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Working with undergraduate student researchers

This blog has been updated from one published in 2019.

We are fortunate at my institution to have funding for students to apply to do research over the course of their four month summer break.

For summer research, students need to come up with a proposal and be supported by a supervisor. Beyond that it is very open-ended as students can work on projects in a wide variety of fields. Initially, the list of accepted students were primarily from the sciences, working in the summer in established labs with sub-projects under the supervision of a faculty researcher. More and more education students are seizing the chance to learn about research through doing.

In 2024, I worked with two undergraduate researchers. The first was Daniele Heger-Dorantes, a Werklund undergraduate researcher who contributed toward my emerging research into the readability of children’s books with her annotated bibliography. The second was Elizabeth Gauthier, my first Werklund BEd Honours student, who explored a new phenomenon: the use of AI chatbots to help language learners practice speaking.

In 2022, my postdoctoral scholar Dr. Jean Kaya and I worked with two students: Arianna Mamer and Kevin Dang. They had two very different, but interesting language and literacy projects. Ms. Mamer examined STEM Critical Literacy, while Mr. Dang looked at Community-based ELL programs for adults. Both are working on articles for teacher practitioner journals.

In 2021, Jeanne Liendo researched the history of the Spanish Bilingual Program in Calgary.

In 2020, Nancy Liu explored the linguistic landscape of Bilingual Program schools and their surrounding neighbourhoods to examine how their external signage reflects the languages spoken in the neighborhood. She and I presented at an academic conference in 2022 and published an academic journal in the International Journal of Bilingualism.

In 2019, Lisa Anderson explored language learning and music through the context of a school-based action research study I was doing on the application of intensive weeks of language instruction to a bilingual school program: “Intensive German Weeks for Bilingual Education: Investigating Practices for Oral Language Development.” She chose to disseminate knowledge from her research at a student teacher conference and an academic conference and most recently, through an academic journal article (accepted for publication).

The first summer (2018), Janessa Bretner  interviewed graduates of our pre-service study abroad experience to find out how their teaching practices were influenced by their volunteer teaching abroad in my project: “Reflective Writing for Sojourn Preparation, Reflection, and Debriefing.”

All of these students learned about research  through the processes of ethics certification, data collection, data analysis, and writing.

Here are some tips for working with undergraduate student researchers:

  1. Welcome them! I like to take them out for lunch and celebrate their achievement in receiving this highly competitive funding. In some cases,  I make a formal introduction to the stakeholders of the research, such as the principal and staff of the schools. Considering setting up a co-mentorship, such as with a postdoctoral scholar, so that they can learn from both mentors and the postdoc has the opportunity to be in a formal mentorship role.
  2. Help them with logistics – After they have their ethics certification, I may make an ethics modification that includes their proposed work. I enroll them in my shared drives for the research, advocate for them to get office space and printer access, and make sure they know how to get support for the various aspects of their research. I share my knowledge of effective use of LinkedIn or Twitter to disseminate blogs. All of these activities provide a strong start.
  3. Make things explicit – for undergraduates, almost everything we do with research is new, so we met regularly to go over aspects of research. To facilitate the lit review, I ask students to read and take notes on at least one article a day. I ask them to blog about their learning each week and we work on accurately citing using APA. When we meet, we go over data collection and later analysis. Depending on how the student would like to disseminate the findings, I assist them in articulating their results through their writing and presenting.

What does a researcher gain from working with undergraduate student researchers?

  1. Whether you see this as teaching or service, you are mentoring a current undergraduate who may do research in the future as a part of graduate or professional work.
  2. Making research explicit allows you to reflect upon your own practices and clarifies your own understandings of ontology, epistemology, and methodology.
  3. Since the student is pursuing a related but new idea, your work together allows you to experiment with a new direction for your research.

Based on the work with these undergraduate student researchers, I have piloted research, expanded my understanding of language and literacy, and co-authored articles (with the student as lead author). I have an appreciation for the enthusiasm and creativity of this emerging scholars and, because I get them to document their learning, I have a wealth of resources to share with the next undergraduate to come along.

