Associate Professor Mitchell O'Toole

English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has been widely adopted at the tertiary level in non-English speaking countries and Vietnam is no exception. Vietnamese universities and the Vietnamese government have anticipated significant linguistic benefits for student outcomes through the implementation of EMI. Using a mixed-methods design of surveys, interviews, and focus groups with students and lecturers at six Vietnamese universities, this study investigates lecturer and student perceptions of the impacts of EMI on students¿ language proficiency in Vietnam. The study indicates that both students and lecturers were optimistic about students¿ language improvement. This study recommends some implications for students, lecturers, and further research regarding EMI in the Vietnamese EFL context. Among the recommendations to emerge from this study, assessment on students¿ language ability before they commence EMI courses and lecturers¿ adequate language competence for EMI programs should be considered.

This study examines the extent of influence educational and technological factors have on the level of engagement of the video-based pedagogical responses, and by extension the level of acceptance and use of video technology in teaching, in the context of secondary school teachers in Amman city, Jordan. Educational factors considered were type of school, teaching experience, teaching grade and subject been taught. Technological factors considered were access to the internet and whether teacher has IT support. An integrated mixed method approach was used incorporating both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The ANOVA statistical analysis method was used for the quantitative analysis component. Results from this study were then viewed through the lens of the Technology Acceptance Model theoretical framework for additional insight. It was found that not all the educational and technological factors considered have a statistically significant influence on teachers¿ level of engagement of the video-based pedagogical responses. The only factor that has a statistically significant influence over all components of the video-based pedagogical responses is the subject being taught, in particular, science-related subjects. In other words, teachers who taught science-related subjects were found to engage in all components of the video-based pedagogical responses. Therefore, according to the interpretation of the Technology Acceptance Model framework in this study, teachers who teach science-related subjects will likely lead to acceptance and use of video technology by both teachers and students due to usefulness and ease of use being perceived. Acceptance and use of video technology will likely lead to an enhanced pedagogical outcome.

The ability to use translation technology is considered a key component of a translator¿s translation competence. However, few studies have investigated the extent of use of translation technology, especially among student translators. This paper reports on a survey of translation technology adoption among 441 students enrolled on a Master-level Programme in Translation and Interpreting. A questionnaire was used to measure student knowledge and frequency of use for six common types of translation technology tools and resources: electronic dictionaries, search engines, online encyclopaedias, corpora, machine translation and computer-aided translation tools. The results show that there is a strong, positive correlation between student knowledge and their use of translation technology. More specifically, the second-year students generally used translation technology more frequently than the first-year students. This paper provides a baseline for future comparisons of translation technology use, which has implications for teaching translation technology in China and similar contexts elsewhere.

English for specific purposes research reveals that learners at a variety of levels experience difficulty reading science text, sufficient to impede their acquisition of science understanding. However, little research exists regarding subject-specific language styles or reading difficulty in Arabic. Difficulties with specialised language may seriously impede the development of physics understanding by Saudi students. Remedial attempts may remain ineffective unless informed by a better understanding of specific readability issues. This quantitative study involved 80 female Year 10 students studying science in two cities in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah and Abha). A specialised cloze test based on the mandatory physics textbook was developed to identify language features of the passage that participating students found difficult. Findings reveal that (a) these Saudi students experienced greater difficulty in reading their physics book (28% conceptually correct responses) than that suggested by earlier work with English speakers of similar age (62% conceptually correct responses); and (b) Saudi student difficulties with grammatical categories form a distinguishable pattern, but the pattern differs from that indicated by earlier work with English-speaking student.

Direct experiences of nature are becoming less common in our urbanised world and little research exists regarding the impact of less direct experiences, particularly how childhood reading relates to the development of pro-environmental values. This study differs from previous reports into the influence of books, as it concentrates on the potential influence of fiction rather than factual or scientific texts. This qualitative study involved semi-structured interviews with 31 educators at Eastern Australian Environmental Education Centres to understand the relationship of childhood reading and value development. Findings reveal that participants: (a) recall predominantly fictional reading material; (b) recall stories by Tolkien, Blyton and Rowling as pro-environmental influences; and (c) commonly exhibit the counter-intuitive influence of fantasy/SF stories in their formative years. Stories will never replace authentic childhood experiences in the natural environment; however, judicious use of appropriate stories could be a valuable teaching strategy as readers often unquestioningly accept information from stories.

