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Dynamic And Stable Motivation Patterns In Intensive Second Language Learning: Insights From A Russian Summer Immersion Program, Dmitrii Pastushenkov

Russian Language Journal

Understanding what shapes student motivation is essential to improving second language (L2) programs. While motivation is among the widely studied individual differences (IDs) in second language acquisition (SLA), research has largely focused on commonly taught languages, limiting broader applicability. This mixed-methods study, grounded in Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), explores the motivational development of learners studying a less commonly taught language (LCTL), Russian, during an eight-week summer immersion program. Data were collected from 52 students across four instructional levels. Motivation was assessed through two brief online surveys, developed based on research by Gardner, Dörnyei, Lanvers, Thompson, and others, and administered during …

Why Russian? Language Choice And Enrollment In U.S. Universities, Emma Calderwood, Teresa R. Bell, Jennifer Bown, Grant H. Lundberg

Russian Language Journal

Russian language enrollments at U.S. universities have declined steadily since 2009 (MLA, 2023), yet little research has examined current student motivations for studying Russian, particularly after the 2022 escalation of the Russo–Ukrainian War. This study surveyed two groups: (a) students enrolled in any 101-level language course at University X and (b) students in Russian courses at six U.S. universities. Results show that motivations for studying Russian are primarily integrative—general interest in the language, desire to converse with Russian speakers, aspirations to travel to Russian-speaking countries, and previous Russian knowledge—rather than instrumental. Students who considered but did not choose Russian most …

Variability Of Individual Learner Trajectories In A Transformative Language Program, Victoria Hasko, Anastasiya Smith

Russian Language Journal

This qualitative multiple case study investigates how individual learner differences manifest and evolve within a transformative, proficiency-oriented undergraduate Russian language program. Drawing on complexity theory and transformative approaches to language education, the study explores how learners’ motivations, identities, and professional aspirations develop in a curriculum that integrates advanced language learning with long-term career planning. Three focal participants were followed longitudinally across their undergraduate trajectories, using a combination of standardized proficiency assessments and in-depth reflective interviews. Thematic analysis revealed four key themes shaping learner development: evolving orientations toward language learning, the curriculum as a transformative scaffold, emerging professional identities, and growing …

The Mediating Role Of Positive Psychology: Mindfulness And Learner Beliefs In The Russian Language Classroom, Kelly Knickmeier Cummings

Russian Language Journal

Language learning is an inherently emotional process, shaped by both positive and negative experiences that influence the individual difference of learner beliefs. This article explores the mediating role of positive psychology (PP) in second language acquisition (SLA), with a particular focus on mindfulness and its potential to reshape learner beliefs in the Russian language classroom. Drawing on theories such as Seligman’s PERMA model and Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, as well as evidence-based interventions, the article argues that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) provide practical tools for cultivating positive learner beliefs and inclusive, growth-oriented classroom environments. Examples of MBIs—including practices of noticing, savoring, exploring …

Sustainable Materials And Emotional Durability Correlation In Interior Design, T.A. Hana El-Etr, Prof. Dr. Ola Hashem, Prof. Dr. Dalia M. Ezzat

Journal of Art, Design and Music

This paper studies the relationship between sustainable materials and emotional durability in interior design, within the Egyptian context through the case study: Galleria 40 complex. The concept of sustainability often focuses on ecological responsibility; the emotional impact to how the interior spaces affect long-term users, as well as reducing the consumption of unnecessary materials. Egypt has developed environmental rating systems such as the Green Pyramid and participated in international certifications like LEED, yet the incorporation of cultural identity with user experience in sustainable design remains limited. By tackling a mixed-method approach, involving a public survey and observational study of Galleria …

Memo Metodológico: Elaboración De La Investigación Titulada “Ser Deseo. El Deseo Femenino Como Abyecto En El Filme Thelma.” [Reporte De Investigación], Ximena Diaz Santillán, Romano Ponce Díaz

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

Realizar una tesis de grado siempre constituye un reto, pero también una oportunidad para desarrollar las habilidades y métodos de investigación que serán la base de futuros trabajos. Pese a que, en apariencia, la elección de un filme como objeto de estudio en la licenciatura en Lengua y Literaturas Hispánicas puede resultar extraña, las herramientas adquiridas a lo largo de la formación permiten explorar diversos productos culturales como textos; es decir, se trata de entramados sígnicos que se interrelacionan para generar un sentido dirigido a un público. Si bien existen teorías como la estética de la recepción en la que …

