Proactive learner empowerment: towards a transformative academic integrity approach for English language learners

Abstract

Socializing students to Academic Integrity (AI) in the face of great cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic diversity in the student population in higher education calls for innovative strategies that are aligned with equity, diversity and inclusion principles. Through a mixed method of quantitative analysis of learner engagement data from the Learning Management System (LMS) and analysis of anonymous evaluation survey, along with thematic analysis of students’ open-ended responses in the evaluation survey, the authors explored how students responded to AI Socialization during a 4-week non-credit, online co-curricular program called ‘Reading and Writing Excellence’ (RWE). Nine groups of undergraduate students (N=182) from 34 disciplines in different global locations during the COVID-19 pandemic were introduced to a curated set of AI online resources. Through a learner-driven, instructor-facilitated approach the AI Socialization also engaged students in language development and empowered them to communicate about their disciplinary course topics through written journal entries, receiving instructor feedback that increased their cultural and linguistic capital for further academic writing. This approach led to a high volume of written output (on average 6064 words per student written over a 4-week period). Nonparametric ANOVA was used to establish that low-proficiency students were able to produce as much written output as their more proficient peers. Survey results for various aspects important to academic integrity show students’ self-perception of readiness for academic writing: paraphrasing and summarizing (92%); organization of ideas (92%); critical thinking (93%); logic/argument (92%). Insights gained about educative engagement, language development and learner empowerment that can help students from diverse backgrounds to avoid Academic Integrity Violations (AIVs) and gain transformative access and success in higher education are incorporated into a set of recommendations that are applicable to a wide range of teaching contexts.

Toward Transformative Inclusivity through Learner-driven and Instructor-facilitated Writing Support: An Innovative Approach to Empowering English Language Learners

“…As such, with the LeD-InF approach, instructors who respond to learners' self-introductions and subsequent academic journal entries communicate genuine empathy, support, and warmth in order to build a relationship of trust and care that enables learners to feel their thoughts are valued and to experience a sense of belonging. An analysis of this approach from the perspective of academic integrity socialization (Khoo and Kang, 2022) showed that opportunities to develop personal connections with academic integrity practice contributed to learners voluntarily writing more than 6,000 words within a month in their co-curricular writing support program. When culturally responsive pedagogy (Gay, 2018) was integrated with the LeD-InF approach, Huo and Khoo (2022) reported that of the 14 low-proficiency learners in their study, eight wrote on average 11,454 words and three wrote on average 6,437 words in one month.…”

Empowering Vietnamese EFL Learners at Tertiary Level: Investigating Factors Shaping Learner Autonomy in English Language Acquisition

“…Notably, Reactive Autonomy is a foundational step towards Proactive Autonomy, enabling learners to allocate and manage learning resources independently. Khoo and Kang (2022) state that proactive learners, who engage with the learning process more actively and independently, tend to learn more effectively and exhibit higher motivation levels than their reactive counterparts, who engage more passively.…”

Diversity, equity, and inclusion in natural science education: A review of literature

“…For example, value statements for DEI have been added to institutional policy (Carter et al., 2022) and programs have been created to promote DEI in colleges and departments (Clark et al., 2021; Marshall et al., 2022). Additionally, curriculum has been altered formally (Henning, 2013; Khoo & Kang, 2022) and informally (Atwater et al., 2013) to include DEI concepts. However, natural science education is still a field in which many students from underrepresented groups may lack a sense of belonging in traditional educational spaces (Campbell et al., 2022; Stoddard, 2022).…”