Background: Education of Prosthetics and Orthotics is a relatively recent professional program. While there has been some work on various teaching methods and strategies in international medical education, limited publication exists within prosthetics and orthotics. Objectives: To identify the teaching and learning methods that are used in Bachelor-level prosthetics and orthotics programs that are given highest priority by expert prosthetics and orthotics instructors from regions enjoying a range of economic development. Study design: Mixed method. Methods: The study partly documented by this article utilized a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative methods) within which each phase provided data for other phases. It began with analysis of prosthetics and orthotics curricula documents, which was followed by a broad survey of instructors in this field and then a modified Delphi process. Results: The expert instructors who participated in this study gave high priority to student-centered, small group methods that encourage critical thinking and may lead to lifelong learning. Instructors from more developed nations placed higher priority on student's independent acquisition of prosthetics and orthotics knowledge, particularly in clinical training. Conclusions: Application of student-centered approaches to prosthetics and orthotics programs may be preferred by many experts, but there appeared to be regional differences in the priority given to different teaching methods. Clinical relevance The results of this study identify the methods of teaching that are preferred by expert prosthetics and orthotics instructors from a variety of regions. This treatment of current instructional techniques may inform instructor choice of teaching methods that impact the quality of education and improve the professional skills of students.

The study described in this paper investigated how the major stakeholders of a teacher education institution responded to a particular suite of educational products that involved video-based educational learning objects. It aims to look into stakeholder attitudes to potential technological development in fostering student-centred learning in general and problem-based learning (PBL) in particular, with the ultimate goal of enhancing and improving the quality of teacher training. The research objectives are specifically focused upon (a) the experience of the major stakeholders when using multimedia technology and PBL pedagogy; (b) perceived benefits and challenges when applying the courseware in actual teaching situations; and (c) the possibility of these video-rich PBL cases being adjusted to better suit stakeholder needs and encourage their wider use in the particular context of this Chinese teacher education institution. The results show that previous training can exert a significant influence on the adoption of PBL by teachers and students. The data analysis is expected to form a useful baseline for a longitudinal study to determine the extent to which such multimedia educational courseware can affect the processes of learning, and to identify the learning outcomes that may be achievable through video-rich learning objects. © 2013.

This address was given as the final-day keynote of the Sixth International Drama in Education Research Institute (IDIERI) in Sydney, 2009. Using the Institute's title as his theme, O'Toole briefly surveys the growth of drama education research of the last two decades, and the changing landscape of practice and research. He then conducts an informal meta-analysis of the abstracts of all the papers submitted and accepted for the Institute. These are analysed in terms of what inferences can be made about the state of drama education research. Five analysis categories are investigated: the abstracts as phenomena; baseline data and research characteristics which the abstracts reveal; the learning content of the papers; the basic dimensions of drama education; and the methodologies used. There is some discussion of key gaps and omissions, based on a UK/Australian literature review of arts partnerships research. Finally, the paper raises, non-propositionally, the question of the identity of drama education research and researchers. Who are we and how are we perceived? © 2010 Taylor & Francis.

A top financial backer has arrived to determine which team of computer interaction designers has developed the most exciting and innovative proposal for the Everest component of the Virtually Impossible Computer Company's Conquerors of the World Series, Tension is high as the presentations begin, but this tension soon turns to outright conflict as some proposals suggest George Mallory as the conqueror, and the financial backer will have none of him. The backer, it seems, has her own agenda and is determined to allow for only one view of history - the one that records Sir Edmund Hillary as a New Zealand hero and the only real conqueror of the tallest mountain on earth. The designers become more and more agitated until suddenly someone bangs their hand on the table and calls out, "Hang on . . . just because you've got the money doesn't mean . . . kids need to learn about both these men . . . they need to learn about history." With that the drama is cut by the teacher. The deep understandings about "history's purchased page" that can be generated when drama and computers are brought together for learning have been made explicit . . . but could these same outcomes have been achieved using just one of these approaches? © 2008 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

The approach of problem-based learning (PBL) possesses numerous differences when compared with the conventional ways of learning. However, few of the studies seem to tackle the underlying assumptions of PBL and relate it to the local context when it applies to different groups of learners in a particular discipline, such as education professionals in Hong Kong. This paper will, therefore, analyse the teacher educators' attitudes to the five newly developed video triggers on PBL, which were developed by education professionals at the Hong Kong Institute of Education to serve as exemplars for the teaching staff who are not familiar with the problem-based approach. The study intends to find out the teacher educators' perceptions of the use of media-based educational triggers in this teacher education institute, and what their attitudes are to this particular educational product's potential technological development in fostering student-centred learning in general and problem-based learning in particular, with the ultimate goal of enhancing and improving the quality of teacher training. The results show that pre-requisite training can exert a significant influence on the adoption of PBL by the Chinese teachers and students. © 2007 Angela Ma Kit Fong, John Mitchell O'Toole and Mike Keppell.

This paper serves as an introduction to the Forum on Environmental Ethics. The Forum is built around contributions to the Environmental Ethics Symposium within the 10th Pacific Science Inter-Congress, held in Guam, USA 1-6 June 2001. The contributions to the Symposium differed in commitment and intent and this diversity has been enhanced by the addition of several additional papers to this Forum. The paper suggests a view of action as resulting from the interaction between often unexamined values, goes on to comment on the role of values in science classrooms, and applies both to a general treatment of Environmental Ethics. The paper then positions the remaining contributions to the Forum and concludes with a substantial bibliography which should prove useful to any readers wishing to dip deeper into Environmental Ethics.