Articles

Grounded on Engstrom’s interacting activity theory, this qualitative study examines higher education (HE) students’ views about the roles of their groups regarding tasks assigned to them during classroom activities and how their views influence the ways they interact with their peers in the groups. The key findings are twofold. In symbolic group work (GW) interactions, students perceive group leaders as a symbol of group authority who distribute unequal responsibilities among group members. Students, then, positioned themselves as “disciplined members” and passively participate in the group. In authentic GW interactions, students see that the group leaders put forth the authentic conversation and shared responsibilities among group members. Students then positioned themselves reflexively between “collaborative learners” and “active agents,” in order to participate in the group actively. Findings suggest that students view GW dynamics differently when their interactions and participation are either imposed or supported by the group dynamics themselves and whether university teachers take social aspects of GW into account of their facilitation. The study provides insight into the complex interactional group dynamics that influence cooperative learning goals in the university settings and offers opportunities for university teachers to think about adopting social pedagogic approaches in facilitating classroom GW as a constitutive part of pedagogical reform at higher education institutions.

The transition from traditional (face-to-face) to online learning mode presents challenges and barriers to students globally. Reports on this issue during the pandemic show the various effects of barriers to online learning on their academic achievement. Some researchers have been interested in this issue. However, specific research on the group of students majoring in social sciences is still limited. To fill this research gap, this paper aims to build a theoretical framework on barriers to students’ learning in the online environment through a review of research papers, thereby examining the relationship between barriers and students’ academic achievement. The barriers identified in this study are Social Interaction, Academic Skills, Technical Skills, Learner Motivation, Time and Support for Studies. The Snowball sampling method was used, and the Google Forms application designed the questionnaire for data collection. The analytical data set included 482 records collected over 32 days from April 5th to May 6th, 2021. The results show the difference in demographic conditions in terms of the academic year, learning conditions, gender and region with the identified barriers. The study results show that most female students are guaranteed to fully meet the requirements of online learning in the context of COVID-19. However, the results of online learning are still affected, and the main reason is the time and support for learning activities. Through the findings, the research has contributed to strengthening the knowledge about the relationship between barriers and academic performance among students majoring in social sciences in the online learning environment. The research results can be a reference source so that educational administrators, teachers and related stakeholders such as parents, enterprises and the community will propose solutions to issues affecting the students’ learning effectiveness and outcomes.

In the era of globalization, one of the ultimate goals in English language education is to equip learners with intercultural sensitivity (InS) to effectively communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds; however, EFL learners in rural contexts are supposed to encounter difficulties in achieving InS. Therefore, this mixed-methods study aims at exploring EFL students’ InS in a rural high school where students have few opportunities to interact with foreigners in person. The study involved 185 EFL high school students in Lam Dong province, Vietnam, in answering the questionnaire, and 18 students in responding to the focus group interview questions. The results indicated that participants possessed a high level of InS. Among the five constructs of InS (e.g. interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, interaction enjoyment, interaction attentiveness, & intercultural confidence), the participants were most aware of respect for cultural differences, had interaction enjoyment and attentiveness, and showed their intercultural confidence. Nevertheless, they were likely to have difficulties in interaction engagement. It can be implied that the EFL high school students could, to some extent, gain their InS except socially intercultural interactions.

This research mainly aims at investigating non-English majored students’ awareness of autonomous English learning. To obtain the data for this research, one hundred non-English majors, from The Saigon International University, were surveyed. The objectives were to explore the students’ perceptions of their responsibility in learning English as well as the main factors affecting students’ autonomy. In addition to the survey, five students were also interviewed to discover the roles of autonomous English learning in students’ view. The findings indicate that the majority of students perceive themselves as autonomous learners who are willing to take responsibility for their English learning inside and outside the classroom. Besides, according to the results, there are various factors influencing autonomous English learning which includes laziness, a lack of learning strategies, and a lack of motivation. Moreover, the results show that autonomy does play an integral part in English learning. This study concludes by suggesting various methods to promote non-English majors’ autonomy in their English language learning process.