Informed Consent and the Research Process: Following Rules or Striking Balances?

Gaining informed consent from people being researched is central to ethical research practice. There are, however, several factors that make the issue of informed consent problematic, especially in research involving members of groups that are commonly characterised as \'vulnerable\' such as children and people with learning disabilities. This paper reports on a project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which was concerned to identify and disseminate best practice in relation to informed consent in research with six such groups. The context for the study is the increased attention that is being paid to the issue of informed consent in research, not least because of the broad changes taking place in research governance and regulation in the UK. The project involved the analysis of researchers\' views and experiences of informed consent. The paper focuses on two particular difficulties inherent in the processes of gaining and maintaining informed consent. The first of these is that there is no consensus amongst researchers concerning what comprises \'informed consent\'. The second is that there is no consensus about whether the same sets of principles and procedures are equally applicable to research among different groups and to research conducted within different methodological frameworks. In exploring both these difficulties we draw on our findings to highlight the nature of these issues and some of our participants\' responses to them. These issues have relevance to wider debates about the role of guidelines and regulation for ethical practice. We found that study participants were generally less in favour of guidelines that regulate the way research is conducted and more in favour of guidelines that help researchers to strike balances between the conflicting pressures that inevitably occur in research.Informed Consent; Research Ethics; Regulation of Research; Research Governance; Professional Guidelines

Conceptualizations of language errors, standards, norms and nativeness in English for research publication purposes: An analysis of journal submission guidelines

Adherence to standards in English for research publication purposes (ERPP) can be a substantial barrier for second language (L2) writers and is an area of renewed debate in L2 writing research. This study presents a qualitative text analysis of author guidelines in 210 leading academic journals across 27 disciplines. It explores conceptualizations of language errors, standards, norms and nativeness in journal submission guidelines, and identifies key concepts related to so-called error-free writing. Findings indicate that most of the journal guidelines are inflexible in their acceptance of variant uses of English. Some guidelines state a requirement of meeting an unclear standard of good English, sometimes described as American or British English. Many guidelines specifically position L2 writers as deficient of native standards, which raises ethical considerations of access to publication in top journals. This study leads to a discussion of a need to re-conceptualize error-free writing in ERPP, and to decouple it from concepts such as nativeness. It focuses on a need to relax some author guidelines to encourage all authors to write using an English that can easily be understood by a broad, heterogeneous, global, and multilingual audience

English language teaching and English-medium instruction

The role of English language teaching (ELT) in English-medium instruction (EMI) can vary widely depending on education policy objectives and teachers’ responses to EMI students’ language and learning needs. In this paper, we provide a narrative review of a growing number of studies reporting language-related challenges as the foremost barrier to successful implementation of EMI. Such research highlights the fundamental roles that English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes have in the provision of targeted language support for EMI students. Based on this review, we set a future research agenda, calling for explorations into the efficacy of English language programs for supporting EMI students to reach educational outcomes. We also call for explorations of greater collaboration between English language practitioners and content lecturers to ensure the right type of language support is being provided to students. The paper ends with a discussion for the need to reposition EAP as English for Specific Academic Purposes to ensure students’ specific academic needs are met. Essentially, universities offering EMI will need to account for their unique institutional characteristics to ensure ELT provision is central in organizational and curricular structures; otherwise, they may be setting their own students up to fail

Introduction to the special issue on English medium instruction: Areas of research needing urgent attention

English medium instruction (EMI), both in higher and secondary education, is now a well-established field of education research and, indeed, many applied linguistics journals are publishing regularly on a variety of EMI topics. Recently, a new journal, Journal of English-Medium Instruction, has been established that is dedicated entirely to this area of academic enquiry. Recent years have also seen several special issues emerge on topics within EMI in journals such as Applied Linguistics Review (published advanced online), System (in 2023), and TESOL Quarterly (in 2018)

Global Englishes and language teaching: a review of pedagogical research

The rise of English as a global language has led scholars to call for a paradigm shift in the field of English language teaching to match the new sociolinguistic landscape of the 21st century. In recent years a considerable amount of classroom-based research and language teacher education research has emerged to investigate these proposals in practice. This paper outlines key proposals for change in language teaching from the related fields of World Englishes, English as a lingua franca, English as an International Language, and Global Englishes, and critically reviews the growing body of pedagogical research conducted within these domains. Adopting the methodology of a systematic review, 58 empirical articles published between 2010-2020 were short-listed, of which 38 were given an in-depth critical review and contextualized within a wider body of literature. Synthesis of classroom research suggests a current lack of longitudinal designs, an underuse of direct measures to explore the effects of classroom interventions, and under-representation of contexts outside of university language classrooms. Synthesis of teacher education research suggests future studies need to adopt more robust methodological designs which measure the effects of Global Englishes content on teacher beliefs and pedagogical practices both before and throughout the program, and after teachers return to the classroom

