Learning Centre

Daniel O'Sullivan

Senior Learning Advisor
daniel.osullivan1@jcu.edu.au

Kunchana (Gi) Chouynuu

Senior Learning Advisor
kunchana.chouynuu@jcu.edu.au

Michael Joyce

Senior Learning Specialist
michael.joyce@jcu.edu.au

Why does your study matter? Developing doctoral writing with Legitimation Code Theory

Daniel O'Sullivan

14 May 2024

Why does your study matter? Developing doctoral writing with Legitimation Code Theory - This research focuses on raising student awareness of how to articulate and construct the rationale for a doctoral thesis. Rationale statements do not necessarily appear as a stable section or chapter in a thesis in the way that, for instance, the literature review does. This can make it an obscured and overlooked aspect of the thinking and writing process early in the research process. The workshop that forms the basis of this project seeks to address this blind spot. The workshop aims to improve doctoral writing by developing a teaching approach using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), a framework for educational research and practice (Maton 2014). The session draws insights and examples from doctoral work conducted originally at the University of Sydney (Wilmot 2019) and will be taught in three different international contexts: the UK (Durham University), Singapore (James Cook University) and South Africa (Rhodes University). The workshop tutors are experts in the use of LCT in educational contexts and include the author of the PhD study on which the project is based.

Does Social Monitoring Reduce Procrastination? Findings from a Five-Day Study

Kunchana (Gi) Chouynuu

21 Jul 2024 - 26 Jul 2024

I propose to attend the 33rd International Congress of Psychology that will be held between 21 and 26 July 2024 in Prague, Czech Republic. The conference is usually held once every four years by the International Union of Psychological Science, a global organization representing psychology associations from different countries. I will present a study that examines how a social monitoring approach could alleviate procrastination. The abstract is accepted for an oral presentation. The study was supported by a JCUS IRG grant (IRG20210012). The conference is a suitable platform to present the research findings because it is a reputable conference attracting scholars to attend (typically attracting over 6000 participants). It is a platform where I can gain feedback for my research and its applicability in various branches of psychology. In the past 5 years, I have received a CPA grant to present my study at the 13th Biennial Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology. The study was published in 2022.

Paraphrase or plagiarism? Exploring EAP students’ use of source material in a transnational university context

Daniel O'Sullivan

08 Nov 2022 - 16 Jul 2024

The relationship between paraphrase and plagiarism is complex and has been the subject of multiple research studies. However, recent advances in Generative AI (GenAI) have disrupted the standard practices of academic writing and established a renewed focus on how learners acquire skills in English writing in a higher education context. To understand the future of academic writing in the technological era, further investigation of how and why students choose to paraphrase and engage with source material is needed to guide best practices in instruction, policy, and research. This exploratory study seeks to fill this gap and provide insight into the choices English as a Second Language (ESL) student writers make in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context. Using a text-based interview method and custom-designed academic writing task, we examine how students engage with and make decisions about using source material. Results reveal that participants focus more on sentence-level approaches to paraphrasing and mechanistic methods of language transformation. This is partly motivated by prior learning experiences but may also be related to adopting a risk-averse approach to language use to avoid accusations of plagiarism. Furthermore, our participants expressed a low level of confidence in the ability of new technological tools to help learners acquire skills in English writing. These findings suggest that there is a need for further research exploring policies to enable experimentation in EAP programs, as well as exploring acceptance and belief in new technologies’ ability to support paraphrasing and source use. See https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2024.7.2.11