammatical choices to fulfil the rhetorical demands of this genre.

Peer mentoring in an extracurricular music class

The purpose of this study was to explore how high school students mentored beginning fifth-grade students in an extracurricular music class for double-reed instruments. In this study, I investigated the role of peer mentoring with how high school mentors shared their knowledge and experiences, and the role of the teacher in this process. The following questions guided this study: How did the participants share their knowledge and experiences during peer mentoring? How did the teacher serve as a guide for the student participants during peer mentoring? Data collection included observations and interviews during one semester of instruction, and analysis of the data collected involved a system of coding from which two themes developed: mentoring concurrent with director teaching and learning while mentoring. In addition, findings indicated that the participants used knowledge learned from outside sources, they reinforced content presented by the teacher, and they drew on their own musical knowledge during the process. Under the guidance of the teacher, the participants also learned how to share their knowledge that in turn helped elevate their individual levels of musicianship. Implications for music teachers suggest the use of peer mentoring to help create meaningful learning experiences in their classrooms and increase interaction among students.

Positive attitudinal shifts and a narrowing gender gap: Do expertlike attitudes correlate to higher learning gains for women in the physics classroom?

A large body of research shows that using interactive engagement pedagogy in the introductory physics classroom consistently results in significant student learning gains; however, with a few exceptions, those learning gains tend not to be accompanied by more expertlike attitudes and beliefs about physics and learning physics. In fact, in both traditionally taught and active learning classroom environments, students often become more novicelike in their attitudes and beliefs following a semester of instruction. Further, prior to instruction, men typically score higher than women on conceptual inventories, such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), and more expertlike on attitudinal surveys, such as the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), and those gender gaps generally persist following instruction. In this paper, we analyze three years of pre-post matched data for physics majors at Virginia Tech on the FCI and the CLASS. The courses were taught using a blended pedagogical model of peer instruction, group problem solving, and direct instruction, along with an explicit focus on the importance of conceptual understanding and a growth mindset. We found that the FCI gender gap decreased, and both men and women showed positive, expertlike shifts on the CLASS. Perhaps most surprisingly, we found a meaningful correlation between a student's post- CLASS score and normalized FCI gain for women, but not for men.

Chemistry self-efficacy in lower-division chemistry courses: changes after a semester of instruction and gaps still remain between student groups

Chemistry self-efficacy (CSE) was identified as a critical affective construct to predict student success in chemistry classrooms. We surveyed students at the beginning and toward the end of a semester to measure students’ CSE beliefs in introductory and general chemistry courses at a Hispanic-serving institution in the United States. First, the relationships between CSE (initial and toward the end) and student achievement measured by course GPA were examined. Second, trends of changes in student CSE beliefs over a semester in relation to several aspects of student characteristics including course level, gender, underrepresented minority (URM) status were investigated. Lastly, the gaps in specific areas of CSE still remain between student groups after a semester of instruction were revealed. The results showed that CSE toward the end of the semester significantly predicted students’ course GPA in lower-division chemistry courses. Even though the CSE of different student groups all increased to some extent after a semester of instruction, the levels of changes were influenced significantly by certain factors such as course level and URM status but not gender. While URM students' CSE beliefs increased more than non-URM students after a semester of instruction, there were still gaps in certain areas between the two student groups. The remaining gaps in CSE beliefs between URM and non-URM students were found to be in the areas of interpreting chemical equations and choosing appropriate formulas to solve chemistry problems. Meanwhile, students who completed introductory chemistry still lagged behind in interpreting chemical equations as compared to students who completed general chemistry. Research literature related to these two specific areas in CSE with gaps between student groups was reviewed, instructional strategies and research directions along with theoretical perspectives for closing those equity gaps in college lower-division chemistry classrooms are discussed.

Measuring the effectiveness of online preparation videos and questions in the second semester general chemistry laboratory

Chemistry laboratory experiences provide students the opportunity to engage all three domains of learning: psychomotor, cognitive and affective. However, they are often stressful environments where students are expected to quickly learn new laboratory techniques, and collect data in a short amount of time. In principle, providing additional preparation activities should help students be better prepared to successfully complete the lab. These activities should lead to more meaningful interactions with the lab instructor and better performance on lab outcomes. In this study, we report the usefulness and effectiveness of online preparation activities for students that include video lectures demonstrating the labs that the students will participate in, and preparation questions that mimic data analysis for the lab. These online prelab activities were implemented in the second semester general chemistry laboratory at a large Hispanic serving institution in the southwestern United States. Over three semesters, students enrolled in this course were surveyed using the Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) to assess their lab expectations as well as author generated post-lab surveys to assess the usefulness of the prelab activities. Additionally, lab instructors were surveyed on their perception of the efficacy of the additional preparation activities. Findings suggest that both students and instructors agree that having access to these materials as a part of a portfolio of resources, including the lab manual, help them better prepare for the lab. Although students’ expectations on the cognitive domain decreased after a semester of instruction, questions related to comfort with lab equipment show improvements in the affective domain for students with access to the additional preparation activities. Lastly we found that both students and instructors see a lot of value and benefits in having these types of prelab activities available as a way to help prepare students for the upcoming laboratory sessions. In general, the potential benefits that prelab activities had on students outweigh the modest effort to create these materials.

