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This study aims to explore computer-assisted language learning (CALL) activities to improve the English essay writing of Pakistani university students. It highlights the role of CALL in the language proficiency model cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), which can enable second language learners to engage in more critical thinking skills effectively. Furthermore, it aims to explore English language teachers’ experience about the use of CALL-based activities in English language classrooms or labs.

This study followed a pre-post study design to examine whether the structure of an essay and computer-based activities helped to improve English language proficiency among non-native speakers. This design is adopted to investigate the effects of CALL activities on students’ English essays. This study used data from 198 students and after this, four English teachers were interviewed to know their opinions and observations about these CALL-based activities and students’ essay writings. Pre- and post-test data was analysed in percentages and further examined through a t-test. The findings of teachers’ interviews were further analysed through Nvivo software to develop an understanding of research questions through significant themes.

The pre-test results confirmed that students’ language proficiency is underdeveloped and informal. Students needed help constructing introductory paragraphs with the reader’s hook, background information, three-point thesis statement and transitional hook. Whereas, post-test results showed that students’ English language proficiency in essay writing was found improved with the use of technological tools and CALL-based activities. Furthermore, it was observed that structure and teacher feedback in essay writing are vital for English proficiency.

This study benefits English language teachers, administrators, language policymakers and syllabus designers at colleges and universities. The debate over how to improve English language proficiency and academic achievement presents diverse challenges across several countries. Non-native speakers, at an undergraduate level, can significantly improve academically and become proficient in English essay writing with the help of structural guidelines and the use of educational technology. This article demonstrates a two-way process to improve an objective definition of English language development, which is conceivable if the technology is adopted.

With the advent of ChatGPT, a sophisticated generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool, maintaining academic integrity in all educational settings has recently become a challenge for educators. This paper discusses a method and necessary strategies to confront this challenge.

In this study, a language model was defined to achieve high accuracy in distinguishing ChatGPT-generated essays from human written essays with a particular focus on “not falsely” classifying genuinely human-written essays as AI-generated (Negative).

Via support vector machine (SVM) algorithm 100% accuracy was recorded for identifying human generated essays. The author discussed the key use of Recall and F2 score for measuring classification performance and the importance of eliminating False Negatives and making sure that no actual human generated essays are incorrectly classified as AI generated. The results of the proposed model's classification algorithms were compared to those of AI-generated text detection software developed by OpenAI, GPTZero and Copyleaks.

AI-generated essays submitted by students can be detected by teachers and educational designers using the proposed language model and machine learning (ML) classifier at a high accuracy. Human (student)-generated essays can and must be correctly identified with 100% accuracy even if the overall classification accuracy performance is slightly reduced.

This is the first and only study that used an n-gram bag-of-words (BOWs) discrepancy language model as input for a classifier to make such prediction and compared the classification results of other AI-generated text detection software in an empirical way.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and essays and short answer questions are the most common assessment protocols instructors use in their classrooms. However, the reliability and validity of these assessment protocols are controversial. The current study employed a survey research design using Qualtrics to determine the faculty and student perspective on using MCQs and essay and short answer questions in their courses as well as their rationale for the preference.

Eighty-five students and 67 faculty within the social sciences discipline participated in the study.

65% of the students strongly preferred MCQs over essays and short answer questions. However, faculty did not show a strong preference for one or the other form of assessment (52.30% selected essays and short answer questions, and 47.69% preferred MCQs) in their courses. The study also explores why the students and faculty prefer one form of assessment over the other.

The findings of this study helped to understand the current assessment practices in a classroom from a faculty and student perspective.

This is one of few studies that evaluated the faculty as well as student perspective on the use of MCQs and essays and short answer questions in the curriculum across the social science discipline.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a reflective essaying model as a useful way of encouraging learning in higher education. It aims to define reflective essaying as the free and serious play of mind on an interesting topic in an attempt to learn.

Reflective essaying is first introduced as a unifying concept in the model. Second, the model is introduced and justified especially in connection with De Montaigne's invention of the essai as a process of trying out opinions and testing responses. Third, the role of teachers as essaying mentors is discussed. Fourth, mentoring for essaying is examined as a learning transaction which exemplifies Dewey's transactional theory of experience and knowing.

Reflective essaying is promoted as an important way of letting students try to learn. Reflective mentors should promote student learning through reflective essaying which would encourage students to develop their own criticality.

The paper has implications for both teachers and students. Teachers are urged to become more like mentors and less like didactic instructors. As mentors they should be encouraging students to see academic writing as trying out, as essaying, as experimenting with, and as learning through the ideas and materials they reflect upon.

The paper is original in its approach in that it draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary sources on essaying in order to re‐evaluate and resurrect essaying as an experimental process of learning.

