Editorial
ShanePayne
University of Leicester
The articles selected for this issue are very diverse indeed. For article 1, Abeer Aidh Alshwiah reflects on her pilot study that focuses on the development of foreign language students’ communication competence using a conversational framework. Interestingly, she adopts Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (ELC) as a systematic approach for the reflection.
Article 2 introduces the reader to an educational intervention study in which Nada Alsaleh develops social networking website-based activities to promote critical thinking. The findings of the study recognises the difficulty students have in developing critical thinking skills, but also show that the activities developed helped improve this.
Issues of validity in educational research are reflected upon by Tariq Hamood in article 3. This particular piece raises many questions and encourages argument and debate, especially in relation to safeguards that need to be part of the fabric of the research design to ensure validity is maintained. Although not part of the original submission, as Editor, I made the decision to include a paragraph added by the author following initial peer review because I believe it adds to the debate.
For the final article, Asif Ahmad focusses on the attitudes of the instructional supervisors towards non-native EFL in Saudi Arabia. Although the English language administrators want to recruit native teachers, the demand is too great for the teachers available. The findings reveal an interesting contrast between the views of the administrators and the supervisors tasked to oversee the curriculum delivery.
The Bridge: Journal of Educational Research-Informed Practice 