Virtual reality helps English teachers strengthen the social side of language

 Knowing English involves more than knowing the right words and grammar. Effective communication also requires understanding how language changes according to the people involved, the situation, and the cultural context. A new study suggests that immersive virtual reality (VR) can help English teachers develop this often-overlooked dimension of language use.

The study, Socio-Culturally Responsive VR Training for Enhancing English Teachers' Pragmatic Competence, found that teachers who participated in a 108-hour immersive VR training program showed statistically significant improvements in pragmatic competence, including both their ability to use appropriate linguistic forms and their ability to respond appropriately to social and cultural expectations.

The research, conducted by Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani, was first published online on August 27, 2026, in ECNU Review of Education.

Pragmatic competence is the ability to use language appropriately in real-world situations. A request, refusal, apology, or complaint, for example, can be expressed in many grammatically correct ways, but the most appropriate choice depends on factors such as social relationships, power, distance, and cultural expectations.

For teachers in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, developing this competence can be challenging because opportunities for authentic interaction may be limited. While classroom instruction can explain pragmatic rules, providing repeated opportunities to practice context-sensitive communication in realistic situations is more difficult.

To investigate whether immersive technology could help address this challenge, the researchers employed a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design involving 122 randomly selected EFL teachers. Participants completed verbal discourse completion tasks (DCTs) before and after the training, allowing the researchers to assess changes in pragmatic competence. Focus group interviews were then used to explore participants' experiences and help explain the quantitative findings.

The 108-hour intervention used fully immersive VR simulations featuring artificial intelligence (AI)-driven avatars. The simulations incorporated diverse sociocultural scenarios as well as different speech acts, power relations, and levels of social distance. The intervention followed a human-on-the-loop (HOTL) approach, maintaining human involvement in the AI-supported learning process.

Following the training, participants demonstrated statistically significant improvements in pragmatic competence. The gains were evident in two key dimensions: pragmalinguistic accuracy, or the ability to select and use appropriate linguistic forms, and sociopragmatic appropriateness, or the ability to respond appropriately to the social and cultural expectations of a situation.

The qualitative findings provided further insight into these improvements. Participants identified immersive engagement, real-time adaptive feedback, increased communicative confidence, greater metapragmatic awareness, and reflective practice as important aspects of the VR experience.

These findings suggest that the value of the VR intervention was not simply that teachers were practicing English in a virtual environment. Rather, the simulations created opportunities for participants to make communicative choices within sociocultural situations, receive adaptive feedback, and reflect on why particular choices were appropriate in context.

“Pragmatic competence is not simply a matter of knowing what a particular expression means,” claim Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani. “Teachers also need to understand how their linguistic choices interact with social relationships, cultural expectations, and the context of an interaction. Our findings suggest that immersive VR can create meaningful opportunities to practice these context-sensitive choices through interaction, feedback, and reflection.”

A distinctive feature of the study is its integration of AI-driven interaction with a socio-culturally responsive approach. Rather than using VR solely to reproduce conventional language exercises, the intervention incorporated sociocultural dimensions of communication, including speech acts, power relations, and social distance.

The researchers emphasize that VR is not a replacement for human interaction or conventional teacher education. Instead, immersive technology may provide an additional environment for professional learning, particularly in EFL contexts where opportunities for authentic interaction may be constrained.

Further research is needed to determine whether improvements in pragmatic competence are sustained over time and how effectively skills developed in immersive simulations transfer to teachers’ real-world professional and classroom interactions.

The findings contribute to research on technology-enhanced language teacher education by demonstrating the potential of immersive, AI-supported environments to support the development of English teachers’ pragmatic competence. They also highlight the importance of combining technological innovation with sociocultural awareness, adaptive feedback, and reflective practice when designing professional learning experiences.

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Journal

ECNU Review of Education

DOI

10.1177/20965311261472506 

What determines whether university students will continue using ChatGPT?

 What factors influence students’ decisions about whether they will continue to use ChatGPT for learning in the future? This was the question addressed by a new study from ELTE’s Faculty of Informatics, which used an interpretable machine learning framework to identify the factors that most strongly influence the use of generative artificial intelligence in higher education.