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Pre-Mortem as a Research Project Management Technique

At the halfway point of every grant, I like to do a pre-mortem, a management technique where you ask yourself “what could go wrong?” and “what do I need to do now to prevent it?”. I do this by rereading my grant application and looking at the goals and the promised outcomes. For example, I have an ongoing Innovation and Development grant with a colleague at the University of Maryland, Dr. John H.G. Scott, a lecturer in German called the By Learners For Learners project . Funded by the Taylor Institute of Teaching and Learning (2023-25), this grant has enabled us to hire student illustrators and a graphic designer to help us e-publish German children’s books written by post-secondary students learning German. The project was featured by my University and in the community report of the Taylor Institute this past year. 

We received the grant in April 2023, so we are actually past the halfway point. When we wrote the grant, my colleague was also at the University of Calgary and had implemented the pre-grant activities that were part of his German course. He also did the post-course follow up with students to inform them of the possibility of publishing their stories as Open Educational Resources. However, soon after we received the grant, he changed institutions, which slowed down our timeline as we needed to work as a team to hire the illustrators for the children’s books. I also found it difficult to find a qualified student digital graphic publisher and so the hiring was not completed in the summer months as expected, but rather that fall. However, the extra time paid off as one of our artists proved to be a capable digital publisher and we moved ahead with her in that role as well. Since one of the goals of the project is to work with undergraduate students we continually navigate the ebbs and flows of the undergraduate work schedule since some times of the year, especially exam time, are not productive times for book illustration. However, at this point, 18 months into the project, we can say that a focus on quality, rather than quantity, is bearing fruit. Our first book will likely be launched next month, with three more following close behind. Perhaps more importantly, we have learned about what details are important for a project such as this. For example, we have instituted feedback loops whereby the illustrators, who usually don’t know German, meet with the authors to discuss a storyboard for the book. They present that storyboard to us as series editors and we provide feedback that helps with time and budget management. Then the illustrator produces the high resolution pictures and submits them to the publishing assistant. We have also added a student editor role, someone with strong German skills to review the final drafts before publication. In creating this first book, we have learned what decisions need to be made regarding Creative Commons Licensing, layout, font, and print size and we have decided to make a printing guide for teachers so that some of those printing options are clear to them when they download the final version. While we had intuitively anticipated two rounds of production in a one year period, the pre-mortem has shown that a two year cycle is more realistic to manage unforeseen challenges, the undergraduate work cycle, and the learning involved with OER publishing of this nature. Thankfully, the grant is for two years and we anticipate presenting our initial books to teachers at an upcoming national teacher conference: Languages Without Borders April 2025 in Montreal. Stay tuned for book links.

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Argumentation in academic writing Part 2: Descriptive vs Critical Writing

In addition to using topic and concluding sentences to improve your writing, another effective means to strengthen your argumentation is to pay attention to your use of descriptive vs critical writing. Both forms of writing are important, but when we receive reviews that we need to balance when we are merely reporting the facts (descriptive) and when we are weighing on and making a claim about those facts (critical). The handout that I share with my graduate students is a one-page excerpt from a study skills handout that came across my path as I began my academic career (Cottrell, 2012, p. 160).

The author provides a side-by-side comparison between descriptive vs critical writing. Let’s take the first example: “states what happened” vs “identifies the significance”. Now let’s try and come up with an example. I might write “Brown (2005) used the term ‘schoolscapes’ to describe the linguistic landscapes of schools”. That sentence is descriptive and states when happened. To make it more critical, I might edit it to read “Brown (2005) was the first to use the term ‘schoolscapes’, which is recognized as the official term to describe the linguistic landscapes of schools.” With these edits, the reader now has a clearer sense of how important Brown (2005)’s use of the term was. Inherent in any claim is the chance that one might be incorrect. Brown may have written the term in an earlier work or she may not have been the first to use the term, but I have identified the significance and part of the strength of my argument comes from the ability of someone to challenge this claim. Entering into scholarly debate is part of the reason with engage in scholarly writing, so we need to be prepared to stand behind our argumentation.

Let’s try another: In an article about German Bilingual Program teachers (Dressler & Mueller, 2022), we might have originally crafted a sentence like this: “In bilingual programs, teachers are often not aware of the pedagogical strategies from other programs such as French immersion and rely heavily upon professional learning to develop their repertoire”. This might be considered as “states links between items” since we state that teachers are not aware of pedagogical strategies and therefore rely upon professional learning. However, since we wanted to “show the relevance of links between pieces of information”, we added the reasons why teachers are not aware of pedagogical strategies:

“In bilingual programs, no one teaching approach is mandated, and since many teachers are not second language specialists (Dressler, 2018; Zhang & Guo, 2017), they are often not aware of the pedagogical strategies from other programs such as French immersion and rely heavily upon professional learning to develop their repertoire”. In doing so, we were also able to cite literature to back up those reasons so that the reader is aware that these are documented reasons that teachers end up relying so heavily upon professional learning. The ability to draw upon previous studies to support our work strengthens our claims as grounded rather than mere opinions.

