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This paper analyses the conditions and factors influencing non-university researchers' career transitions back into academia. Using affiliation data in publications of German researchers, their cross-sector career transitions from the public research organisation Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and industry to universities are analysed. Although the rate of transitions is small, there are distinctive windows of opportunity at a junior career stage, especially for Fraunhofer researchers. Researchers who publish more and in more acclaimed journals, Fraunhofer researchers who co-publish with universities, and women are more likely to gain a university affiliation over the course of their career. These results indicate the influence of institutional proximity for cross-domain career transitions. The quality and impact of academic knowledge could be improved if the higher education sector was more open to recruitment of researchers from other sectors. Policy needs to target the barriers that preclude applied researchers from pursuing university careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way we learn, teach and support students in many different ways. In particular, the impact of the pandemic on the mathematical capabilities of students arriving at university is now starting to be seen and reported. Students arriving at UK universities in 2021, and having completed their A levels in 2021, had received disruption to almost all of their A level learning and it seemed likely that this might cause them to find the transition into higher education more difficult. Despite the disruption, the number of students achieving the top A level grade has more than doubled since 2019. In this paper, the data from a diagnostic test that has remained the same for the past 30 years are considered to measure the mathematical preparedness of students starting their courses at one UK university in September 2021, updating the work of Hodds (2021). Furthermore, an ordinal logistic regression model predicting A level grade based on test performance and other factors is developed to help determine if grades were perhaps inflated as suggested. The results show that students entering in 2021 are significantly less prepared for the mathematics on their courses than their colleagues who entered in 2020 and pre-pandemic. The regression model predicts a higher probability of being awarded an A*/A for students with A levels awarded in the pandemic, despite far lower scores on the diagnostic test, and in particular in 2021 when A levels were awarded through teacher assessment of the topics covered and not necessarily the whole A level syllabus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the accumulation of financial resources in higher education. Its focus lies on the Quality Pact for Teaching (QPT) , a large-scale funding programme that aimed to improve the quality of tertiary education in Germany. Starting in 2011, the QPT allocated almost 2 billion euros over a 10-year period. Yet, unlike prior national funding schemes, the QPT was strongly inspired by New Public Management measures and marked the first time that a substantial amount of teaching grants was awarded in a competitive manner. My estimations show that institutions with a successful history of acquiring third-party funds coped best under these novel circumstances, thus revealing a clear pattern of cumulative advantage. Although typically dedicated to research purposes, the level of previous third-party funding emerges as a strong predictor of QPT success. Therefore, it appears that the QPT unintentionally contributed to steeper financial gaps in Germany's academic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The release of text-generating applications based on interactive Large Language Models (LLMs) in late 2022 triggered an unprecedented and ever-growing interest worldwide. The almost instantaneous success of LLMs stimulated lively discussions in public media and in academic fora alike not only on the value and potentials of such tools in all areas of knowledge and information acquisition and distribution but also on the dangers posed by their uncontrolled and indiscriminate use. This conversation is now particularly active in the higher education sector, where LLMs are seen as a potential threat to academic integrity at all levels, from facilitating cheating by students in assignments to plagiarizing academic writing in the case of researchers and administrators. Within this framework, we are interested in testing the boundaries of the LLM ChatGPT (www.openai.com) in areas of our scientific interest and expertise and in analyzing the results from different perspectives, i.e. of a final year BSc student, of a research scientist, and of a lecturer in higher education. To this end, in this paper, we present and discuss a systematic evaluation on how ChatGPT addresses progressively complex scientific writing tasks and exam-type questions in Carbohydrate Chemistry and Glycobiology. The results of this project allowed us to gain insight on: (i) the strengths and limitations of the ChatGPT model to provide relevant and (most importantly) correct scientific information, (ii) the format(s) and complexity of the query required to obtain the desired output, and (iii) strategies to integrate LLMs in teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I introduce a special case of epistemic injustice that I call 'structural contributory injustice'. This conception aims to capture some dimensions of how policy—separately from individual agential interactions—can generate epistemic injustice at a group level. I first locate the case within Kristie Dotson's original conception of contributory injustice. I then consider one potential case of structural contributory injustice—namely, the policy problem of significant financial risk burden on students considering university in the USA. Finally, I consider potential policy reforms in response to this injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 25 years, scholars have proposed several recommendations for including spoken grammar in second language classrooms. However, recent studies point to potential challenges in this endeavour: learners may feel inauthentic when using what they see as 'native-speaker' forms, and interlocutors may see these forms as less acceptable when used by non-native speakers. This paper examines current recommendations for teaching spoken grammar in light of these issues and proposes a functional teaching approach that presents spoken grammar as a communicative resource rather than a formal characteristic of native-speaker usage. It then reports on a pilot study exploring the feasibility and students' reception of such an approach. The paper concludes that it is possible to adapt spoken grammar pedagogy to be more socioculturally sensitive, and that teaching should aim towards a fuller understanding and appreciation of the affordances of spoken grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of EFL classroom talk with the focus on how teachers successfully encourage and elicit student dialogic talk through questioning. It is based on observation data from forty-nine classes involving eleven teaching staff in a university in central