A study published in the Q1/D1-ranked journal Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence folyóiratban megjelent tanulmány published by Elsevier, examined the factors that influence students’ intention to continue using ChatGPT for academic purposes in the future.

The research was conducted by Chaman Verma, a member of the Department of Media and Educational Informatics at the Faculty of Informatics, Eötvös Loránd University, as part of the University Excellence Scholarship Program (EKÖP-24).

What really matters when it comes to using ChatGPT?

The study analysed questionnaire responses from 166 university students. Using interpretable machine learning methods, the researcher examined which factors play a decisive role in students’ intention to continue using ChatGPT in their learning. The results show that key factors include learning support, accessibility, academic engagement, usability, and the perceived reliability of the tool. In other words, students are more likely to incorporate ChatGPT into their learning processes if they perceive it as genuinely useful—an instrument that helps them understand complex concepts, supports them in completing assignments, and contributes to more effective learning.

Beyond usefulness, trust is also key

At the same time, the research highlights that the accuracy of responses, the reliability of the tool, and academic integrity remain key issues in the use of generative artificial intelligence in higher education. Students’ attitudes towards ChatGPT are influenced not only by how effectively the tool can support their learning, but also by how reliable they perceive it to be and how they view the possibilities for using it responsibly in an academic environment.

The study contributes new findings to research on the use of artificial intelligence in education and offers useful, evidence-based insights for educators, higher education institutions, and policymakers. The findings may help ensure that generative artificial intelligence tools can responsibly, consciously, and effectively support teaching and learning in higher education in the future.

Read the original study in English

Nearly one third of college-age ‘BORG’ drinkers report blacking out

  A newly popular college drinking trend, the blackout rage gallon (BORG), fosters binge drinking and can lead to a host of alcohol-related harms, according to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, published at Rutgers University.

 

Caption

BORGs (blackout rage gallons) on brick steps

Credit

Prevalent in the drinking culture at many U.S. colleges and universities since around 2020, BORGs are one-gallon plastic jugs filled with alcohol and a choice of mixings and flavorings. Preparation for a BORG event, which is often a daytime gathering such as a tailgate or festival, typically involves decorating one’s personal BORG with a clever phrase or social-media-ready pun--for example, “It’s BORG o’clock somewhere” or “BORG to be wild.”

“Excessive drinking in young adults has been fueled by drinking games for many decades,” says lead researcher Andrea C. King, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “But the mixing of hard liquor and additive flavorings in BORGs may be particularly harmful given the sweetness of the beverage and the lure of sharing one’s BORG and tasting others’ concoctions.”

The gallon-sized drink can contain up to a fifth of liquor, or about 17 standard drinks, according to survey answers obtained from more than 100 study participants from a range of private and public U.S. colleges and universities. King’s study is the first to present data on BORG use, as well as users’ and non-users’ perceptions and attitudes, positive and negative consequences, and future intentions.

“Nearly one third of respondents said they experienced a blackout from a BORG event,” says King. “While almost all reported they got buzzed or drunk, some (17%) vomited, and many (59%) said or did embarrassing things, we know that blackouts—that is, disruptions in memory consolidation due to heavy imbibing of alcohol—are a more serious consequence.”

The study also refers to reports of BORG use resulting in injuries and emergency room visits in several instances.

Such findings underscore misconceptions about BORGs, which social-media influencers originally touted as supporting harm-reduction efforts: Some BORG recipe ingredients shared online include electrolytes, caffeine, and/or water to offset a hangover or minimize drunkenness. The study’s data show that BORGs do not support these positive effects.

“BORG use was fueled on social media during the pandemic as a way to reduce virus transmission and drink contamination,” adds King. Yet study participants reported frequently sharing their BORGs with others. Further, they are not simply a pandemic-based phenomenon as BORG use remains popular at special events, day drinking parties, or tailgating before sporting games.

Despite the incidence of alcohol-related harms, many participants said they will likely continue to engage in BORG drinking. Yet, studies such as King’s can inform prevention and education efforts, starting with awareness on the part of both students and parents.