As a final example, I am providing a whole paragraph from Dressler et al, (2023, p. 234) which demonstrates how descriptive and critical writing can complement one another. This paragraph goes from “notes methods used” to “identifies when something is appropriate or suitable”.

The chart required only affirmative answers. Therefore, if part or all of the chart was skipped, it could not be determined whether the participants did so because they did not use technology or because they did not wish to answer the question. To avoid drawing con­clusions about participants who did not indicate any technology usage at any time period in the chart, we removed those participants (n = 63) who did not provide any answers to that survey question. As a result, the data from the remaining 203 participants were analyzed.

The first two sentences are descriptive. The third sentence is critical, letting the reader know it would not have been suitable to assume blank answers meant “no, I didn’t use technology” since it could also have meant “I don’t feel like answering all of the questions in this survey”. The final sentence goes back to noting the result of that critical consideration, but is in itself descriptive.

The handout is so simple, yet it makes such a difference in one’s writing when the concept of descriptive vs critical writing is taken into account. The choice of which task you wish your writing to complete is up to your discretion as the writer. I encourage you to print out this handout and use it regularly and leave a comment below it if you have found it helps your writing.

The page I am referencing can be found here:

Cottrell, S. (2012). The study skills handbook. Palgrave Macmillan.

Examples for this blog came from one yet-to-be published piece as well as the two below:

Dressler, R., Guida, R., Chu, M-W. (2023). Canadian second language teachers’ technology use following the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian Modern Language Review, 79(3), 228-246. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr-2022-0069

Dressler, R. & Mueller, K. (2022). Pedagogical strategies to foster target language use: A nexus analysis. Canadian Modern Language Review, 77(4), 75-90. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr-2020-0084

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Research update 2022

It has been a busy semester, hence the lack of blogging, but I am motivated to blog today to provide some research updates.

Enduring Innovations in L2 Teacher Practice Resulting From the COVID-19 Pandemic

Integrating Critical Literacies into Pedagogies to Empower Diverse Learners (lead by Dr. Jean Kaya, Eyes High Postdoctoral Scholar; co-supported by me and Dr. Kim Lenters, Canada Research Chair Tier 2, Literacy)

New article in Language and Literacy:

Kaya, J., Dressler, R., Lenters, K., (2022). Critical literacy in Canada: A systematic review of curricula and literature. Language and Literacy, 28(2), 25-61. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/langandlit/index.php/langandlit/article/view/29606/21547

Reflective Writing for Sojourn Preparation, Reflection, Debriefing, and Beyond (SSHRC supported)

new article:

Dressler, R., Crossman, K., Kawalilak, C. (2022). Blogging for intercultural communicative competence in study abroad programs: All breadth, no depth? Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 7(2), 181-203. https://doi.org/10.1075/sar.21028.dre

two new book chapters

Dressler, R. & Kawalilak, C. (2022). The experience of pre-service language teachers learning an additional language through study abroad. In G. Barkhuizen (Ed.). Language teachers studying abroad: Identities, emotions and disruptions (pp.100-110). Multilingual Matters.

Dressler, R., Kawalilak, C., Crossman, K., Becker, S. (2022) Implementing longitudinal, reflective follow-up study abroad research: Following former pre-service teachers into professional practice. In J. McGregor & J. Plews (Eds.). Designing second language study abroad research: Critical reflections on methods and data (pp. 273-286). Palgrave McMillan.

 

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Benefits of Visiting Scholarships

As I wind up my six-month sabbatical (Jan-June 2022), I look back fondly on two visiting scholarships that I undertook: one at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County (UM-BC) (two weeks) and one at the University of Hamburg (two months). Perhaps I missed a memo, but as an emerging scholar, I was not aware of the how and why of visiting scholarships and rather stumbled into my first through a grant opportunity meant to support faculty in making international connections. Since then, I have learned that academics use visiting scholarships to familiarize themselves with a different academic context, access different people and events, and most importantly, have meaningful discussions about important research topics of mutual interest. My elaboration here may be motivating for other academics considering visiting scholarships.

