Exploring the Use of VoiceThread in a Peer-Mentored EMI Classroom: A Q-Methodology Protocol

Abstract

The aim of this research is to elicit and characterize students’ perspective of using VoiceThread in a peer-mentored English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) classroom. VoiceThread will be used both inside and outside the classroom to improve students’ engagement and educational experience. An online peer mentoring community will be established to foster the interaction among junior and sophomore students in a business class. Since this will entail making a quantitative analysis of subjective data, the novel Q-methodology will be used to interview 20 sophomore students and ask them to rank 40 statements (Q-set) related to their experience in the classroom. A factor analysis will be used to determine the number of factors, and individuals who are closely related within each category will be identified based on a correlation analysis. The data will be analyzed and evaluated using the PQMethod software in accordance with the best practice in Q-methodology and the results will show whether people who have similar ideas have similar operant characteristics. The significance of a Q-study is that it facilitates an in-depth examination of various perspectives, perceptual consensuses, and disagreements. The findings of this study can be used to generate additional hypothesis-testing experiments for future research and are also expected to have numerous theoretical and practical implications.

Introduction

Taiwan’s Ministry of Education intended to promote English as a second official language when it released the Blueprint for Transforming Taiwan into a Bilingual Nation by 2030. President Tsai Ing-Wen’s bilingual country policies, which included the university level, were designed to recruit more international students. This particularly applied to the Southbound policy, which was aimed to attract more students from Asia. As part of its effort to attract foreign students, narrow the demographic divide, and improve the country’s competitiveness with universities in Hong Kong and Singapore, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education is working to implement English and Chinese Bilingual Education in schools, as well as in more English-language postgraduate courses at Taiwanese universities (Shelton, 2024). The Ministry has designated institutions responsible for integrating English instruction into undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs in the coming years. The intent and goals of the Bilingual National Plan 2030 are obviously admirable, but the term “bilingual” is broad and needs to be narrowed. Bilingual education in Taiwan must be considered based on socio-economic and demographic factors. Numerous higher education institutions are expected to enhance language education and create a more multilingual environment to attract international students. This will foster greater cross-cultural learning and communication, ultimately achieving the goal of “Internationalization at Home.”

According to prior research, Taiwan has a long way to go before it becomes bilingual, although English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has begun to be popular in higher education due to the trend of internationalization. EMI is the use of English to teach academic subjects other than English in countries where English is not the dominant language. Administrators and policymakers are encouraging educators to incorporate EMI into their classroom discussions and practice reflections. Taiwanese instructors are motivated to improve their English language skills in order to meet the teaching objectives and standards of their disciplines by attending a variety of workshops and training sessions designed to assist them to implement various instructional models and approaches. All of this enables teachers in EMI classrooms to enhance their methods of assessing and instructing domestic and international students (Chien & Valcke, 2020; Huang, 2020, 2024).

Instructors must not only prepare their academic subjects, but also their language abilities. When giving instructions or explaining concepts to students, teachers must always ensure that the language and phrases they use, and the pace at which they communicate them, are clear and easy to follow. Rather than just listening to the teacher, students must be encouraged to actively participate in class discussions, reading assignments, and writing exercises. This means that immediate changes are required that involve abandoning traditional educational strategies, techniques, methods, and resources. Combining computer-mediated techniques with EMI has been shown to be a more authentic, active, and participatory means of learning. Student retention in EMI programs is critical to the long-term viability of higher education institutions (Gazza & Hunker, 2014). Fostering a community in an online learning environment, as envisioned in the community of inquiry model, is one way for colleges and universities to assist EMI learners in dual-degree programs. It seems that an online peer mentoring community may help to foster the cultivation of knowledge, exchange of ideas and information, and support students’ learning in EMI settings.