Effect of developmentally moderated focus on form instruction in Indonesian kindergarten children learning English as a foreign language

This short report summarises a current quasi-experimental investigation into the effect of developmentally moderated focus on form instruction (DMFonF; Di Biase 2002, 2008) in an EFL classroom in an Indonesian kindergarten. DMFonF is an instructional approach which combines Pienemann's (1984) teachability hypothesis within Processability Theory (Pienemann 1998, 2011) with Long's (1991) focus on form (FonF) feedback. Specifically, the current study focuses on the acquisition of English plural marking on nouns. One first-year Indonesian kindergarten class (K1) and one second-year kindergarten class (K2) participated in the study. Children in both K1 and K2 were assessed at the beginning of the study and all of them, bar one exception, were found to be at the lexical stage; that is, they produced only single words and formulaic expressions in English without any grammatical markings. Analyses for K1 after one semester of instruction with DMFonF indicated that all the children acquired lexical plural marking and nine out of ten children also acquired phrasal agreement between quantifiers and nouns. A comparison of these results with K2 children (who were one year ahead in their meaning-based instruction) suggests that DMFonF instruction is effective in promoting grammatical development in the second language acquisition of kindergarten children.

Morphological Intervention in Promoting Higher-Order Reading Abilities among College-Level Second Language Learners

Reading success in a second language (L2) is vital to sustainable language and academic development because reading serves as a tool to absorb and learn new knowledge. Particularly in the context of college English as a foreign language (EFL), students constantly face the challenge to read English material to develop content knowledge. The current study investigated the effect of explicit morphological instruction on L2 students’ higher-order inferencing and comprehension abilities. Sixty-two Chinese collegiate EFL students who were taking an intensive reading course (31 in the treatment class and 31 in the control class) participated in this study. The morphological intervention in the treatment class focused on identifying, decomposing, analyzing, associating, applying word parts in context. The control class received no explicit instruction in morphological awareness. After one semester of instruction, a series of morphology, inferencing and comprehension measures were administered to the participating students. The results showed that the didactic intervention of morphological awareness contributed to morphological knowledge and word-meaning inferencing ability, whereas there was no significant relationship between morphological intervention and text-based inference and comprehension abilities. The findings suggest that the intervention has a direct impact on word learning ability; however, higher-order processing skills may not directly benefit from it in a short period of time. Given that reading comprehension requires fine-tuned understandings of both local meanings and global contextual information, morphological awareness may not have an immediate effect on comprehension. Applied implications are also discussed in relation to effective morphological instruction and reading development in L2 contexts.

AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ EVALUATION OF AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS SYNCHRONOUS COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION ON LANGUAGE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IN VIETNAMESE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

The study explored students’ evaluation of and attitudes towards synchronous computermediated communication (SCMC) on language skills development after a fifteen-week semester ofinstruction, using quantitative and qualitative approach. One class of English level 3 of CEFR – Vietnamesestandard (B1) participated in oral role plays and one class engaged in synchronous online discussions. Theresearch participants filled out the pre- and post- questionnaires and the participants from the SCMC groupwere called for semi-structured interviews to obtain their evaluation and attitudes towards synchronouscomputer-mediated communication on language development. Analysis of the questionnaires and semistructured interviews exposed that the fifteen-week semester English intensive course contributed tostudents’ language skills development. They had positive attitudes towards SCMC and were contented withthe activities in the computer lab. Remarkably, the SCMC group felt more confident in chatting in computerlab than the role play group. It showed that doing written online discussions would intrigue learners in theirlearning English. SCMC is thus shown to be a valuable addition to the foreign language classroom.

