Bringing light to a hidden genre : the peer review report

While early career researchers (ECRs) often read and produce articles for peer reviewed journals, they are less familiar with peer review reports (PRRs). Most ECRs learn about the genre of PRRs by reading reports on their own manuscripts and through hands-on experience crafting their own, often with little guidance or exposure to exemplars. To demystify this ‘hidden’ academic genre, this article reports on a genre analysis of 62 ‘quality’ PRRs, focusing on their communicative purposes, and the structural, content, and linguistic elements that serve to support those purposes. Findings show that the central role of the PRR is to elicit various actions on the part of manuscript authors. Other functions serve to circumvent manuscript author’s potential negative emotional response to PRRs, and this is also seen in limited use of high modality verbs and emotional language. PRRs follow a fairly uniform structure, and focus on all elements of the manuscript, with most attention given to the methods section. The paper provides numerous practical examples that provide a practical guide to support writing pedagogies related to important academic practice.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The World Language Teacher Shortage: Taking a New Direction

Since the end of World War II, international leaders have made calls addressing the world language teacher shortage. For almost 70 years, such rhetoric has been advanced, yet world language teacher shortages remain in many countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In this article, the authors discuss the past and current state of affairs of the shortage before advancing ideas for language teacher recruitment and retention to which a variety of stakeholders (e.g., parents, administrators, language teacher associations) can contribute immediately in order to address the world language teacher shortage in earnest

Less ‘prestigious’ journals can contain more diverse research, by citing them we can shape a more just politics of citation.

Drawing on their recent analysis of journals in the field of Higher Education Studies, which shows that journals with lower impact rankings are more likely to feature research from diverse geographic and linguistic contexts, Shannon Mason and Margaret K. Merga argue that researchers should adopt more careful citation practices, as a means to broaden and contextualise what counts as ‘prestigious’ research and create a more equitable publishing environment for research outside of core anglophone countries

Mentor and peer support for early career researchers sharing research with academia and beyond

© 2021 There is a growing expectation that doctoral candidates and early career academics publish research outputs such as journal articles and conference papers, and that they share their findings with key stakeholders beyond academia. However, it is not known if these expectations are being coupled with support from mentors and peers within institutions. Through interviews with recent PhD graduates working as early career researchers in Australia and Japan, this paper investigates if mentor and peer support for producing both academic and translational outputs was forthcoming during their doctoral candidature and beyond. It also investigates kinds of supports provided in doctoral candidature and early career. Thirty early career researchers in Australia and Japan took part in this qualitative study involving in-depth semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of respondents. Researchers made translation support available for Japanese respondents so that those with limited English could take part. Findings suggest that mentor and peer support were not universal, and some respondents did not have a mentor or significant peer influence supporting their production of academic or translational research outputs. Support for sharing research with audiences beyond academia could be limited, with production of outputs for academic audiences consistently a greater focus of support. There were no mentoring supports for translational outputs that had salience across Australia and Japan within the sample. While limited attention has been given to the role that peer influence may play in supporting research output production of early career researchers the more even power relationship between peers as opposed to the peer-/mentor dyad can allow unique supports to flourish. Where institutions expect growing and diverse research output production by doctoral candidates and early career researchers, they should also ensure that support is provided through facilitating mentoring and peer relationships

Demystifying the process of scholarly peer-review : an autoethnographic investigation of feedback literacy of two award-winning peer reviewers

Peer reviewers serve a vital role in assessing the value of published scholarship and improving the quality of submitted manuscripts. To provide more appropriate and systematic support to peer reviewers, especially those new to the role, this study documents the feedback practices and experiences of two award-winning peer reviewers in the field of education. Adopting a conceptual framework of feedback literacy and an autoethnographic-ecological lens, findings shed light on how the two authors design opportunities for feedback uptake, navigate responsibilities, reflect on their feedback experiences, and understand journal standards. Informed by ecological systems theory, the reflective narratives reveal how they unravel the five layers of contextual influences on their feedback practices as peer reviewers (micro, meso, exo, macro, chrono). Implications related to peer reviewer support are discussed and future research directions are proposed.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Teacher Attrition and Retention Research in Australia: Towards a New Theoretical Framework

During the last decades, the search to try to understand why Australian teachers prematurely leave their jobs has become an increasing focus of research interest. This article yields significant insights into the history and potential future of the teacher attrition research field. Using a thematic content analysis methodology, a study of the Australian literature reveals that the field in this country is still in its infancy, and is dominated by small-scale, qualitative exploratory studies. Furthermore, it shows the lack of consistency amongst studies discussing teacher attrition, as well as the need for a theoretically informed framework that acknowledges the complex nature of teacher attrition. To fill this void, the authors propose a new theoretical model, arguing that teacher attrition is a complex phenomenon, a product of the interaction of elements from social capital, human capital, positive psychological capital and structural capital intersecting

Building A High-Quality Early Childhood System of Leadership and Teaching Practice

This document serves as the Year 5 Annual report for the Building a High-Quality Early Childhood System of Leadership and Teaching Practice initiative ("the initiative"). Data summary reports with feedback on individual trainings throughout the year (e.g., Kindergarten Academy, trainings geared toward childcare providers and trainings related to COVID and better utilization ofthe OWL curriculum) are available in Appendix 1.The University of Mississippi's Center for Research Evaluation (CERE) serves as the external evaluator for the initiative. CERE evaluated the first three-year cycle of the initiative (December 2016-November 2019) and is now evaluating the three-year continuation (December 2020- November 2023; thus, we are referring to this second year of the second three-year cycle as "Year 5"). The initiative aims to change the landscape of early childhood education across the state of Mississippi by training educators across all levels and roles about evidence-based teaching for early childhood. The initiative's focus is not only on educators gaining knowledge, but also on their implementation of what they have learned in their districts, schools, and classrooms. Thus, the evaluation aims to determine the extent to which (1) participants learned from the initiative's trainings and other activities, (2) participants implemented what they learned and (3) students' literacy increased. At a higher level, the evaluation considers what training or participant characteristics impact these outcomes