People who were born during the development of digital technology and the Internet, between 1982 and 2000, are referred to as “millennials.” The generation of students who came directly after the millennials and are expected to be the most diverse are Generation Z. They are thought to be the most technologically savvy students (Shatto & Erwin, 2017), who are less interested in learning from textbooks and prefer to use internet search engines and watch videos to obtain knowledge. Online interactions and education have become second nature to millennials and Generation Z, who have grown up in a culture driven by technology. The vast majority of undergraduate students are millennials and generation Z, who learn in ways that differ from those of previous generations; hence, they have nothing in common with them. Millennials and Generation Z have grown up in a culture that values online interaction and technological devices as means of expression, engagement, and education (Skinner et al., 2018). As a result, it may be difficult to teach fundamental business courses to millennials in Taiwan using the traditional lecture method.

In many online courses, students only communicate with one another via text. According to cognitive scientists, nonverbal communication accounts for approximately 93% of all communication. Tone of voice, cadence, and body language all communicate more than words or text alone. Although teachers could easily spend years researching and testing the vast variety of available online educational technologies and strategies, VoiceThread (VT) is one such educational tool that is becoming widely known in various educational institutions for its ability to facilitate the transmission of a social presence in online communities, leading to overwhelmingly positive feedback from both instructors and students (Chen & Bogachenko, 2023; Ching & Hsu, 2013; Hoplamazian & Monthie, 2017). It is a cloud-based discussion software that has been shown to improve students’ social presence, with a particular focus on Generation Z students who are seeking both individual and group learning opportunities. Visual images, videos, documents, presentations, sound effects, annotation, and background music appear to be the most effective learning tools for an asynchronous conversation via VT. It also enables users to converse and comment via text, microphone, webcam, phone, or uploaded audio files. Teachers can use VT to capture students’ attention and focus, making learning more enjoyable. Students can access VT at any time and record or replay it on a variety of devices, which is a feature that millennials find attractive. They can also benefit from using video/audio to improve their content memorization and anticipation. Apart from generational differences, an appealing method to improve millennials’ learning experience in the classroom is proposed in this study based on the use of VT for audio and video recording asynchronous discussions (Brunvand & Byrd, 2011; Chang & Windeatt, 2021; McCormack, 2010; Panettieri, 2013).

Despite the recent promotion of VT by many educators and practitioners, few researchers have explored its use in an English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) classroom. Although EMI is a popular trend in higher education due to the internationalization and demand for English as a second language, which are expected to continue, it emphasizes quantity over quality. Therefore, regardless of the government’s goals or the influence of EMI on university rankings and funding decisions, there is a need to shift this emphasis from quantity to quality. EMI has evolved into a global practice that is expected to become more popular as English continues to become the major global language and the demand for English proficiency grows. In this context, additional research is required in order to establish clear curriculum guidelines at all educational levels, as well as quality control mechanisms.

As mentioned in the Abstract, the purpose of this Q-study is to identify and categorize students’ perception of using VT in a peer-mentored EMI classroom. Q-methodology can be used as a tool for program evaluation to examine students’ perception of the strengths and weaknesses of this teaching approach and develop a plan for continuous improvement. The structure of the study is as follows: (i) the theoretical and empirical background is presented in the first part, (ii) the related literature is reviewed in the second part, (iii) the methodology used to conduct the study is described in the third part, and the limitations of the study and its significance are discussed in the last part.

Literature Review

Use of VoiceThread in the Classroom

VoiceThread (https://voicethread.com/) enables teachers and students to communicate using video, voice, and text (see Figure 1). Instructors and students can also share YouTube videos, PowerPoint slides, and other electronic documents. VoiceThread in multimedia presentations can enable students to learn more effectively and another option is to use a drawing tool or a voice/video overlay. Users can respond via smartphone, tablet, desktop, or laptop computer. They can access audio and video recordings that have been saved on the platform via a cloud server. VT is simple to use and has been shown to assist students in learning course content and to participate in educational activities. Students who use VT can interact with their classmates and contribute to the educational process rather than being passive learners by forming learning communities or study groups (Brunvand & Byrd, 2011; Ching & Hsu, 2013, 2015; Delmas, 2017).