The effects of explicit pronunciation instruction on the production of second language Spanish voiceless stops

The present study examines the effectiveness of second language explicit pronunciation instruction of adult second language (L2) learners of Spanish in a classroom setting. This study seeks to shed light on the effectiveness of teaching pronunciation while considering the level of instruction of first, second and third year students. Eighty-three learners of Spanish as an L2 were recruited to participate in a control (n = 45) or experimental (n = 38) group. From the beginning to the end of a twelve-week semester, participants in the experimental condition received instruction on typically difficult segments in L2-Spanish for first language (L1) English speakers. Pronunciation gains were measured acoustically by a word-reading task and the target structures were Spanish voiceless stops /p, t, k/. Results suggest that pronunciation instruction is beneficial to all voiceless stops. After a semester of instruction, the experimental group reduced their voice onset time (VOT) and reached native speakers' range, while no difference was observed in the control group. Additionally, instruction was beneficial at each curricular level, suggesting that pronunciation instruction should be part of the L2-Spanish curricular sequence at multiple levels. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications of these findings and special emphasis is placed on the advantages of pronunciation instruction. A call is made for more teachers and practitioners to include pronunciation instruction in the L2-Spanish classroom.

Quantitative Analysis Of The Effect Of Synchronous Online Discussions On Oral And Written Language Development For EFL University Students In Vietnam

<p><span>The study investigated the effects of synchronous online discussions on oral and written skills development for EFL university students in Vietnam after one semester of instruction, using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental approach. One 15-student class of B1-level English participated in oral role plays, whereas another 15-student class engaged in synchronous online discussions after comparable preparation. Results showed no statistically significant differences in oral and written proficiency between the two treatment groups at the end of the semester. However, students in both groups achieved great progress in speaking and writing skills, especially speaking skill after one semester. The fact that there was no significant difference of the groups strengthens the belief that online discussions support the development of the same processes that underlie oral speech. Synchronous online discussions are thus shown to be a valuable addition to the foreign language classroom, in terms of second language acquisition and learners’ language development.</span></p>

De bueno a muy bueno

This paper presents and analyzes quantitative and qualitative changes in the performance of seven advanced-proficiency heritage speakers of Spanish over the course of one semester of instruction, during which these speakers were part of a college-level macro-based heritage Spanish class. Using oral narratives recorded in the first and last weeks of class, we analyzed changes in key categories such as overall narrative organization, use of discourse connectors, tenses, complex structures (subordination), and lexical proficiency. The post-intervention results showed positive improvements in students’ linguistic ability to narrate in more sophisticated and complex ways as the proportion of subordinate clauses, variety of tenses, and diversification of discourse connectors increased, as well as the use of stylistic phrases and formulas characteristic of the narrative genre. The results provide concrete examples of the positive impact that a pedagogical macro-approach can have on advanced heritage learners’ language development, use, and motivation. We propose a combination of pedagogical practices that include a rich language environment, meaningful interactions, continuous scaffolding, and explicit instruction about discourse elements, complex structures, and genre characteristics to continue fostering advanced language learning. Other factors we analyze as part of the dynamics of change in students’ narrative skills include the interaction between oral and written modalities of the language and individual differences.

Investigating undergraduate health sciences students\u2019 acceptance of evolution using MATE and GAENE

BackgroundDespite the overwhelming agreement among scientists regarding the fundamental importance of evolution to all areas of biology, a lack of evolution understanding and acceptance has been reported in studies of students, educators, and members of society. In the present study, we investigate and report evolution acceptance in a population of undergraduate health sciences students enrolled in a first-year foundational biology course. Two published instruments—The Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) and the Generalized Acceptance of Evolution Evaluation (GAENE)—were used to quantify evolution acceptance. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on both instruments to test whether the items measured the underlying construct sufficiently. Additionally, Rasch scaling was used to investigate fit between the data and the measurement model, and to determine if the MATE should be treated as a unidimensional or bidimensional instrument. Using correlation and regression analysis, we examined the relationships between the two measures of evolution acceptance, and between measures of evolution acceptance with other student variables of interest.ResultsThe health sciences students in this study demonstrated high acceptance of evolution at the start of term, as well as a significant increase in evolution acceptance from pre- to post-test. CFA and Rasch scaling provided some evidence that the MATE is a bidimensional instrument, but considering MATE as a bidimensional instrument provided little additional insight compared to treating MATE as a unidimensional instrument. Measures of evolution acceptance resulting from the MATE and GAENE instruments were significantly and strongly correlated. Multiple regression modeling identified underrepresented minority status as a demographic variable predictive of evolution acceptance, and provided further evidence of the strong association between the MATE and GAENE instruments.ConclusionsThe undergraduate health sciences students in this study demonstrated a significant increase in evolution acceptance from pre- to post-test after one semester of instruction in general biology. Measures of evolution acceptance from the MATE and GAENE instruments were strongly correlated whether MATE was treated as a unidimensional or bidimensional instrument. This work provides initial indications that the MATE and GAENE instruments perform comparably as measures of evolution acceptance. Although the instruments are closely related, this work found more psychometric evidence for interpreting and using GAENE scores than MATE scores as a measure of evolution acceptance.

