2021 SPF Research Day — CLA Projects

April 30, 2021
|In CLA News
|By xiangbingling

On April 28th, Wenzhou-Kean University successfully held the “Student Research Day”, which consisted of three parts: poster display, 3-minute speech and 15-minute presentation. Among them, College of Liberal Arts has emerged many excellent scientific research projects. The following are the outstanding scientific research achievements:

Poster:

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  1. Project title: Sino-Foreign Higher Education Partnerships

 

  1. Participation: Jinkua Liu Major: Computer ScienceShenglong Chen Major:  PsychologyLingke Wang Major:  Accounting

 

  1. Advisor: Joseph A. Poniatowski & Danny Dyer

 

  1. Brief introduction:The main goal of this research project was to investigate foreign cooperatives between Chinese universities and non-Chinese universities.  Since China’s informal “opening up” in the 1970’s, and more formally, education policies in the 1990’s and 2000’s, China has encouraged partnerships with foreign institutions to fulfill the demand of Chinese nationals wanting an enhanced international educational experience while remaining in China.  Although there are currently over 1,000 alliances at smaller levels, for example, student or faculty exchanges, or department advising, our main focus is on the nine Sino-Foreign universities.  With a literature review of more than 15 academic articles and a survey of over 200 WKU students and faculty, we began the process of critically examining the international educational partnerships at the higher education level in China.

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  1. Project title: Increasing lecturer-student interaction strategies through the revaluation of positive psychology

 

  1. Participation: Erxiao Wang (English), Siyu Zhang (English)

 

  1. Advisor: Joaquin Lopez

 

  1. Brief intro of the project:The research adopts general theories of Positive Psychology and Emotional Intelligence, highlighting its importance for the educational field, and specifically, in the field of Teaching Foreign Languages as a second language in the context of higher education in China. Through an ethnographic approach, we investigate how modern language(s)-as-medium-of-instruction lecturers in China and their identity-building are shaped through emotions. We claim that ethnographic research can explore both visible behaviors and interactions, as well as the forces that tacitly underlie the microcosm of the classroom. The purpose is to unearth the role of professor’s emotional knowledge, especially the positive aspect of emotion in the classroom.

 

15mins presentation：

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1. Project title:

Seating Selection: What really matters?

2. Participation:

He Yuzhen- Yolanda (PSY) Huang Yuchong-Catherine (PSY) Lukehan-Lulu (PSY) han Yinuo-Irene (Fin) Zhou Yu-Zoey (PSY)

3. Advisor：Amrita Kaur

4. Brief introduction: Students’ seat selection is one significant physical variable that has implications for both teachers and students for teaching and learning. Students’ seat preference in the classroom has been associated with their personality and motivational factors and learning outcomes. However, little is known about the factors that shape students’ preferences for seating in the classroom. The current study will adopt an exploratory qualitative design to explore the factors that affect undergraduate students seating preferences. The study will recruit participants using purposive sampling. Face-to-face interviews will be utilized to collect data. Data will be analyzed using the thematic analysis method. The study findings will have implications for higher education practitioners.

 

 

 

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  1. Project title: Our Voices Matter: The Role of a Pedagogical Consultant in the ESL Course

 

  1. Participation：Yuchen Gao-Mary（Communication）Linghan Jiang-Lynn（English）

 

  1. Advisor: Svetlana Vikhnevich

 

  1. Brief Introduction：Our semester-long research project aims to use feedback from the pedagogical consultants, two student volunteers, who observe one section of ESL 0403 to identify (a) some important students’ recommendations that can promote teaching/learning and (b) students’ personal development from this consulting experience. The data is collected via audio-recorded discussions of pedagogical consultants’ suggestions and insights gained during the class and analyzed via the thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Based on the identified themes, students had the focus group interviews to check whether their suggestions for improvement were well-accepted by peers. The findings can enable instructors to draw conclusions on the potential of similar student-faculty partnerships.

 

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  1. Project Title：Are Students Interested? Exploring the Factors that Contribute to the Development of Interest among Undergraduate Students in Classes.

 

  1. Yang Bingyu Logan (PSY) Chen Yinqi Shannon (PSY) Wang Hanning Jupiter (PSY) He Yanyan Helen (PSY) Zheng Chengxuan Kane (FIN)

 

  1. Advisor：Amrita Kaur

 

  1. Brief introduction: Interest plays a significant role in determining students learning, engagement and motivation. This study will utilize a qualitative exploratory design to examine the behavioral indicators of interest and factors that contribute to the development of interest of undergraduate students. Convenience sampling will be utilized to recruit the participants. The research will use the Experience Sampling Method as a primary source of data collection followed by interviews to record participants’ subjective experiences of interest in their classroom learning. Data will be analyzed using the thematic analysis method. The study findings will have implications for higher education practitioners.

 

 

Editor | Gao Yuchen

Proofreader | Xiang Bingling (Evangeline)