With growing concerns about an academic literacy crisis plaguing the education system in South Africa, tertiary institutions have to find ways to strengthen the academic literacy skills of underprepared students transitioning into higher education. This is more pressing for low socioeconomic status students who are linguistically marginalised and face historically poor graduation prospects. In response, this chapter offers a snapshot of two studies conducted in South Africa that sought to test the efficacy of a purposefully designed academic literacy intervention (Reading to Learn (RtL)). The intervention sought to address inequitable academic literacy skills development of linguistically marginalised students, who are also socioeconomically disadvantaged. Two small-scale, longitudinal studies were run in two separate educational contexts in South Africa – a senior secondary school context and a tertiary context with largely first-generation undergraduate students. Results of both studies showed the RtL intervention to be successful at raising the level of academic writing skills of the research participants. Furthermore, similar to other RtL studies conducted globally, the two studies found weaker-performing students made the greatest gains in their academic writing skills, showing evidence of a convergence effect – more equitable learning outcomes being exhibited in the English classroom.

Students have direct access to academic ghost writers who are able to provide for their assessment needs without the student needing to do any of the work. These ghost writers are helping to fuel the international industry of contract cheating, raising ethical dilemmas, but not much is known about the writers, their business or how they operate. This paper aims to explore how the ghost writers market their services and operate, based on observable information.

This paper reviews data from providers actively offering contract cheating services available to the public on Fiverr.com, a low-cost micro outsourcing site. The search term write essay is used to identify providers, finding 103 Gigs from 96 unique providers. Visible information, such as provider marketing, advertised services, pricing information and customer reviews, is analysed.

The results demonstrate that bespoke essays are readily available to students at a low cost. The majority of providers operate from Kenya. Revenue calculations indicate a price point of US$31.73 per 1,000 words, below the cost of traditional essay mills, but show that these 96 providers have generated around US$270,000 of essay writing business between them.

This study affords a look into a complex and established industry whose inner workings are normally kept private and for which little published information currently exists. The research adds to what is known about the extent, location and operation of the contract cheating industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of constructivism on assessment approach, where the type of question (true or false, multiple-choice, calculation or essay) is used productively. Although the student’s approach to learning and the teacher’s approach to teaching are concepts that have been widely researched, few studies have explored how the type of assessment (true or false, multiple-choice, calculation or essay questions) and stress would manifest themselves or influence the students’ learning outcome to fulfill Bloom’s taxonomy. Multiple-choice questions have been used for efficient assessment; however, this method has been criticized for encouraging surface learning. And also some students complain of excelling in essay questions and failing in multiple-choice questions. A concern has arisen that changes may be necessary in the type of assessment that is perceived to fulfill Bloom’s taxonomy.

Students’ learning outcomes were measured using true or false, multiple-choice, calculations or essay questions to fulfill Bloom’s taxonomy and the students’ reaction to the test questionnaire. To assess the influence of the type of assessment and the stress level factors of interest, MANOVA was used to identify whether any differences exist and to assess the extent to which these differences are significantly different, both individually and collectively. Second, to assess if the feedback information given to respondents after the mid-semester assessment was effective, the one-way ANOVA procedure was used to test the equality of means and the differences in means of the mid-semester assessment scores and the final assessment scores.

Results revealed that the type of questions (true or false, multiple-choice, calculations or essay) will not significantly affect the learning outcome for each subgroup. The ANOVA results, comparing the mid-semester and final assessments, indicated that there is sufficient evidence means are not equal. Thus, the feedback given to respondents after the mid-semester assessment had a positive impact on the final assessment to actively improve student learning.

This study is restricted to students in a particular university in Ghana, and may not necessarily be applicable universally.

The practical implications of this research is that assessments for learning, and the importance of assessment impact not only on students, but also on teachers and the literature.

This study contributes to the literature by examining how the combination of the type of assessment (true or false, multiple-choice, calculation or essay) and stress contributes to the learning outcome.

The subject areas are marketing, entrepreneurship, strategy or organisational design, operating in emerging markets and social entrepreneurship.

The study is applicable to MBA students, masters-level students and students of executive education.

The case outlines the context and current decisions and dilemma facing Essay Gifts, which is a successful enterprise based in Cape Town, South Africa, supplying a local market in corporate gifting since 2006. The emerging market is facing economic decline and rising unemployment sitting at 25 per cent and up to 48 per cent in the youth market. After seven years of operating from a home-based office, Beatrice has moved into an office block in an upcoming area in Cape Town as they anticipate bullish targets for the upcoming year. The decision facing her now is whether to also sign a lease for a vacant retail shop downstairs from her office to sell ready-made gifting solutions. To meet the social mission, Essay Gifts is using township-based suppliers to develop the products, and this is proving an often unreliable and inconsistent source of supply and the current orders may not even be met at this particularly busy end-of-year period. How does Beatrice scale the business and what business is she in after all? Is she an entrepreneur, striving to increase the size of her business and her revenue, or is she a social entrepreneur creating employment opportunities for others?

The paper enables to identify the determining features of a social enterprise and the dynamics involved in balancing the social and commercial missions; understand the complexities of entrepreneurial operations in emerging markets; identify scaling up and strategic growth strategy options for social enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises; and distinguish entrepreneurial marketing strategies in contrast with traditional marketing strategies.

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.