Jump-starting student motivation to use self-access learning facilities: a case-study of a class\u27s use of a free-conversation area

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High resolution mapping of sediment organic matter from acoustic reflectance data

Spatial mapping of the marine environment is challenging when the properties concerned are difficult to measure except by shore-based analysis of discrete samples of material, usually from sparsely distributed sites. This is the case for many seabed sediment properties. We developed an indirect approach to mapping the organic content of coastal sediments from hydro-acoustic reflectance data. The basis was that both organic matter and acoustic reflectance are related to sediment type and grain size composition. Hence there is a collateral relationship between organic matter content and reflectance properties which can be exploited to enable high resolution mapping. We surveyed an area of seabed off the east coast of Scotland using a vessel mounted single beam echosounder with RoxAnn signal processing. Organic carbon, nitrogen and phytoplankton pigment contents were then measured in material from grab and core samples collected at intervals over a year. Relationships between the organic components and hydroacoustic characteristics were derived by general additive models, and used to construct high resolution maps from the acoustic survey data. Our method is an advance on traditional interpolation techniques sparse spatial data, and represents a generic approach that could be applied to other properties

Debating standard language ideology in the classroom:Using the speak good English movement to raise awareness of Global Englishes

In this article, we describe and evaluate an innovative pedagogical task designed to raise awareness of Global Englishes and to challenge standard language ideology in an English language classroom. The task encouraged the learning and debate of the controversial Speak Good English Movement, which campaigns for Singaporeans to use a ‘standard’ form of English rather than the local variety, ‘Singlish’. The debate was introduced as a Global Englishes-inspired multi-lesson task at a Japanese university with 108 students in four classes. Data were collected in the form of written reflections, in which learners stated their own positions and beliefs. Data indicated that the majority sided against the Speak Good English Movement, viewing Singlish as a legitimate variety of English with important cultural attributes, which contributed to a national identity. Results showed that the debate achieved the aim of encouraging students to critically reflect on standard language ideology in both English and Japanese, their mother tongue. Overall, the activity was successful in raising awareness of the diversity of English, and encouraging critical reflection on the complexities surrounding standard language beliefs. This was seen to be essential given the dominance of the ‘native’ speaker episteme in Japanese language curricula

A comparison of content learning outcomes between Japanese and English medium instruction

In the growing body of English medium instruction (EMI) research, few studies have directly compared the effects of medium of instruction on subject learning. This study compares direct measures of content knowledge and perceptions of knowledge acquisition for students studying Chemistry via English (n = 27) and Japanese Medium Instruction (JMI) (n = 26). Data were collected at a university in Japan where Chemistry courses were taught in both Japanese and English as part of a parallel program offering the same undergraduate curriculum in either of the two languages of instruction. An analysis was undertaken of students’ learning outcomes measured by pre-post course content tests. These measurable test outcomes were triangulated with data from student interviews (n = 17) to identify differences in the learners’ perceived experiences according to the medium of instruction. While the quantitative results revealed no significant overall differences in the adjusted post-test scores between EMI and JMI students, the qualitative data offered more detailed insight into the participants’ perspectives of content learning, highlighting unique challenges faced only by the EMI group. Findings point to implications for educational provision in contexts where the global trend of EMI has largely been unaccompanied with research evidence on its cost-effectiveness

EMI in Chinese higher education: the Muddy water of 'Englishisation'

English in Chinese higher education has shifted from being taught as a foreign language alongside other disciplinary-focussed courses to becoming an important medium of instruction used for learning and teaching non-language related academic subjects. While using English medium instruction (EMI) seems a natural and neutral academic exercise, the switch has muddied the water of EMI implementation and caused a number of social and academic issues for both students and lecturers. These problems include unfair promotion opportunities, unequal access to EMI classes, inadequate learning outcomes, and poor teaching quality. This special issue builds on past and current EMI work that explores issues related to EMI implementation in Chinese higher education institutions and in classrooms. Through the selection of several empirical papers, the special issue shines light on current knowledge, policies and practices of EMI in China to pave the way for research-informed recommendations