Congratulations to Zilu Jiang, a member of The Research Laboratory for Digital Learning and a Ph.D. student in the learning technologies program in he Department of Educational Studies, College of Education and Human Ecology. She has been awarded the Presidential Fellowship from The Ohio State University — “The most prestigious award given by the Graduate School. Recipients of this award embody the highest standards of scholarship in the full range of Ohio State’s graduate programs”.
Zilu Jiang’s research interest resides in the intersection of learning technologies and educational psychology. In her dissertation research, she proposes a study to design and examine online learning environments that support students’ psychological needs and in turn improve readiness for and success in online learning. In doing so, she plans to situate her study in the context of a fully online second language learning program for a population of high-school students. She also plans to deploy complex and innovative research methodology in her dissertation, including the experience-sampling method that supports an intensive longitudinal design.
“I am very grateful to OSU for recognizing and supporting my research in online learning. I will strive for my work to live up to the honor this award carries. I have been deeply concerned about the issues in the online learning environment regarding students’ motivation and engagement. I will dedicate myself to supporting students to achieve adequate psychological and academic growth.”
Zilu Jiang’s dissertation is significant in many ways. First, her study addresses a very important and timely topic of online learning. Especially during this pandemic when schools and classes are all moving toward online, it calls for more research to address students’ learning in these remote and online contexts and to design effective strategies to support students in these learning settings. Second, her study context is unique and significant. She studies a population of high-school students taking online courses from an elective program, and she studies these students’ motivation and readiness toward online learning. School-based research can bring meaningful implications to improve our educational practices. But at the same time, school-based research is very difficult to conduct. Zilu Jiang is taking the challenge of conducting her dissertation in an authentic school setting, which is a contribution in itself to the field of online language learning. Third, Zilu’s study implements comprehensive design with methodologies that can really get at students’ daily experiences in online learning. The experience sampling method is a more sensitive method to capture students’ in-the-moment feelings and thoughts while they are studying. By implementing this method, she will be able to collect a very robust and rich dataset. Then she plans to apply advanced statistical methods, such as, growth modeling and cross-lagged modeling, to fully benefit from this rich dataset.
In addition, Zilu’s research stems from her own experience in teaching and delivering online instructions at both high-school and college levels. She has designed lots of innovative strategies to support students in the classes that she taught. Her teaching expertise will definitely help her research to bridge research to practice even more. Taking these points together, Zilu’s research is important, timely, and innovative. She is willing to taking the challenge of designing a complex study in an authentic school setting, but the return of the study can be expected to be truly impactful.
Besides her dissertation study, Zilu Jiang has established a program of research from her involvement in a variety of projects at the Research Laboratory for Digital Learning, where she has been an active and contributing member for several years. Zilu Jiang has been able to disseminate her scholarly work through peer reviewed publications. She has already published eight articles (with two of them where she serves as the first author). In addition, she has also been very active in presenting at national and international conferences. Worthwhile noting is that she has been invited to offer talks and workshops both nationally and internationally. This clearly demonstrates her reputation already established in the field of online learning and language teaching.
The information presented in this article does not necessarily reflect the views of the Graduate School and the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University.