Bedfordshire PhD graduate awarded prestigious dissertation prize
Tue 18 February, 2025
A PhD graduate from the 亚色视频 has been named the recipient of the Jacqueline Ross TOEFL Dissertation Award, one of the most prestigious PhD accolades in the field of language testing.
Dr Nick Glasson studied for his PhD with the University鈥檚 Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) and the award-winning dissertation 鈥 titled 鈥Left to their own devices: Exploring interactional practices in an online group speaking task鈥 鈥 was praised by the external selection committee for its exceptional scholarship and significant contribution to the field.
The study investigates how interactional competence emerges in an online task completed by learners with different proficiency levels, offering valuable insights into its role in language assessment and overall language development.
Dr Glasson will receive the award at the Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC) in Bangkok this June, where he will be formally recognised for his outstanding research and receive a $2,500 (USD) prize.
Speaking about the win, Dr Glasson said: 鈥淚 was genuinely shocked to have won this prestigious award, but I think it鈥檚 a testament to the excellent support I have had from my supervisors and CRELLA more generally. I wanted to look at interactional competence in my thesis because it鈥檚 an area of language testing research that is of perennial interest but has been slow to develop in some ways. More than anything, my hope for the future is that language testing as an academic field takes a more active interest in the kind of insights qualitative methods like conversation analysis can provide.鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 obviously proud to have won the award for myself but actually just as proud to have won it for CRELLA and their excellent team. I could not have completed the PhD nor won this award without them!鈥
One of Dr Glasson鈥檚 PhD supervisors, Dr Nahal Khabbazbashi 鈥 Associate Professor in Language Assessment 鈥 added: 鈥淚 am so incredibly proud of Nick's wonderful achievement. The Jacqueline Ross TOEFL Dissertation Award is the most prestigious PhD award in language testing and is a testament to Nick's excellent scholarship, dedication, and significant contribution to the field. And he managed to achieve this with a full-time job, a family, and an unwavering sense of humour! This is a huge win not only for Nick but also for CRELLA and the 亚色视频. Many congratulations and wishing Nick every success in the future.鈥
Dr Glasson鈥檚 success reinforces CRELLA鈥檚 position as a leading research centre in language assessment and highlights the 亚色视频鈥檚 commitment to pioneering research that advances the field. In the last Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), CRELLA placed above both Oxford and Cambridge in the English unit of assessment, ranking 3rd out of 92 submissions, with a huge 72% of their research classed as world-leading.
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