Role-Playing Game Studies: A Transmedia Approach Por José Pablo Zagal, Y Sebastian Deterding, (Editores). (2018). [Reseña], Cristo Leon, Edgar Meritano

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

"Role-Playing Game Studies: A Transmedia Approach," editado por José P. Zagal y Sebastian Deterding (2018b), es una recopilación exhaustiva del estado actual de la investigación sobre los juegos de rol a través de diversas disciplinas, culturas y medios. El libro traza la historia de los juegos de rol desde sus precursores en los juegos de guerra (wargames) hasta los juegos de mesa (Tabletop), el juego de rol en vivo (live-action role-play), y los juegos de rol contemporáneos de computadora y en línea. Cada capítulo ofrece perspectivas y hallazgos de disciplinas clave como …

Under The Influence: New York’S Crisis Of Addiction, Exploitation, And Drug Policy Within Depression-Era Films, Simone White

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

During the 1930s, New York City stood at the center of media innovation and cultural influence. It was also the center of the continuing opioid epidemic and a pivotal site for the reception and promotion of addiction films. This article argues that Depression-era films, The Struggle (1931), Narcotic (1933), and Assassin of Youth (1938), reflected economic, political, and moral anxieties surrounding drug abuse. Using National Board of Review records, studio pressbooks, and contemporary periodicals, this study examines how cinematic portrayals of addiction influenced ideologies, criminalized users, and deepened social stigma.

The Feminine Way Of Campaigning: How Female Politicians Navigate Gender Bias, Jordan V. Pruitt

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

Women are rapidly taking over the world of politics, holding more elected positions than ever before. With the increase of women in politics, we begin to question how gender stereotypes and bias affect female politicians. There are numerous studies examining the public's perception of female candidates and how they are framed differently from their male opponents in the media; however, the main objective of this project is to learn how gender affects women’s campaign strategies or public personas, and how this differs from their male counterparts. Through interviews with women in locally elected positions, this study examines these issues through …

Full Issue 19.2

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Guiding Principles For Teaching About Genocide And Other Difficult Pasts, Kerry E. Whigham

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article outlines guiding principles for teaching “difficult pasts”—episodes of large-scale, identity-based violence such as genocide, crimes against humanity, colonialism, and enslavement—in ways that promote peace, human rights, and the prevention of future atrocities. Drawing from the fields of Holocaust and Genocide Education (HGE), Global Citizenship Education (GCED), Peace Education (PE), and Human Rights Education (HRE), it argues that instruction should move beyond the memorization of historical facts toward developing students’ socio-emotional and behavioral capacities to recognize and resist processes of othering, discrimination, and violence. The brief presents three main areas of guidance: curricular content, emphasizing conceptual understanding over rote …

Book Review: Victim-Centred Peacemaking: Colombia’S Santos–Farc-Ep Peace Process, Patricia M. Rodriguez

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Arts & Literature: Impotent Witness: A Tale Of Two Genocides, And Counting, Lisa M. Simeone

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This essay draws on memory, ethnography, and theory to consider a scholar’s personal and political responsibility as witness.

The Impact Of Parents’ School Choices Towards Schools And Students: A Case Study Of Secondary Schools In Inner Bangkok, Krittin Klaimee, Petchpilai Lattanan

Journal of Letters

Parents typically select the most suitable school for their children based on socioeconomic factors and geographic factors which impact on the ease of travel. With the decline in the student-age population and ongoing urban changes, schools have been significantly impacted, prompting them to adapt to the increasing competition. These impacts not only affect the schools themselves but also the students. This study aims to examine the impact of parental school choice decisions on secondary schools and students in inner Bangkok through in-depth interviews with teachers and focus group discussions with students. The findings reveal that schools with different service areas …

“A Leader Or A Teacher”: A Latent Theory Of Transformative Education In James Macgregor Burns’S Transforming-Transactional Leadership Paradigm, Evan Rw Dutmer

