Articles

This study investigated the effectiveness of four concept based instructional (CBI) techniques - concept mapping, verbalization games, contextual clues, and visual strategies - integrated with task based instruction for enhancing Vietnamese EFL learners’ academic collocation knowledge and controlled productive ability. Seventy-three third-year English majors participated in a within-subject repeated measures sequential intervention across ten weeks. An Academic Collocation Test, a Vocabulary Knowledge Scale-Academic Collocation Test, and post-intervention interviews (n = 10) measured productive knowledge, knowledge depth, and learner perceptions, respectively. Results revealed substantial improvements with large effect sizes for overall performance and phase-specific gains. While techniques demonstrated differential gain trajectories, Friedman analysis confirmed equivalent post-test achievement across phases, complemented by mixed-effects modelling that attributes these differences to baseline variation rather than technique-specific effectiveness, suggesting the integrated model functions as a self-compensating system rather than any single technique driving outcomes. Knowledge depth progressed from recognition-level to productive use. Qualitative findings revealed universal recognition of collocation significance, divergent technique preferences, and sophisticated pedagogical insights. These findings support a multi-technique integrated approach with implications for collocation-focused instruction that emphasizes visual strategies and verbalization games within academic writing curricula in EFL contexts.

Grounded in Auerbach’s framework on leadership for school family partnerships, this study examines how leadership for partnerships is enacted with low socio-economic status (SES) families in Vietnam. It employs a qualitative case study design involving longitudinal fieldwork over two academic years at two primary schools in Ho Chi Minh City. Data collected from semi-structured interviews with 17 administrators and homeroom teachers, along with school and community observations, were analysed using deductive thematic analysis guided by Auerbach’s five dimensions of leadership. The findings reveal contrasting leadership practices. At Primary School X, informal leadership was exercised by veteran teachers, including grade-level leaders, whose professional authority and community ties positioned them as pivotal in guiding parent engagement. At Primary School Y, the formal school administration principal and vice-principals-actively mentored novice teachers in working with parents. Despite these differences, both schools reflected deficit views of low-SES parents’ capacities and selective structures of parent representation, which constrained opportunities for shared decision making. This study enriches Auerbach’s framework by demonstrating how formal and informal leadership roles are shaped by specific socio institutional conditions, while foregrounding the persistent tension between support and control in engaging low-SES families.

Research self-efficacy (RSE) plays a crucial role in shaping students’ engagement, persistence, and performance in research-related activities, particularly at the postgraduate level. Recent research has not fully explained the reasons underlying gender differences in RSE or identified the specific aspects of RSE in which males and females differ. The present study addressed these gaps by combining socio-cognitive theory (SCT) with a gender perspective and using a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design to study gender differences in RSE among Vietnamese master’s students. The results showed that there were significant male-female differences in two dimensions: self-efficacy in research planning and self-efficacy in research skills and communication. The biggest differences were found in the areas that students perceived as requiring analytical, mathematical, or reasoning skills. The regression analysis showed that females’ RSE scores were lower than those of males. Sociocultural factors such as family encouragement, role models, and family-research conflict benefited men more than women. The study underscored the necessity of applying a gender perspective to contextualize SCT and the application of the mixed methods design to reveal the cognitions driving the gender disparities. Suggestions were provided to improve female students’ RSE in Vietnam and similar contexts.