The Revisiting English for Specific Purposes in Transdisciplinary Environments (RESPITE) project - Phase 1 Dataset

This dataset presents the data elicited from the first phase (first cycle of implementation) of the Revisiting English for Specific Purposes in Transdisciplinary Environments (RESPITE) project, which was designed and implemented at the Cyprus University of Technology in Spring 2024. The project involved the introduction of a transdisciplinary approach to the teaching of two different English for Academic Purposes courses. The idea behind the project is that students of 1) English for Commerce, Finance and Shipping and 2) English for Agricultural Sciences, Biotechnology and Food Science collaborated for seven-eight weeks during the semester to locate real-life problems that either the local or the wider community faced; bringing different expertise to the team, the students worked together on making suggestions on possible solutions to these problems, so that sustainability and societal change was promoted.

The research questions were the following:
RQ1: What are students' views on this intervention?
RQ2: How beneficial do students find this intervention for their learning experience?
RQ3: What challenges do students encounter during the implementation of this intervention?
RQ4: What changes do students suggest for improving this intervention?

The data were elicited through the use of two research instruments: 1) students' weekly reflections on the experience, and 2) an electronic questionnaire with Likert-scale and open-ended questions.