2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
An investigation into the impact of English appropriateness and the nurturing of autonomous learning attitudes on learner developmental processes
| Project/Area Number |
18K00885
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| Research Institution | Tokai University |
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Principal Investigator |
コリンズ ピーター 東海大学, 国際教育センター, 教授 (10307241)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
藤枝 美穂 大阪医科大学, 医学部, 教授 (20328173)
鈴木 広子 東海大学, 付置研究所, 教授 (50191789) [Withdrawn]
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2022-03-31
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| Keywords | Reading processes / Taxonomy / Scaffolding activities / Protocol analysis / EAP course design / Tertiary education |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The PI and CIs continued to fine-tune the educational framework they have implemented since the beginning of the research project. The investigators revised course designs, in-class activities, assignments, and assessment tools. With the understanding that most students in required EAP classes lack previous experience in (1) seeing English reading and writing as situated in context and (2) engaging in the reconstructing, analyzing, applying, and evaluating levels of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, the activities in the courses enabled participants to clarify their purposes in reading about academic topics. This enabled them to communicate more precise, situated, and purposeful messages drawing on technical terms and other key expressions recycled from their reading as evidenced by their writing protocols. The main research activity in 2020 was to analyze learner protocols to determine the extent to which students had developed not only a grasp of target language, but greater comprehension depth. The investigators decided on TagAnt and AntConc as analysis software to examine discreet features of participant writing such as the use of content verbs, relative pronouns, and variety of words used. The outcome was orally presented as a mid-term report (See Academic activities, 2). Together with qualitative analyses of learner protocols on aspects such as paragraph coherence, the quantitative data helped the investigators determine that, in fact, many of the participants had been able to move beyond the remembering level of the Taxonomy.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Classes were necessarily held online due to the ongoing pandemic and resulting restrictions on university teaching. It was found, however, that online teaching is not necessarily an obstacle to setting reading, writing, and discussion tasks that help learners of English for academic purposes (EAP) deepen their reading comprehension of academic topics. Planning and reflection meetings for the investigators were relatively easy to arrange and hold digitally. However, the investigators were not able to hold enough meetings for cleaning, analyzing and discussing the 2018 and 2019 data. After the analysis tools and analytical points were determined, data cleaning caused a significant delay in the original schedule. The 2020 data is limited, but will allow certain quantitative and qualitative features to emerge for further study.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
For the 2021 academic year, the investigators have set three principal goals enabling them to complete this study. First, target participants will be diversified to include students majoring in Global Policy studies. Second, a wider range of criteria will be introduced into quantitative analyses, and additional qualitative aspects will be taken into consideration such as the impact of English vs. Japanese resources on coherence. Finally, a final version of the educational framework will be proposed that can flexibly meet the needs of a range of EAP teaching contexts. Research outcomes will be presented at two virtual conferences: JACET 2021 and at AILA 2021, based in Groningen, the Netherlands as well as in papers submitted to journals.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Two international conferences the investigators were accepted to present at were cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. They will use the unused amount for registration to international conferences in 2021 as well as further data analysis and hiring assistants who will help in the data organization and analysis.
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