China. The findings reveal the difficulty of engaging students to be the first to participate in dialogic interactions in a culture where deeply engrained reserve is the accepted norm. Two teacher questioning patterns are identified that are effective in eliciting students' first dialogic contribution in each interaction. These patterns can also serve as a profitable investment to elicit subsequent productive talk from students. This study also argues for a situated, contextualized analysis of classroom talk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The action-oriented approach (AoA) is a powerful basis to inform teaching, learning, and assessment in the classroom that identifies learners as social agents and focuses on language learning through language use. This paper answers the call for developments that help teachers teach and learners learn in an AoA-informed way. We argue that cognitive discourse functions (CDFs) align with AoA, helping to develop learner thinking by focusing on the learners' use of language. We complement our conceptual discussion referring to the process of developing a self- and peer-assessment tool informed by AoA and CDFs and the initial application of this tool in an advanced academic writing course in a Japanese university with B1 and B2 level students. We discuss how this tool can guide learners' understanding of their writing process and fosters learners' responsibility for deciding how they mobilize their linguistic resources to express particular language functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to Wingate and Hakim's paper, where they criticise English Medium Instruction (EMI) research for not drawing on research and practices from EAP. We concur that this cross-fertilisation of knowledge is beneficial for both fields but emphasise the breadth of the current EMI research agenda, which explores several issues beyond English language and academic preparedness. We also counter their claims of a lack of awareness by highlighting several examples of knowledge exchange, much of which has been driven by EMI scholars working within EAP contexts, and vice versa. Finally, we urge caution in recommendations to uncritically adopt EAP practices from Anglophone university settings into EMI settings, due to the complexities associated with EMI growth and provision, where the challenges raised are not necessarily identical. Overall, we agree with the authors that EAP and EMI have much to gain from each other in their shared endeavours and welcome their calls for future research collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In countries in which opportunities to use a foreign language are mostly limited to the language classroom, teachers and students need to seek occasions to practice it. Luckily for them, virtual worlds provide many ways of practicing the language they study and communicate with many target language speakers. This paper reports a study that investigated changes in motivational dynamics and factors contributing to changes in the levels of motivation as reported by two advanced learners of English. They were asked to use the virtual world Second Life after classes and practice English. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data revealed changes in intensity of motivation and several factors responsible for them. On that basis, some guidelines for increasing motivation in the context of virtual worlds are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the potential of learner-initiated exploratory practice (EP), which encourages learners to set their own investigative agenda based on their curiosity-driven puzzles. A case study was conducted in a remedial course for undergraduate students at a university in Japan. Data included student puzzles, posters, and reflective questionnaires. Student investigations of their puzzles remind teachers and researchers of the affordances of learning from learners. The results suggested that, despite their previously disoriented attitudes towards learning English, this form of fully inclusive practitioner research, EP, provides learners with an opportunity to realize their curiosity and reinvigorate their motivation towards language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the implementation of a language learning project in a Japanese EFL classroom in which the trigger, or motivational energy for involvement, came from interacting with English-speaking international students. The project provided a context to investigate the trajectory of one group's (three learners) sustained engagement across three tasks that formed the subgoals of the project. Data sources include learner diaries, engagement questionnaires, and transcripts of task conversations, which together were used to describe the level of engagement for each learner at key times throughout the project. The findings indicate that engagement is sustained by certain flow-like conditions during tasks (i.e. control, interest, challenge-skill balance), group cohesion among project members, and a growing focus on the long-term goal of the project. The results highlight project design features that teachers should consider when implementing projects with the purpose of engaging students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities in English medium instruction (EMI) settings are generally reticent about the linguistic diversity of their student body. Very often, a monolingual mindset dominates institutional thinking that casts linguistic diversity as obstacle rather than asset for the EMI curriculum. This has given rise to deficit models of English language provision in which language tutors are viewed as offering language support and 'fixing' language problems. It is timely to address these anachronistic views. In this paper, I do so by making the case for the multilingual agenda in EMI higher educational institutions. From a plurilingual perspective, I examine three narratives for developing the multilingual agenda: (1) 'the institution as anglophone and multilingual'; (2) 'students as plurilingual speakers'; and (3) 'EMI curriculum and pedagogy informed by language-as-resource'. I argue that the significance of these narratives lies in treating them as interrelated and demonstrating their salience for enacting wider higher education agendas at the institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional claim in the literature on religion and science is that exposure to science leads to secularity because the claims about the natural world in the two systems are incompatible. More recently, research has narrowed this claim and shown that conflict over knowledge in the USA is primarily limited to one religion—conservative Protestantism—and only to a few fact claims. In this paper, I test this claim using longitudinal data from matched surveys taken in students' first and fourth year of university. I find no evidence that the science is more secularizing than nonscience. I then turn to a distinction in university majors long used by sociologists of education—between majors focused on inquiry versus those focused on applying knowledge—and find that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application. I interpret this to mean that learning to inquire secularizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]