My UM-BC visit coincided with the final defense of an MA student, whose committee I was on. As both of our universities were coming out of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, this defense marked the first in-person defense I had participated in since before the pandemic. The interaction order (i.e., ways of doing) of defenses at UM-BC, in particular in the Department of TESOL, differed slightly from what I was used to. How easy is it for us to say that there is only one way to do a thesis defense? I enjoyed the pageantry that went with this defense (e.g., tablecloths, banner, reception afterwards), but I was challenged by the large audience and less formal structure (e.g., more free-flowing questioning). This defense was probably the best example of learning about a different academic context as the university was otherwise relatively quiet with many faculty still working from home.

Visiting scholarships provide opportunities for networking and serendipitous learning. Not only do I arrange to meet with local academics, but in Hamburg there are often other visiting scholars who enrich my visit. This past stay, I met with Carole Bloch who works with early literacy in South Africa and later Liesel Ebersöhn, who heads a Center for the Study of Resilience, also in South Africa. Carole and I spoke about the current misunderstandings around reading instruction for children and Liesel told me about a children’s story writing campaign her center is supporting. Both scholars provided me with food for thought for my upcoming grant application into determining what makes appropriate reading materials for early German reading instruction in bilingual schools. Further to that project, I was able to visit a number of German scholars in the area of reading instruction. Additionally, I got a last minute invitation to a conference on early reading books which brought together colleagues from German teaching and German literature to discuss the topic I am interested in, but from the standpoint of teaching German in Germany. This access to different people and events would be unlikely from afar, so I am very appreciative of this visiting scholarship for its networking and serendipitous learning.

While I had many meaningful discussions with the scholars I met for the first time, I especially prize the ones I had with my hosts. My visit to UM-BC was hosted by Francis Hult, a full professor who has served as a mentor ever since he sat as the external examiner on my PhD defense. My UniHamburg visit was hosted by Drorit Lengyel whom I have been working with more and more since my first visit to Hamburg. Francis spent considerable time with me, for which I have very grateful. He introduced me to colleagues, showed me around the university, and made arrangements for my official status (which included free rides on the shuttle!). Most importantly, I could ask him all those methodological questions I had been pondering, since we both work in educational linguistics. Drorit and I met formally and informally several times over my two months in Hamburg. We wrote a grant proposal for a joint online course between our universities, planned for an upcoming conference presentation and article, and she too paved the way institutionally for me to have an office and access to library materials. Both hosts had me over for supper to their own homes – a real treat to visit with their families as well. The role of the host is crucial in making the visiting scholarship a success – a shout out to both of them for their excellent hospitality!

With these opportunities behind me, I return to my regular work recharged. I have pages of notes and dozens of articles downloaded. I have a few books tucked away to read in full and tons of ideas floating around in my brain. I will use the buffer before teaching starts up to get more of these ideas down on paper. Visiting scholarships are so much more than the line of the CV indicates.

Modern architecture in the HafenCity Hamburg Germany
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Discourses in Study Abroad Research: The Tourist Gaze

I recently read The Tourist Gaze by John Urry, a British sociologist. I was drawn to the book as it had been cited in some study abroad presentations I had attended. The premise is that when we travel, our attention (gaze) is that of a tourist or temporary visitor, an outsider. Many resist being called tourists, feeling that their way of traveling is more authentic and therefore somehow different. Yet, in most cases, those arguments are futile, because others can usually recognize the touristy nature of our activities, observations or encounters. In my case, I might claim that when I travel to Germany, I am entering a country that I have visited often, to which I have citizenship and family. Yet, I don’t live in Germany, I speak the language well, but imperfectly, and I view my encounters through the lens of my Canadian upbringing. Hence, I must admit that I am a tourist to some extent.

An important aspect of the tourist gaze is the performance of it. This refers to actions which belong to that of the discoverer or adventurer, rather than everyday life. While I might take pictures of my food when I am home, I am much more likely to do so in Germany, posting and tagging on Instagram as I check of my list of “must eats” during my stay. Similarly, I have seen my study abroad students post and boast of how many countries they were able to visit while “living” in a placement in Europe during which they spend more days some weeks away from their placement than present. This performance is especially problematic when it revolves around stereotypical representations of culture, often objects, rather than the normal, especially people. Do we portray our travels in sanitized, idealized ways? Is it only politeness that keeps us from photographing dirty street scenes? Has the introduction of the selfie exacerbated the tourist gaze by compelling us to pose in front of every landscape, thereby reducing the new country into a beautiful backdrop for our own self image?