“Having an open discussion can go a long way toward reducing harms at college,” says King. “There are choice points along the way, ranging from whether to attend a BORG event, and if one does attend, whether to bring a BORG beverage and how much (if any) alcohol to put in the beverage. It doesn’t have to be all-or-none, as being aware and mindful to minimize risks can be key.”

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Journal

Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

DOI

10.15288/jsad.25-00414 

College students are getting enough protein but want healthier options

 

A new University of Maine study*^ has identified what researchers describe as a campus protein challenge. Although students generally consumed adequate amounts of protein, many reported that campus dining halls failed to provide protein choices they considered flavorful, appealing or prepared in ways they viewed as healthful. 

Instead of asking for more protein, students described wanting better protein experiences, greater variety, better preparation, higher-quality and less heavily processed protein options and meals they were actually excited to eat. 

That distinction could have important implications for campus dining programs, which often evaluate menus based on nutritional adequacy but may overlook whether students perceive those foods as desirable enough to choose. 

"Having protein on the menu doesn't necessarily mean students see it as a good option," said Jade McNamara, Ph.D., corresponding author and researcher in the University of Maine School of Food and Agriculture. "Our findings suggest campuses should think beyond simply providing protein and consider whether students have access to protein choices they find flavorful, varied and prepared in ways they perceive as healthful." 

Evidence of the campus protein challenge 

Researchers surveyed 501 University of Maine undergraduates and conducted focus groups with 20 students. 

Students appeared to be meeting protein recommendations. Participants scored an average 4.8 out of 5 on the total protein foods component of the Short Healthy Eating Index, indicating generally adequate protein intake. 

However, qualitative research analysis of the focus groups revealed that students repeatedly described campus dining halls as barriers to accessing protein foods they actually wanted to eat. 

When describing their experience with protein foods on campus, participants cited: 

• Limited variety and unappealing options  

• Heavily processed choices  

• Fried preparation methods  

• Inconsistent quality  

• Flavorless preparations  

• Limited healthy options  

One student described campus dining as having, "…the slim pickings for healthy foods that are protein-rich." Another said, "Even if they do offer more protein-rich options... they're just not appetizing." 

Researchers believe the issue may be less about protein quantity and more about protein quality, appeal and accessibility. 

The protein challenge reflects broader barriers to healthy eating 

Students' frustrations with protein were part of a larger nutrition picture. 

The average Healthy Eating Index score was just 47.7 out of 100 in this sample of undergraduate students, and one in three students (33.7%) experienced low or very low food security. 

Students described multiple barriers to healthier eating, including 

• Rising food costs  

• Limited time  

• Restricted kitchen access  

• Minimal cooking equipment  

• Transportation challenges  

• Residence hall living  

For many students, the reality of campus life meant preparing meals with little more than a microwave while relying heavily on dining halls that often failed to provide protein options they considered appealing. 

Students see promise in meal kits 

Although nearly 90% of students had never used a meal-kit delivery service, many believed meal kits could help address some of the barriers they experienced. 

Students valued: 

• Convenience  

• Simple preparation  

• Portioned ingredients  

• Customizable meals  

Affordability remained the biggest concern, suggesting future campus meal-kit programs would need to balance convenience with cost. 

What this means for campus dining 

The findings suggest the next opportunity for campus dining may not be serving more protein, but serving protein in ways students are more likely to choose. 

Researchers say future campus food solutions should prioritize protein options that are: 

• Flavorful  

• Varied  

• High-quality 

• Convenient  

• Affordable  

• Prepared in ways students perceive as healthful (e.g., not fried, not cooked in a lot of grease) 

• Easy to incorporate into busy student lifestyles  

The findings also provide a roadmap for evaluating practical meal solutions designed around students' real-world preferences. 

For foodservice operators, that could include building meals around versatile, flavorful proteins that pair naturally with vegetables, whole grains and globally inspired flavors to improve both the appeal and overall quality of campus meals. 

Autistic children ages 4-6 showed improved social skills after summer program

 A summer intervention program for autistic children ages 4-6 with no intellectual disability significantly improved their social performance, according to a study by researchers at the Institute for Autism Research (IAR) at the University at Buffalo. It was published in Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders in July.

