Research

This artifact is my LT611 literature review on the teaching context of South Korea. As one may notice, I have been interested in the correlations between culture, history, and student wellbeing in the South Korean education system since I was in my undergraduate years. Ever since my decision to  teach in South Korea (junior year of high school), I have been very aware of the reputation of the South Korean education system: high test scores and high suicide rates. In my literature review, I built on my previous works related to this issue to more holistically understand and address it. If I am to be a part of this system, I need to be informed on the situation as well as possible actions I can take to help alleviate this experience for my future students.  

In my analysis, I discussed the impact of historical events that have led to the emergence of Education Fever, the cultural elements contributing to sustaining it (Confucianism and Collectivism), as well as how these factors correlate with the qualitative and quantitative data on student wellbeing. Through the review, I found that what I as an individual can do is to promote intrinsic motivation (which decreases the pressure of extrinsic motivation) and create a positive classroom learning environment. This is not only to benefit the relationship between the students and me, but to also decrease the competitive climate between students. This will help students to feel less isolated, more supported, and subsequently raising wellbeing. 

This artifact is my project proposal from LING530. This proposal is an adapted and heavily revised version of the project proposal idea I did in my seminar class on Heritage Language Learners. My topic of interest was whether incorporating identity building activities in a Korean Heritage Language class would boost student motivation and proficiency. While I am not planning on being a Korean teacher, the research I did on Korean Heritage Language Learners helped me to better understand Korean culture as well as the role identity plays in language acquisition (Ortega, 2013). Through the creation of this artifact, I learned to be aware of the various ways to address a research question as well as the various methods of analyzing results and presenting data. For example, I was required to plan how I might analyze the quantitative data in a statistically reasonable way. For context, my experiment was to analyze the relationship between identity rating and language fluency in pre and post experiment results, identity rating and language fluency, identity rating change between the control and the experimental group, and language fluency changes between the control and the experimental group. Through this course, I learned that it is important to check my data set for normality (normal distribution or ‘bell’ curve), statistical significance (p < .05) (verifying whether the results are more likely due to chance or a variable), and effect size (how generalizable the results are). For my dataset, I would also do a multivariable analysis including the consumption of media in the target heritage language (Korean) because the idea is that the identity building projects in the experimental group will increase a student’s interest in Korean culture, motivating them to consume Korean media. This may then indirectly impact fluency due to the increase in exposure. For this multivariate analysis, I would treat identity and media consumption as independent variables (that are correlated) and fluency as the dependent variable. This is because I not only want to test their effect on fluency, but I also want to test their correlation. For the correlation test on media consumption and identity rating, I would use either the Pearson’s r test or the Spearman’s Rho and Kendall’s Tau test (depending on whether the data violates the assumptions of normality or not). Then I would use a linear regression model (which is usually used to show the strength of the relationship between variables) to combine these independent variables so that I could do an ANOVA test (analyzing the relationship between and within variables) with fluency. The designing of an experiment proposal increased my literacy in research and reading results and statistical data.

This artifact is an excerpt from the LT611 Evaluation report for the OIIP Program at the University of Oregon. This excerpt is from the methods section of the Mentor Teacher interview (p. 9). My experience with this instrument is that I was involved in designing and analyzing this instrument and its results as well as having a hand in writing the methods section. In designing this instrument, I felt it was important to make sure that the questions were specific and targeting useful information for the overall goal of the evaluations. Since this instrument was used towards the end of the study, the questions and purpose was informed by previous results (either to clarify or expand on previously collected data) While designing this instrument, we also felt it was important to keep in mind the method of distribution or collection in order to make it as easy to use as possible for someone who did not design it. Factors we considered in our design was access to participants as well as the convenience and time constraints of the possible participants. This is why we created both an interview outline and a questionnaire (but only used the interview outline in the end). For the analysis we did a theme analysis of the notes taken by one of the interviewers (Davis & McKay, 2018). One other person and I independently analyzed and made notes on our observations (as to not influence each other's observations). We then came together to compare notes and synthesize our findings. 

In reflecting on this experience with program evaluation, I learned that there are many moving parts to a program and many factors to consider when evaluating and running a program. Additionally, this experience with instrument design and analysis was influenced by previous experiences such as in my project proposal previously mentioned from my  LING530 class.