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This study investigated undergraduate preparation of English as a Second Language (ESL) students through English for Academic Purposes courses, in relation to recipient subject lecturers’ expectations. Qualitative data were gathered from 36 faculty teaching ESL undergraduates in nine countries. A two-phase approach included seeking discursive responses to questionnaires from faculty and information about curricula. Outcomes highlighted difficulties with material selection for EAP tutors. Tutors chose between ‘general interest’ or ‘discipline-specific’ material, but reported that the former could lead to oversimplification or discipline irrelevance, while the latter usually requires some specialized subject knowledge which may be beyond tutors’ remit. Addressing this, it is suggested that articles about EAP-related topics can form the subject matter of EAP courses with significant benefits. In particular, they can simultaneously provide students with models of academic writing, while the content reinforces skills needed for successful study.

Many universities run Writing Centers to provide support for students wishing to improve their academic literacy. These centers are ideal venues for peer tutoring, which may benefit both student-tutors (through tutoring skills development), and those tutored (through opportunities to discuss writing with a supportive peer). In the context of a university in the GCC region, peer tutors, prior to working, must complete required Communication courses. The syllabuses reflect student-centered and collaborative post-process writing approaches, where scaffolding is emphasized over direction, and word-by-word instructor correction of student writing is de-emphasized. Peer tutors also undergo preparation aimed at equipping them with an understanding of the rationale for these approaches and the skills needed to adapt them to tutoring. Given these experiences, the researchers set out to determine whether tutors are able to articulate such understandings and apply them to tutoring. Interconnected interpretative methods were deployed, including tutoring observation, consultation-conversation analysis and semi-structured interviews with tutors. Results indicate that tutors have significant recent experience of non-directive writing classes and may be aware of the rationale and benefits of such approaches. However, in their tutoring, content appears to be transferred from their most recent experiences but their style relies on instruction predominated by telling, explaining, demonstrating and directing, reflecting formative experience at school. The relationship between tutors’ experience, preparation, articulation and practice is explored, and recommendations are made to enhance Writing Center practices, in line with the concept of a constructively-aligned instruction system where all components address the same agenda and support each other.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which collaborative consumption (CC) enthusiasts are significantly more likely to engage into specific forms of socially responsible consumption (SRC), in contrast to regular consumers.

The authors administered an online questionnaire survey to a panel of 1,006 consumers. A cluster analysis combined with analyses of variance then determined the extent to which CC enthusiasts were more likely to engage in the focal SRC behaviors as opposed to others.

CC enthusiasts differ positively from other consumers concerning sustainable transportation, citizen consumption and composting but negatively from other consumers concerning recycling; they do not differ significantly with regard to environmental, animal protection and local consumption.

Conflating CC and SRC remains debatable. This study provides some preliminary evidence about the complex associations that exists between the two constructs.

Multiple forces that shape the identities of adolescents and young adults also influence their subsequent career choices. Early work experiences are key among these forces. Recognizing this, youth service programs have emerged worldwide with the hope of shaping participants’ future trajectories through boosting engagement in civically oriented activities and work. Despite these goals, past research on these programs’ impact has yielded mixed outcomes. Our goal is to understand why this might be the case.

We rely on interview, archival, and longitudinal survey data to examine young adults’ experiences of a European youth service program.

A core feature of youth service programs, namely their dual identity of helping others (i.e., service beneficiaries) and helping oneself (i.e., participants), might partly explain the program’s mixed outcomes. We find that participants focus on one of the organization’s identities largely to the exclusion of the other, creating a dynamic in which their interactions with members who focus on the other identity create challenges and dominate their program experience, to the detriment of a focus on the organization and its goals. This suggests that a previously overlooked feature of youth service programs (i.e., their dual identity) might prove both a blessing for attracting many diverse members and a curse for achieving desired outcomes.

More broadly, our results suggest that dual identity organizations might attract members focused on a select identity, but fail to imbue them with a blended identity; thus, limiting the extent to which such organizations can truly “redirect” future career choices.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

The purpose of this paper was to examine and reflect on the visual social research method of photovoice, which is a qualitative research process increasingly being used by government and nongovernment organizations to enable participants who are often from disadvantaged groups, to capture their lives, experiences, and issues through photos and associated written stories. Visual methods such as photovoice provide both opportunities and risks with ethical considerations and concerns that are both ethical in nature for those taking the photographs, and for those in the photographs. There are also associated ethical challenges for researchers to conform to ethical guidelines, while conveying stories that are in the public interest. Ascertaining why visual information should be considered in relation to ethics can be argued as important, as the receiver processing the visual information will process, perceive, and respond in a variety of ways, and possibly in different ways to what the sender aimed to convey. It was argued here that due to the strong ethical guidelines for photovoice projects, it is more of a deontological-based research approach. A key ethical concern associated with photovoice is that it is touted to participants as a vehicle to achieve social change, yet there is no guarantee that this change will occur, as ultimate power rests in the hands of decision makers. Photovoice ethical processes were discussed, with reflections by the author on ethical issues that have occurred in her own research, and suggestions to organizations on what to consider to ensure a photovoice project proceeds with ethical consideration to ensure an empowering experience as an influencer for social change.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how gamification may be used for project stakeholder engagement.

The paper presents the results of a systematic literature review of extant research concerning the gamification of projects. Based on this, an agenda for future studies is outlined.

Extant research on the gamification of projects is scarce and scattered among various disciplines, but the engineering fields dominate. The research performed does indicate that gamification may be used for involving stakeholders in projects, primarily by promoting learning, but also by engaging them, motivating action and solving problems.

In several cases, extant research display poor quality in research design and a lack in cross-disciplinary perspectives, which means that more research is needed. The users’ perspective is often lacking. Furthermore, the ideas gamification might be “hidden” within other technologies.

The findings of this research may assist project management practitioners in the endeavor of adopting gamification principles to better involve stakeholders.

The study fills a gap in summarizing the research on how gamification may be used to promote project stakeholder engagement. Based on this, it proposes a research agenda for future research on the use of gamification to promote project stakeholder engagement.