Luan Chau successfully graduated from LCC’s MA TESOL program in 2021. Luan embarked on one PhD program, and soon started his second PhD. Read about Luan’s experiences, challenges, and research projects here.

“Currently, I am a PhD student in the Educational Psychology program at the University of Minnesota, and I LOVE it so much! My mentor is a wonderful person. My colleagues and peers are supportive and fun. I not only work with them effectively in groups and projects, but I also hang out with them after studies and work. The most important thing is I have a research group and lab members who are on the same boat with me, so I am not lonely.”  

“One project I am working on for my first year PhD involves the use of a Large Language Model chatbot to debunk misconceptions about artificial intelligence among education stakeholders (e.g., students, teachers, parents, policymakers). Our modern society is AI-powered, which means educating people to be critical and ethical consumers of AI is an important mission. However, misinformation about the role of AI in education and society is ubiquitous. The aim of my project is to promote AI literacy among education stakeholders via real time interactions with a chatbot.” 

“The courses are hard but manageable. I earned a GPA of 4/4 for the first semester. I am serving as a Research Assistant (25%) and Teaching Assistant (25%), while juggling the coursework and my first-year PhD project. Some days, it may feel so overwhelming, but it is okay.” 

“Regarding the PhD Applied Linguistics at the University of Antwerp, in Belgium. I am still trying to finish it up and work remotely on it. I hope that I can defend that PhD in March 2025. The dissertation revolves around the use of keystroke logging technology to understand the cognitive processes involved in writing from multiple sources. Synthesis writing, or writing from multiple sources, is an important skill for higher education. However, many students in higher education struggle. For a long time, educators and researchers have only done research about writing and provide feedback based on students’ final products. Feedback based on only students’ essays can be ineffective as this type of feedback cannot consider the dynamic processes that occur during the writing process. With keystroke logging, I can now observe the whole writing process as it unfolds in an unobtrusive way. By recording every keystroke of students writing their essays, I can design educational materials and process-oriented feedback that actually helps students reflect on the strategies they chose and the decisions they made during their writing process and eventually improve their writing performance.” 

We are cheering for Luan as he continues his research in pursuit of his degrees.

Author: Robin Gingerich, Ph.D., MA TESOL Program Director at LCC International University.