“Completion of our 5-week summerMAXyc program was associated with significant social, behavioral and autism symptom benefits for the children,” says Christopher J. Lopata, PsyD, co-author on the study and co-founder/co-director of the IAR with Marcus L. Thomeer, PhD; both are professors of pediatrics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. “Developing such foundational skills early in development sets the stage for development of more advanced skills later in childhood, adolescence and adulthood, thus leading to better long-term outcomes.”

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Thomeer notes that while programs for autistic children with no intellectual disability ages 4-6 do exist, few provide intensive social programming. This population also tends to engage in significantly fewer group recreational activities in general than their peers without autism, further limiting social development opportunities.

“This constitutes a significant gap in social intervention development and service provision, which prompted our interest in developing such a program for this population,” he says.

Five weeks, five days a week

The intensive summerMAXyc program was conducted five-days-a-week over five weeks in the summer. The program follows a similar model to that of the IAR’s successful, evidence-based summerMAX program for older children, which has helped improve the social skills of hundreds of children since it began 23 years ago.

In the summerMAXyc program, each 6-hour day included 8 cycles of 30 minutes each, which began with 10 minutes of instruction in particular skills, such as having a conversation or accepting consequences, followed by a 20-minute cooperative activity.

According to the study, the children found that the program was fun and helped them learn skills and make new friends. Average child satisfaction was 14.9 out of a possible 15 with parent satisfaction at 69.8 out of a possible 70. Parents reported significant improvement in the children’s social skills, behaviors and autism symptoms.

There is broad consensus that earlier intervention is associated with better outcomes for autistic children. And parents are often the first to recognize the need.

“Parents reach out to us because their child has difficulty navigating the social world,” says Thomeer. “They describe their autistic children as wanting to have friends but not knowing what to do in social situations.”

Families noticed the difference

Over the course of their child’s participation in summerMAXyc, Thomeer says, parents reported that other family members began to notice the child playing with others, not just playing alone. They also noticed that the child now makes eye contact, asks about others, plays games without getting upset and can recognize and understand different emotions.

According to Thomeer, a mother of one of the participants reported that her child not only noticed that she was frustrated about something, but also told her to “squeeze the orange,” a technique the children are taught where they squeeze an imaginary orange and take a deep breath in order to calm themselves down.

One of the study’s major strengths involved the use of objective observers to assess the children’s social performance. According to Lopata, parents are a critical source of information, however there is a risk of bias because they know that their children are in the intervention. Most social skills intervention studies for autistic children rely on parent ratings alone and therefore suffer from this limitation, he adds.

 “Our use of masked observers – trained individuals – eliminated that risk because they were unaware that the children received an intervention,” says Lopata.

The authors also note that the intervention was similarly successful in improving the children’s social performance and autism features regardless of the child’s age, IQ level, communication ability or level of diagnostic symptoms.

“There is widespread recognition in the field that no intervention will be effective for all autistic children and there is a significant need to determine which children are most likely to benefit from a specific intervention,” says Lopata. “Answering this question can help ensure that scarce resources are efficiently allocated and that children receiving a given intervention are most likely to benefit.”

The next step is to test the intervention in a large-scale randomized clinical trial with a control group, which would be a first for such a social intervention in this population.

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Journal

Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

DOI

10.1007/s41252-026-00511-2 

Sibling interactions are an untapped resource for early engineering education

While the roles of parents in a child's education are well-studied, new research is taking a look at the role a sibling plays in collaborating on educational projects, and they found a few key roles often developed in this working relationship.

Recently published research by researchers at Binghamton University and Indiana University recorded nearly 13 hours of video of six pairs of siblings, ages 2-8, working on at-home engineering projects. These projects included building a rain gauge, a paper roller coaster, and an animal house to protect animals from the elements. They found that over the course of these projects, clear roles of the older sibling developed.

The most common was a colleague/peer arrangement, in which both siblings worked side by side on the task. Older siblings in this role often positioned their younger sibling as a partner or collaborator.

Second, there were many times when the older sibling acted as a "lead engineer" on the project -- clearly the one in charge. Some of the examples recorded on video varied: one showed the younger sibling being ignored, while in another, the younger sibling simply waited for instructions from the older sibling before carrying out a task. 