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

The purpose of this paper is to uncover a latent theory of transformative teaching and learning to be found in James MacGregor Burns’s account of transforming leadership and place it in interdisciplinary conversation with transformative education. The importance of this interdisciplinary exploration consists in this: Burns’s view that good leadership and good teaching are nearly indistinguishable has powerful implications that have been too little recognized. For, if right, teachers ought to view their work as exemplifying leadership (of a mutually beneficial, elevating sort); similarly, leaders across organizations ought to look to transformative teachers as paradigmatic models of good leadership. Expanding …

Roan Stallion, Tamar And Other Poems: Centennial Edition, By Robinson Jeffers, Brett Colasacco

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Wild Anthropocene Literature And Multispecies Justice In Deep Time, By Louise Economides, George Hart

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Indonesian And Chinese Economic Headlines, Hendy Yuniarto

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

This study examines how economic concepts are metaphorically constructed in Indonesian and Chinese news headlines. Employing the Lakoff and Johnson's framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the study analyzes and compares conceptual metaphors in economic news headlines from CNBC Indonesia and China Business Network published between January and April 2025. Employing a qualitative methodology guided by MIPVU, the study mapped conceptual economic metaphors in a corpus of 500 economic news headlines. The investigation demonstrates a significant overlap in the conceptualization of economic events in both languages: economic actions are physical movements, business is a natural force, economy is a competition, money …

Book Review: Growing Women In Ministry: Seven Aspects Of Leadership Development, Beth Ann Fisher, Victoria Blondeau

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

Growing Women in Ministry: Seven Aspects of Leadership Development, by Anna R. Morgan. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2024. 272 pages, $30.

Julian Marshall Interview, Julian Marshall, Morris (Mo) Cohen

Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education

This conversational inquiry explores the ontology of creativity through an extended dialogue between two educators at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance. Moving beyond conventional pedagogical frameworks, the conversation grapples with fundamental questions: What is the relationship between technique and creative emergence? How does the teacher create conditions for creativity without systematizing or conceptualizing the creative process itself? What role do trust, validation, and vulnerability play in opening students to their own creative potential? Drawing on diverse philosophical and spiritual traditions--from Heidegger’s ontological inquiry to Buddhist concepts of not-knowing, from Grotowski’s via negativa to the Kabbalistic notion of tzimtzum--Julian Marshall …

“The Being Of Being Creative” In Assessment: Learning From The Creative And Performing Arts, Eliana Elkhoury

Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education

Assessment design shapes not only what students learn, but who they become as learners. In the era of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), where information is abundant and recall is easily outsourced, higher education assessment must move beyond memorization and toward authentic tasks that cultivate deeper learning and ontological growth. This conceptual, reflective paper argues that assessment should be grounded in students’ mode of being, rather than restricted to knowing, having, or doing. Drawing on Barnett’s ontology of higher education, Biesta’s subjectification, and Su’s epistemological distinctions, this paper positions assessment as a formative site where agency, ownership, identity, and self-understanding can …

The Being Of The Performer, Alice Marshall

Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education

This work presents an autoethnographic, practice-as-research inquiry into Tender Steps (Adaire to Dance, 2024), a dance-for-film grounded in the author’s lived experience of baby loss. Through embodied reflection, the article explores how personal experience becomes a site of inquiry, examining the relationship between the performer’s being and the act of performance. Drawing on phenomenological and performance-based perspectives, it considers how posture, weight, breath, and voice function as embodied knowledge and how meaning is co-constructed through the intersubjective relationship between performer and audience. It reflects on the ethical and emotional implications of making lived experience public within a digitally mediated form …

Editorial Statement: Volume 3, Issue 2, Morris (Mo) Cohen, Jonathan Whiskerd

Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education

No abstract provided.

The Nonlinguistic Factors That Predict Spanish Oral Proficiency, Merrie Kay Ames

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the predictive power of self-assessment and nonlinguistic factors in determining Spanish oral proficiency among university learners. Drawing on data from 2,475 undergraduate students enrolled in a third-year Spanish course at Brigham Young University, the research examines how self-assessed speaking ability and experiential background variables--including age of acquisition, mission service, dual immersion, and study abroad--influence Oral Proficiency Interview - Computer (OPIc) scores. A one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant but modest relationship between students' calibration (self-assessment minus actual ability) and their OPIc ratings, suggesting that learners can generally approximate their speaking proficiency within two sublevels. A multiple regression …

Beyond The Human–Animal Transformation In Hasan Aourid’S SīRat ḤImāR And Rawi Hage’S Cockroach, Noha Hanafy