College Student Writers' Use and Modification of Planning and Evaluation Strategies After a Semester of Instruction

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate how students in a developmental writing course at a community college used and adapted cognitive writing strategies learned in the course. The students participated in a funded research project for the development and evaluation of a writing curriculum based on self‐regulated strategy instruction. The authors investigated students’ application of the planning and revising strategies using think‐aloud protocols. The results showed that students remembered the strategies but did not use them consistently. Also, students tended to use an outline but not always effectively. Finally, reading comprehension seemed to impact their use of revision strategies. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Exploring the Dynamic Long‐Term Interaction Between Cognitive and Psychosocial Resources in Adult Second Language Development at Varying Proficiency

This study draws on conceptual and methodological insights afforded within a dynamic systems perspective to explore shifting interrelationships between cognitive capacity and motivational resources in instructed adult second language (L2) learners of Spanish at increasing proficiency. Relationships that emerged showed both stability and fluctuation over a semester of instruction and varied by learners' stage of development. Findings support previous calls to improve upon mainstream approaches to conceptualizing and investigating learner individual differences (IDs) by adopting a holistic, non modular view of the L2 developmental system in general and learner IDs in particular (e.g., Dörnyei, , ; Dörnyei & Ryan, ; Larsen–Freeman, , , ). To further align with DST principles (see Hiver & Al‐Hoorie, ), future studies should endeavor to carry out longitudinal case studies with multiple data points in order to reveal intra‐individual complexity in the group‐level patterns seen here.

THE BENEFICIAL ROLE OF L1 SPOKEN LANGUAGE SKILLS ON INITIAL L2 SIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

Understanding how language modality (i.e., signed vs. spoken) affects second language outcomes in hearing adults is important both theoretically and pedagogically, as it can determine the specificity of second language (L2) theory and inform how best to teach a language that uses a new modality. The present study investigated which cognitive-linguistic skills predict successful L2 sign language acquisition. A group (n = 25) of adult hearing L2 learners of American Sign Language underwent a cognitive-linguistic test battery before and after one semester of sign language instruction. A number of cognitive-linguistic measures of verbal memory, phonetic categorization skills, and vocabulary knowledge were examined to determine whether they predicted proficiency in a multiple linear regression analysis. Results indicated that English vocabulary knowledge and phonetic categorization skills predicted both vocabulary growth and self-rated proficiency at the end of one semester of instruction. Memory skills did not significantly predict either proficiency measures. These results highlight how linguistic skills in the first language (L1) directly predict L2 learning outcomes regardless of differences in L1 and L2 language modalities.

Modality-specific processing precedes amodal linguistic processing during L2 sign language acquisition: A longitudinal study

The present study tracked activation pattern differences in response to sign language processing by late hearing second language learners of American Sign Language. Learners were scanned before the start of their language courses. They were scanned again after their first semester of instruction and their second, for a total of 10 months of instruction. The study aimed to characterize modality-specific to modality-general processing throughout the acquisition of sign language. Results indicated that before the acquisition of sign language, neural substrates related to modality-specific processing were present. After approximately 45 h of instruction, the learners transitioned into processing signs on a phonological basis (e.g., supramarginal gyrus, putamen). After one more semester of input, learners transitioned once more to a lexico-semantic processing stage (e.g., left inferior frontal gyrus) at which language control mechanisms (e.g., left caudate, cingulate gyrus) were activated. During these transitional steps right hemispheric recruitment was observed, with increasing left-lateralization, which is similar to other native signers and L2 learners of spoken language; however, specialization for sign language processing with activation in the inferior parietal lobule (i.e., angular gyrus), even for late learners, was observed. As such, the present study is the first to track L2 acquisition of sign language learners in order to characterize modality-independent and modality-specific mechanisms for bilingual language processing.

EVIDENCE FOR THE DECREASING IMPACT OF COGNITIVE ABILITY ON SECOND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AS PROFICIENCY INCREASES

This study investigated whether the role of working memory capacity varies over the course of second language (L2) morphosyntactic development. Eighty-seven beginning, intermediate, and advanced university L2 Spanish learners completed two nonverbal tasks measuring executive function (EF) and phonological working memory (PWM) in their native language (English) and two tasks measuring knowledge of ten grammatical structures in Spanish at three points during and after a semester of instruction. Robust relationships between both working memory components, especially PWM, and L2 performance, emerged only for lower level learners, particularly at the start of instruction and 3.5 months later. Findings demonstrate that the facilitative effects of cognitive ability appear to lessen with increasing L2 proficiency and empirically support a developmental perspective of L2 learning.