These are questions we should continually be asking ourselves as travelers, but also as study abroad program designers and researchers. We have an ethical responsibility to question our actions and prepare our students to think critically about their plans and actions. Perhaps the most important trait we can pass on is cultural humility – to expect that things will be different when we travel and reserve judgment about the rightness or wrongness about how things are done elsewhere. We have opportunities to ask “why?” and to genuinely get to know people. A focus on people, rather than things or backdrops, should be central to those discussions.

Images we take speak to our gaze
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Project-based learning in the second language classroom

Project-based learning in the second language classroom is not new. It has been used in second language classrooms for over thirty years. In German, the term is handlungsorientierter Unterricht (action-oriented teaching). It speaks to the active learning that takes place when students are involved in projects. Experiential learning provides concrete ways for students to learn the language while pursuing topics of interest.

Group work and technology are typical elements of project based learning

In the Winter 2015 semester, I took on the challenge of teaching a project-based learning class to an advanced German class with an enrolment of 4 students. To give the class structure, I had each student create a video, a multimodal presentation and a website. The students co-created the rubrics for these assignments in German at the beginning of the semester. I supported them with class sessions on web 2.0 tools, activities to improve their German and lessons on pop culture. We profited from the support of a teaching assistant who taught lessons on translation and comic books. These classes were interspersed with peer feedback sessions in which the students reviewed each others’ work. While this was new to them, they caught on quickly. Most of all, they thoroughly enjoyed exploring their own topics and sharing their learning with their classmates, an audience of other German learners (another advanced class) and the wider world (since their videos and websites are on the internet). They learned to talk about their projects, their learning, and what they felt made a good final product – all in German!

Strong project-based second language learning courses share ten criteria. Friedricka Stoller, in her 2006 book chapter, outlines these ten criteria as:

having a progress and production orientation
being defined, at least in part, by the student
extending over a period of time
encouraging a natural integration of skills (technology and communication)
holding a dual commitment to language and content learning
having students work in groups and on their own
requiring students to take some responsibility for their own learning
resulting in students and teachers taking new roles and responsibilities
producing a final product for a larger audience
concluding with student reflections on process and product

Curiosity drives student interest in the project they are pursuing.

I used their ten criteria to assess whether my Senior Projects in German course was truly a strong project based learning course. Reflecting back, my small number of students were a blessing since  each student was able to pursue the project s/he chose. Their lack of experience with PBL was quickly overshadowed by their strong passion for their projects. The experience of designing a project-based learning course helped me to expand my teaching repertoire. Looking back, I can see things that I would like to have done differently, knowing now that some students need more structure than others and students work best when the class lessons directly support their projects. Overall, however, I consider the design of this  course to be a success and have adopted this pedagogy for other courses I have taught since.

You can read more about this experience here:

Dressler.PjBL chapter accepted versionDownload

Dressler, R., Raedler, B., Dimitrov, K., Dressler, A., & Krause, G. (2020). Project-based learning in the advanced German class. In G. Beckett & T. Slater (Eds.), Global perspectives on project-based language learning, teaching, and assessment: Key approaches, technology tools, and frameworks (pp. 69-84). London: Routledge. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/113124

Stoller, F. (2006). Establishing a theoretical foundation for project-based learning in second and foreign language contexts. In G. Beckett & P. C. Miller (Eds.), Project-based second and foreign language education: Past, present, and future (pp. 19–40). Information Age Publishing.

This post is an update from the original in May 2015

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Organizing your family photos: A metaphor for data analysis

Raw data, like raw film, takes work!

This summer I revisited a neglected personal project: organizing family photos into albums. My mother always dutifully printed off her films, wrote on the backs of pictures, and put them into albums. For a while, I did the same, dividing pictures into albums for me and my husband as well as each of the children. Then came the advent of digital cameras and after that, camera phones. Now everyone was taking pictures, but few were printing them off. At first, I tried to keep up with printing and putting into albums, but eventually gave up. I took the few pictures I had printed, and those people had mailed me, and shoved them into a photobox. Years later, I discovered this box again, full of pictures without homes that I need to make decisions about.

