Teachers' Perspectives and Practices with Artificial Intelligence and Other Digital Technologies in Multilingual Writing Instruction Across Disciplines: An Ecological Case Study
Dissertation Proposal Title: Teachers’ Perspectives and Practices with Artificial Intelligence and Other Digital Technologies in Multilingual Writing Instruction Across Disciplines: An Ecological Case Study
Dissertation Committee: Dr. Christine Tardy (Chair), Dr. Beatrice Dupuy, Dr. Hayriye Kayi-Aydar, Dr. Jon Reinhardt, Dr. Shelley Staples
Location: This dissertation proposal presentation will be a hybrid format. For those who wish to attend in person, the presentation will be in Modern Languages 453. For those who wish to attend via Zoom, the link is https://arizona.zoom.us/j/7259921432.
Abstract: The place and role of digital technologies in multilingual higher education are complicated, and several factors often intersect, creating a complex and dynamic web of relationships (Bui, 2022). Previous research on this topic often relied on single data sources (e.g., interviews, surveys) and teachers’ self-reported data (Chocarro et al., 2023; Chuah & Kabilan, 2021; Karimi & Asadnia, 2022; Le Khanh et al., 2024; Zimotti et al., 2024). This dissertation study provides an in-depth exploration of teachers’ conceptualizations of their work and their teacher identities in relation to AI and other digital technologies in multilingual writing instruction, how they develop these perspectives and practices with digital technologies in multilingual writing instruction, and the interplay between their perspectives and practices through a qualitative case study adopting an ecological approach (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). This interdisciplinary dissertation study takes place at a large research university in the United States and includes different disciplines and programs that incorporate multilingual writing instruction. The main participants are university instructors from various backgrounds, including language teachers, writing instructors, and teachers across the curriculum in the same institution. The study incorporates multiple data sources, such as multimodal teacher narratives through arts-based research practices, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and reflective entries. Through narrative inquiry (Barkhuizen et al., 2025; Kayi-Aydar, 2019), the findings may help to understand the university instructors’ lived experiences, social and emotional factors, and the multiple layers in the ecosystem that shape their conceptualizations and practices with digital technologies in multilingual writing instruction.
