The assessment of embodied resources of interactional competence in multimodal higher education eigital EMI classrooms
- Katie Halley(Author),
- Chihiro Inoue(Second supervisor),
- Fumiyo Nakatsuhara(Supervisor)
Student Thesis:
Student thesis
Doctoral thesis
About the thesis
The PhD project explores embodied resources (visual behaviours) for interactional competence in digital English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) classes in Malaysia and Japan. Scholars have suggested that embodied resources (ERs) are a part of interactional competence (Vo, 2020) and play a role in speaking assessment (Ducasse & Brown, 2009; Gan & Davison, 2011; Jenkins & Parra, 2003; May, 2009, 2011; Nakatsuhara, 2011; Vo, 2020). Yet ERs lack investigation in second language interaction (Hall & Pekarek Doehler, 2022) and validation in assessment fields (Burton, 2023). Consequently, ERs rarely feature in conceptualisations of interaction (Galaczi & Taylor, 2018) or speaking assessment scales (Lam et al., 2023). Interaction on videoconferencing platforms, the digital medium, is also underexplored (Plough et al., 2018). The current research addresses these gaps. Using a multistage mixed methods research design, the research aimed to uncover how teachers and students use ERs, the functions of ERs, the extent that ERs demonstrate interactional competence, and whether forms of ERs can be operationalised and/or scaled for interactional assessments online.
The findings show that nods and turns to the side ERs occurred the most in the digital EMI contexts; however, this was not necessarily aligned with perceived usefulness in interaction. ER form recurrence was also different between classes in Japan and Malaysia. The conversation analysis-informed multimodal discourse analysis, many-facet Rasch analysis, and nature analysis (i.e., whether the ER was complementary or compensatory) show that ERs are best viewed as ‘observable artefacts’ of interaction within context of use (Glasson & Halley, 2024; Wong & Waring, 2020). The Rasch analyses suggest that forms of ERs are not scalable for interactional ability or usefulness by themselves but are again dependent on context. Furthermore, the function analysis highlights that there is no one-toone function of ERs (supporting, Burton, 2021; Plough et al., 2018); although some of these functions may be operating in a complementary manner, on multiple levels of interaction. From the questionnaire data, raters perceived candidate ERs as showing interactional ability but were mostly against including them in rating descriptors and/or scales. The thematic analysis, from the interview and questionnaire data, also uncovered raters’ concerns of ERs for assessment.
In all, ignoring ERs in interactional assessment may lead to tests which do not fully tap into interactional competence. However, the findings of this research show the intertwined and context-driven nature of ERs; thus, it may be that ERs cannot or are difficult to categorise because of their dynamic nature in interaction (Plough, 2021). How this affects interactional tests is an ongoing discussion. Despite this complexity, there is potential from this exploration to create a databank of supportive ERs for digital EMI classes and assessment. Moreover, the taxonomy created in this investigation could potentially provide a basis for future research or possibly automated coding.
The findings show that nods and turns to the side ERs occurred the most in the digital EMI contexts; however, this was not necessarily aligned with perceived usefulness in interaction. ER form recurrence was also different between classes in Japan and Malaysia. The conversation analysis-informed multimodal discourse analysis, many-facet Rasch analysis, and nature analysis (i.e., whether the ER was complementary or compensatory) show that ERs are best viewed as ‘observable artefacts’ of interaction within context of use (Glasson & Halley, 2024; Wong & Waring, 2020). The Rasch analyses suggest that forms of ERs are not scalable for interactional ability or usefulness by themselves but are again dependent on context. Furthermore, the function analysis highlights that there is no one-toone function of ERs (supporting, Burton, 2021; Plough et al., 2018); although some of these functions may be operating in a complementary manner, on multiple levels of interaction. From the questionnaire data, raters perceived candidate ERs as showing interactional ability but were mostly against including them in rating descriptors and/or scales. The thematic analysis, from the interview and questionnaire data, also uncovered raters’ concerns of ERs for assessment.
In all, ignoring ERs in interactional assessment may lead to tests which do not fully tap into interactional competence. However, the findings of this research show the intertwined and context-driven nature of ERs; thus, it may be that ERs cannot or are difficult to categorise because of their dynamic nature in interaction (Plough, 2021). How this affects interactional tests is an ongoing discussion. Despite this complexity, there is potential from this exploration to create a databank of supportive ERs for digital EMI classes and assessment. Moreover, the taxonomy created in this investigation could potentially provide a basis for future research or possibly automated coding.