English Language and Literature

The paper examines the human-animal transformation as a marker of identity explo-

ration in Moroccan writer Hassan Aourid’s Sīrat Ḥimār (2014 سيرة حمار) and Lebanese

Canadian writer Rawi Hage’s Cockroach (2008). The two texts employ the concept of

the human-animal transformation to highlight the complexity of the marginalized

existence in the world. Both texts present nuanced versions of the human-animal

transformation which renders the experience both emancipatory and destabilizing at

the same time. Using the theoretical framework of Deleuze and Guattari’s work on

becoming-animal and the deterritorialization of existence along with Derrida’s discus-

sion of the anthropocentric limit, the paper …

China's Spy Network In America: A People's War Against An Open House: America Needs To Confront The Reality Of The New Cold War, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

The article discusses China's extensive espionage activities in the United States, framing it as part of a broader "people's war" strategy employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It highlights historical cases of espionage, such as those involving Qian Xuesen and Bo Jiang, to illustrate the ongoing threat posed by Chinese intelligence efforts, which leverage both state-sponsored and civilian participation. The article contrasts the CCP's ruthless approach to espionage with the U.S. legal system's more restrained response, emphasizing the asymmetry in their respective strategies. It concludes by urging the U.S. to recognize and confront the realities of this new Cold …

#Diydiabetes: Type One Diabetes, Stigma, And Control In Digital Networks Of Diy Looping, Sophia M. Shelley

Culture, Society, and Praxis

The general public’s awareness of type one diabetes is often lacking and filled with misinformation that can lead to stigma around the disability. Often type one diabetics have to fend for themselves through the means of “DIY diabetes.” The delay in technological innovations and the slow approval rate of Health Canada, compared to the US Food and Drug Administration, makes improving the lives of those with diabetes much more challenging. The self-management of the disability enables diabetics to take agency of their treatment plan and is the primary reason for DIY diabetes. The main reason for this research is to …

Developing Digital Feedback Literacies In Language Teacher Education: Peer And Partnership Approaches In The Postdigital Age, Jennifer Schluer

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Critical media literacy needs to be seen as a central component of language teacher education, especially in the postdigital age. One underexplored dimension, however, is digital assessment literacy and in particular digital feedback literacy (Schluer, 2022a). Even though recent years witnessed a proliferation of digital technologies for feedback exchanges, pedagogical guidance for the use of digital feedback remains almost non-existent (but see Schluer, 2022a; 2023; 2024a). Theoretically, this paper connects the concept of Digital Feedback Literacies (DFL) to the frameworks of Critical Media Literacies (CML) and Postdigital Literacies (PDL). Empirically, it presents insights from research on digital peer feedback as …

Digital Text And Communication Literacy Of English Language Teachers: Implications From A Reconstructive Study On Teachers’ Professional Development, Annika Janßen, Jan-Erik Leonhardt, Alexandra Kemmerer, Britta Viebrock

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In this contribution, we will introduce the concept of Digital Text and Communication Literacy (DITECOL), which was developed as part of the DigiNICs project. It contains subject-related, functional, critical, and methodological competences to deal with and teach digital texts and communication forms in foreign language education. We will present first results from a qualitative interview study with six English language teachers who participate in the DigiNICs project. The study examines how they perceive their usage of digital texts and communication forms a) in their lessons and b) in the context of in-service teacher training. The interview data was analysed using …

Media Literacy Meets Language Education: Fictional Science (Fisci) Promotes Skills To Identify And Refute Fake News, Stephan Schicker, Jürgen Ehrenmüller, Melanie Hendler, Victoria Reinsperger, Natalia Kubai, Lucia Miškulin Saletović, Bettina Steinbauer, Sabine Schmölzer-Eibinger

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article presents the theoretical and conceptual foundations of the interdisciplinary didactic concept of Fictional Science (FiSci), which is positioned at the interface between media and language didactics. Based on reference concepts such as epistemic vigilance, inoculation, lateral reading, and media literacy in education, FiSci aims to promote secondary school students’ skills in dealing with fake news. While course 1 of FiSci (Activating the Fake News Radar) sensitises students to false information, course 2 (Verification of Information) teaches strategies for identifying false information that are also used by professional fact-checkers, and course 3 (Refutation) focuses on refuting false information.