Technological Approaches to Student Participation while Studying the History of Psychology in an EMI Institution

Abstract

History and Systems in Psychology is a core third-year course in the Applied Psychology programme at an English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) university in China. The course explores major developments in ideas in psychology as an academic field, to explore how a host of scientific knowledge and everyday assumptions have been shaped through the development of their academic discipline. Students in this course are typically expected to engage with diverse written materials to learn about a number of widely used theories and associated methods, including psychoanalysis, behaviourism, and more contemporary approaches like positive psychology. Materials are typically provided in the English language and specified learning outcomes are assessed in the same language, through oral presentations, quizzes and written work. The course has been formerly evaluated by students as excessively demanding and irrelevant. The current chapter focuses on how technology has since been used in the re-design and implementation of the same course, as a response to student feedback and associated concerns. Through an ethnographic approach to class observation, interviews and materials analysis, the chapter interrogates culturally embedded teaching practices. It also examines the use of translanguaging among students, to showcase how technology can facilitate learning in an EMI context.