Home/About the Study

Thank you for participating in this doctoral research study, entitled "The Effects of Coursecasting in International Freshman Students’ Perceptions of Marginality and Isolation, Anxiety, and English Language Oral Proficiency and Comprehension." This Web site contains all the information that you need to participate in this research.

Description and Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether podcasting is an effective tool that might mitigate feelings of marginalization and isolation, deficiencies in language comprehension and proficiency, and anxiety in students whose first language is not English.

You are invited to participate because you are a student in this class. This class was selected because your professor has agreed to record his/her lectures and make them available to you in a podcast. Everyone in this class will have access to the podcasts, but only international students are invited to participate in the study.

Other than the time you choose to devote to listen to class podcasts, the study will not disrupt your everyday activities. If you choose to participate, you will be asked to complete four pre-tests and five post-tests that will attempt to record any change in your feelings of marginalization, anxiety, and language proficiency. Overall, the combined, total time devoted to these surveys throughout the semester should not exceed an hour and a half. Obviously, you will not be required to answer all of them at the same time.

Your participation, as well as the results of the tests, will not affect your class grade in any way.