The decision making around those pictures is metaphor for the data analysis each researcher must do. For some photographers, each photo is precious and needs to be kept. For some researchers, every answer to every survey or interview question carries important information. However, to report the raw data, unanalyzed, would be akin to filling up a photo album with pictures in the order you pick out of the box. No rhyme, no reason. From the viewpoint of the researcher, this may seem valuable, but research is meant to be read and understood, so analysis is key.

Depending on the methodological framework, some data analysis is straightforward and follows given steps. However, for many researchers who embark upon thematic or content analysis, the structure is less obvious. Consider your research questions? Are you looking for specific themes or content as dictated by understandings developed by previous researchers? Then decide what those are and sort the data accordingly. If the data were pictures, you might consider sorting chronologically, by occasion, by holidays, or by featured people in the pictures.

Data is easier to work with once analyzed.

Next consider how salient the data is. Do you have some aspects that only occur once? Does that make them stand out as memorable and important or suggest that they are of lesser importance and may not contribute to the larger argument. Using the picture metaphor, do you have a picture of a long-lost relative that is important to keep because it is the only one that exists of that person or is this someone no one knows and therefore the picture would seem out of place on the album?

While this very general discussion might not alleviate all of a researcher’s questions about data analysis, it may shed light on why data analysis can be challenging. We want to keep all the data or we get overwhelmed by the decision-making, sometimes having to take the time to consider what our rationale is for our choices, so that we can feel confident in enacting them.

Completed data analysis is like a well-curated photo album.

Looking at your salient data, how clearly does everything fit within the theme? Does it appear that what you first thought was one theme adequately covers the data within it or does it need to be split into more themes? Consider if you were making an album of cousins and realized that you had too many for one album. Would you split the pictures up further in some way? Grouping them by family of origin or those closest to you? There often is no one right way to sort the data, but you will need to consider what your rationale is for making these decisions. My mother might argue that family of origin makes most sense, but then, she knows everyone in the pictures. My children might argue that they only want to see the cousins they actually know because otherwise the album is full of pictures of strangers. The importance is in having a sound rationale for deciding what fits into a theme, just as one decides what fits into an album.

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Going to the grocery store: A metaphor for writing up results and discussion

Academics and graduate students sometimes struggle to write up the results and discussion sections of their articles and dissertations. When they receive feedback like “too descriptive”, “need to synthesize”, or “where are your conclusions?”, they wonder what they can do to improve their writing.

During a recent discussion on how to guide our students in writing up their results and discussion, a colleague shared with me a metaphor that she uses: going to the grocery store. She explained how she used it and I have expanded it here to demonstrate how to think of the results and discussion sections of articles and chapters in a dissertation.

When you go to the grocery store, you enter the produce section (research context) and see tables of all kinds of produce imaginable (raw data). You decide what you want based on particular criteria (your research questions) and fill your basket. When you get home, you empty your shopping bags and the phone rings with a call from your curious friend. She asks,“what did you buy?”. You could answer with a list (unsynthesized data): apples, eggplant, bananas, celery, bean sprouts, and a watermelon. However, if you do that, she might say “what an odd assortment! You must not like round foods, because most of what you bought is not round”. Based on what you told her, she has drawn a conclusion.

However, it is unlikely that you went to the store buying foods based on their shape. By providing her unsynthesized data without drawing conclusions, you have left her to draw her own, in the same way that writing up results by only presenting the raw data, you leave the reader to draw his own conclusion.

Perhaps instead, you answer “I bought three kinds of fruit and three kinds of vegetables”. Here you have synthesized your data by grouping the food according to type. What type of conclusion do you want her to draw from this? You add “I wanted a variety of both fruits and vegetables”. Your friend is now much less likely to criticize what you bought because she has been presented with synthesized data and a conclusion and can better follow your rationale. She goes on to ask you about the rest of what you bought, and you present your shopping her in a similar way: “I also bought flour, sugar, and milk. Now I have all the ingredients needed to do some baking” and “I bought lentils, quinoa and rice. Now I have different grains in my pantry”. The results of your shopping trip as presented to your friend on the phone parallel the presentation of your results in your article or dissertation. This may seem obvious, but it is very common for novice writers (I still do it sometimes) to present the synthesis, but forget to draw a conclusion, because to them, it is obvious, although not always to your readers.

