This paper reports an ethnographic study of a group of Chinese international students' emotion-management experiences in intercultural adjustment in a UK university context. Drawing on a social constructionist paradigm, it investigates students' constructions of their emotion-management strategies, and the effects of social interactions on the…

Critical thinking is often understood as a set of tangible, transferrable and measurable skills and competencies. Yet, it is also an intensely affective experience that is complex, contingent and contextualised. Using interview, focus group and observation data conducted with 15 first-year undergraduate social science students at a UK…

Online students use highly emotional language to describe their experiences, indicating that learners do feel a great deal online. This paper draws on Wetherell's exploration of affective practice to theorise learners' responses to the pedagogical and technological online environment. Findings of a research project that focused on two cohorts of…

The article addresses the question of whether the practice of mandatory personal therapy, followed by several training organisations, is justified by existing research and evidence. In doing so, it discusses some implications of this training requirement from an ethical and ideological standpoint, raising questions of import for training…

Since the inception of the L2 motivational self system (Dörnyei, 2005), which operationalises motivation as a function of learners' future identities, the field of L2 motivation has seen a growing interest in mental imagery. Numerous studies have examined the role of a future self-guide, that is, the ideal L2 self, and have confirmed it to be…

Recent investigations into the UK National Health Service revealed doctors' failures to act with compassion and professionalism towards patients. The British media asked questions about what happens to students during their learning that influences such behaviour as doctors. We listened to 200 medical students' narratives of professionalism…

This study investigates how university students on distance learning courses experience interaction with their peers. Students on two distance learning courses at The Open University (UK) were interviewed, to investigate learners' experience of interaction on these courses. The analysis, using a grounded-theory approach, reveals disparities…