Third and most uniquely, other examples showed the older sibling taking on the form of a provocateur, intentionally teasing or provoking emotions from the younger sibling during a task. In one example of this, provocation did not hinder the project; instead, it led the younger sibling to defend their opinions to the older sibling. Other times, the younger sibling stayed engaged even in the wake of provocation, and also helped build toward solving a problem.

The roles siblings took on largely depended on the existing relationship they had, and the working relationships they developed varied greatly. Still, researchers found that older siblings can be natural and effective teachers in education. Sibling relationships can be a safe space for children to develop engineering-related skills in a way they can't with their friends or teachers. The researchers suggest that more educational engineering programs should be developed that tap into the sibling relationship at home and in after-school programs.

If you would like to interview the lead researcher on this study, Binghamton University Associate Professor Amber Simpson, please send an email to David Hermanovitch at dhermanovitc@binghamton.edu.

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Journal

Journal of Engineering Education

DOI

10.1002/jee.70083 

Combining words with gestures helps children learn

 As children return to school, new research from the University of Iowa shows how parents can help their kids learn while literally being on the same wavelength. 

In a new study, neuroscientists found that adults who use speech and hand gestures when interacting with their child achieve “neural synchrony,” where brain waves in the parent match their child’s. Ece Demir-Lira, associate professor in the UI Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the study’s corresponding author, says combining words with hand gestures can be applied by parents and teachers alike.

“We find it’s not how much time a parent is with their child, it’s more about the nature of the interaction,” Demir-Lira says. “Those interactions can be even richer if the parent provides additional cues to their children via speech and gesture or encourages their kids to gesture with their hands, too.”

Demir-Lira and graduate student Ying Li wanted to understand how parents help young children solve problems. The researchers especially were interested in whether a particular level of engagement — which they call scaffolding — was best to help kids learn. Previous research has indicated kids learn best when instructions include speech and gestures, but those studies didn’t include parents and children working together or monitor in real time what was happening in their brains.

The researchers enlisted 42 parent-child couples to complete variations of a seven-piece puzzle. The only instructions they were given was the shape to make with the puzzle pieces, such as a bird or a house. While they worked to complete the puzzle, the researchers monitored both participants’ brain activity simultaneously every 30 seconds through a technique that measures blood flow in the brain. The team also recorded the parent-child couples, to track their speech and actions during the puzzle tasks.

In their study, Demir-Lira and Li found that when the parent added gestures to their verbal instructions, blood flow rose in the adult brain’s perception area — the region that senses another’s success or struggle — and simultaneously in the problem-solving area of the child’s brain.

“The same brain wave in the parent and child goes up and down in synchrony together, like two dancers dancing,” Demir-Lira says.

The researchers found that adults who relied only on speech to guide their child with solving a puzzle showed a corresponding rise in brain activity at the beginning, but that connection weakened as the task progressed before rebounding toward the end. Demir-Lira interprets this as an initial burst of connectivity as the two attempt to complete the puzzle, followed by a period when the child loses focus, and ending with another attempt by the parent to help the child complete the puzzle. 

Parents who gave no verbal or physical instructions had the lowest linked brain activity with their child, the researchers report.

While not directly addressed in this study, the researchers believe parents who used speech and gesture were more successful in guiding their child in puzzle solving because they could accentuate a vocal cue by pointing to a puzzle piece or showing how two puzzle pieces go together.

“We think speech and gesture divide the information; they complement each other. Gesture implies spatial relations, which speech is not as good at accomplishing,” Demir-Lira says.

She has seen this when helping her 9-year-old daughter with math problems. For example, when Demir-Lira combines oral instructions with gestures to highlight both sides of a math equation, she says her daughter seems to more easily grasp the material.

“It’s about being more efficient at packaging the information, so the child can understand it more easily,” she says.

The study is titled “Parental speech and gesture scaffolding moderate the neural dynamics of parent-child synchrony.” It was published online on June 26 in the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Li is the study’s first author.

The National Institutes of Health, through the Clinical and Translational Science Awards program, funded the research. Li’s involvement was funded by an NIH Predoctoral Training Grant.

 

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Journal

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

DOI

10.1016/j.dcn.2026.101771