Now on to the Discussion: Your curious friend is momentarily satisfied as she hears your results, but then she asks “why?” She may be wondering if you plan to do try some new recipes, cook or bake some old favorites, or go on a raw food diet. The Discussion section of your article or dissertation is where you satisfy the ‘why’ of the reader. You might answer your friend “I chose these items to buy because I am expecting a lot of company and the guests have different food preferences, so I want to cook a variety of foods from scratch”. Now she has an overall idea of what your rationale was.

Now you have her interest as you break down the results with reference to previous supporting literature. “I can cook using the lentils and quinoa. Lentils are naturally gluten-free (Smith, 2020) and a favorite among vegetarians because they are quick to cook (Jones, 2019). Quinoa is considered a highly nutritious ancient grain (Thoms, 2018) and cooks up easily in the pressure cooker, so I want to try that as well. With lentils and quinoa, I have the two quickest cooking grains for those who are vegetarian or gluten intolerant”. With these four sentences you have 1) recapped your results briefly 2) tied your results to the previous literature (which should appear in your lit review) 3) drawn a conclusion demonstrating critical thinking, rather than just description. Ok, you may not do that in real life, but in academic writing, that is exactly what we are called to do.

This last element, demonstrating critical thinking, is crucial to your Discussion conclusions. You need to identify significance, timing, or suitability; structure evidence in order of importance; evaluate significance or strengths and weaknesses; or argue a case. To help my students with the distinction between descriptive and critical writing, I refer them to a useful chart found on p. 12 in the book listed below (Cottrell, 2012). Recently one of my students shared a video that also addresses this aspect of writing. Once you have a sense of what the difference is between critical and descriptive writing, you may find it helpful to create your own chart to post near your writing area as a regular reminder.

The Results and Discussion writing are the parts of our academic writing where we get to share not only what we found in our research, but what it means for answering our research question. That is why I often structure my Discussion by revisiting the research question. By keeping it at the forefront, it reminds me, as well as the readers, what I was hoping to learn from the study, while I situate it in the larger field in which I am writing.

Having a clear concept of the Results and Discussion will strengthen your writing, in the same way that shopping with particular criteria in mind, while not obligatory, will make your grocery shopping more purposeful (but less likely to result in your bring home potato chips 😊). Carrying a metaphor this far may be an overextension. I welcome you to test it out and let me know in the comments if you feel it works!

(Please note that Smith, 2020; Jones, 2019; and Thoms, 2018 are invented citations for the purpose of illustration). If you wish to share this post as a pdf, please cite it as:

Dressler, R.. (2020). Going to the grocery store: A metaphor for writing up results and discussion. University of Calgary. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112375

Cottrell, S. (2012). The study skills handbook. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Refugee education in Germany: A document analysis

Boy in classroom Munich Bavaria Germany

When the Syrian refugee crisis hit the news headlines in Canada, I couldn’t help but notice the news that Germany would be providing asylum to large numbers of refugees. As part of my research program looking at second language teaching and learning through the lens of pre-service and in-service teachers’ understanding, I embarked on a comparative international education project on responses to refugee education. As a first step, I worked with Sabrina Lohmann, a bilingual in-service teacher to help me with a document analysis.  We wondered: how did the German education system respond to the sudden increase of school-aged children needing to learn German and what can that response teach us, as Canadian educators?”

Refugee migration in Canada and Germany is quite different. Canada is often considered a country of immigration (Triadofilopoulos, 2012). Refugees are accepted with permanent resident status that can lead to citizenship. In early 2016, the Canadian federal government announced the acceptance of 25 000 Syrian refugees (Molnar, 2016). The selection was limited to women, complete families and single men from sexual minority groups, who were vetted prior to their entry into Canada. Children are enrolled in school upon arrival. Schools usually provide full or partial integration into a mainstream classroom, often coded as ELL (English Language Learner). While this integrated approach is not universal across schools, it represents a typical approach to refugee education in Canada.

In contrast, immigration policy in Germany does not have a path for refugees to become citizens, but because of the geographical location asylum seekers arrived in large numbers and could only request refugee status upon arrival. In 2017, 1.4 Million asylum seekers came to Germany (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2018). These included families, single individuals and even unaccompanied minors. With large numbers of people housed in temporary housing, local school authorities arranged for introductory language instruction on site. These classes are often run by volunteers. Once children are in school, they spend one year in sheltered classes focused on learning German. Students who do not have basic literacy spend an additional year in those classes. After these 1-2 years of sheltered instruction, students are integrated into mainstream classes. This sheltered approach is relatively uniform across Germany.

With the large numbers of students and the focus on sheltered instruction in Germany, we wondered what Canadian educators could learn from the German situation. As a researcher, I looked at what documents were readily available for teachers in Germany and what the key messages were in those documents. As a teacher, Sabrina wanted to know what practical tips these documents could offer. Together we conducted a document analysis of 16 documents we found online between 2017-2019. The preliminary searches were done in Hamburg, Germany during my three research visits: June 2017, June 2018, and May 2019. Since Google searches are localized, it was important to conduct the searches in German, in Germany, in order to find the types of documents a local teacher would find.

We read the documents for what they could tell us about second language learning, intercultural communication, and trauma-informed pedagogy as these topics emerge in research done in Canada (Dressler & Gereluk, 2017). Second language learning in this case referred to learning German, but the theory and practical tips are applicable across languages. Intercultural communication refers to information provided to teachers about how to communicate with families as well as specific backgrounds of their students, in many cases, Arabic-speaking children from Syria.Trauma-informed pedagogy would include any messages about how the situation of fleeing one’s country, experiencing war and trauma, and the reality of interrupted schooling might necessitate interacting differently with these students than with other immigrant or local students. The documents represent what teachers might find if doing an online search under the topic refugee education, but serve to provide  a picture of German refugee education in general.

Five key messages emerged from the documents:

  1. Language learning involves immersing the student in meaningful social and academic language. Since language learning needs to happen quickly for students to communicate on a daily basis, the documents advocate for an “immersion in the new language”. This immersion can be facilitated by a whole school approach in which all teachers, regardless of subject-area or teaching assignment, are part of the team that supports the students in learning the new language. 
  1. Literacy instruction involves the awareness of different writing scripts as well as the effects of interrupted schooling. SLIFE (students with limited or interrupted formal education) is an acronym used in the English-speaking world as shorthand for the situation of many refugee children described in the documents. Some will have lost years of formal schooling due to migration, time spent in refugee camps, or temporary living situations in one country where formal schooling was restarted, but not continued. As well, for students learning German or English who have learned to read and write in Arabic, there will still be an adjustment of getting used to different alphabets, writing direction and writing styles.
  1. Trauma-informed pedagogy can mitigate student stress while learning. Teachers who  know the signs of trauma can avoid triggers that might seem innocent to outsiders. A school assembly with loud music and cheering might be frightening to students who have experienced bombing and raids. While our school system prizes choice, some refugee children respond to choice with confusion and anxiety. For them, structure in the school day may provide greater safety and comfort.
  1. Language learning can occur through music, art, and drama. These modes of learning support language development. They also connect students socially, creating trust and safe spaces. These modes allow students to express themselves in ways they might not be able to do through speaking.
  1. Family involvement can enhance the efforts of teachers. Informing families about the process of integration in school, language learning goals and how these will be targeted can provide families with reassurance that their children are learning. Families that feel supported can be free to be more involved in their children’s schooling.

In reviewing all of the documents, an overarching message is the importance of teaching children the societal language (German in this case, but French or English in Canada) as quickly and as well as possible. To their credit, several documents not only convey this message, but provide concrete lesson plans and teaching activities that work toward this goal. These activities are useful in the Canadian context for those who can read German as they can be used in German bilingual schools or translated into English for use in ELL classrooms or mainstream classrooms with high ELL populations. Especially in a setting where differentiation usually occurs through streaming lower-achieving students into a school route that limits post-secondary educational choices, learning the language of school instruction is closely linked to academic success. Similarly, in Canada, ELLs represent a large group of early school leavers Thus, a focus on second language learning is not misplaced here either.

The learning from the German situation has implications for teachers and administrators in Canada. Teachers can improve their practice by considering the importance of language learning in the mainstream classroom in all subject areas. Administrators can consider the time, class structure and support refugee students needed in order to thrive in schools. The strength of our school systems is in how they serve those who need them the most for making their home in a new country.

Dressler, R., & Lohmann, S. (2020). Refugee education in Germany: A document analysis. University of Calgary. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112214