Figure 1.

Features of VoiceThread.

It has been demonstrated that the integration of VT into online learning environments promotes collaborative learning in group settings, fosters a sense of community among students, enhances their emotional connection, and increases their satisfaction. VT may be useful in assisting students to develop their self-directed learning ability, as well as presentation skills. Teachers have been given VT to elicit additional responses. When students receive audio feedback, they may feel that the instructor cares for them more, have a better understanding of the instructor’s comments, and feel less isolated (Fox, 2017). Students can benefit from voice discussions by reducing their anxiety and sharpening their communication skills. VT exhibits a sense of community in students. The majority of online students want their classes to include more voice discussions. Many students prefer oral discussions to text comments because they enable students to retain information (Pacansky-Brock, 2014).

On the other hand, some recent researchers have found that VT requires students to prepare their responses more thoroughly before posting them, which increases their workload. Others have found that some students are embarrassed when hearing their own voices and sharing their oral output with a larger audience, which undermines their confidence in their grammatical accuracy. VT may have some disadvantages. Faculty may find it time consuming to create smaller groups within VT and manually navigate to each submission for grading. Some students and instructors may have difficulty comprehending how to use VT. Postings and comments on VT may appear to be “busy work” unrelated to larger course assessments. Students may have difficulty managing their time if they are required to wait for other students to post before they can complete their required responses (Fredricks et al., 2016).

Community of Inquiry

According to the Community of Inquiry (CoI) theoretical framework, when learners become immersed in a community of inquiry, they can engage in dialogue and argumentation, while also developing their critical thinking and metacognitive assessment abilities. This framework is based on a collaborative-constructivist approach to learning, which is based on a mixture of shared discourse and individual reflection through iterative inquiry (Castellanos-Reyes, 2020). It reflects the learning process as a collaborative inquiry made possible by shared teaching and a social presence. According to Garrison et al. (2010), a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning community of inquiry is formed in the overlap of social, cognitive, and teaching presences. A social presence refers to individuals’ ability to present themselves as ‘real people’ through a communication medium, a cognitive presence is defined as individuals’ ability to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and a teaching presence is the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes to support learning (Carroll et al., 2024; Dennis, 2020; Fiock, 2020; Garrison et al., 2010; Swan & Ice, 2010).

An educational CoI is a group of people who work together to construct personal meaning and confirm mutual understanding through purposeful critical discourse and reflection (Garrison, 2017; Garrison & Akyol, 2015). Furthermore, this element distinguishes traditional community education from online education (Suppiah et al., 2020). A social presence enables students to determine if their community is a safe space for self-identification, expression, and the acceptance of criticism. It helps to create a collaborative environment, while teaching presence serves as the glue that holds a purposeful community of inquiry together. Learners would be unable to critique peer arguments or defend their position in the community without social support and acknowledgement, and they may struggle to focus or engage in systematic learning without the sense of a teaching presence (Yang & Su, 2021). Garrison (2017) developed the CoI framework to facilitate community development in online environments, drawing on Dewey’s emphasis on collaborative constructivism. Cognitive, social, and teaching presences work in harmony to assist students in developing strong community bonds that can support their individual learning (Castellanos-Reyes, 2020; Duran, 2020; Fiock, 2020; Kirby & Hulan, 2016; Zhang, 2020).

Peer Mentoring

Mentors are defined as people who are committed to providing essential support to mentees in order to help them to adapt to the organizational culture and overcome barriers to developing their career. Mentoring serves three main purposes: (1) Professional development, including coaching, protection, challenging arrangements, exposure, and visibility; (2) Psychosocial support, which includes acceptance, instruction, counseling, acknowledgment, and friendship; and (3) Role model: the apprentice identifies with the master, works to catch up with the master, trusts and respects the master, who serves as a role model, and is a committed to high standards. Senior employees or supervisors mentor junior or new employees, offering career development guidance and advice to help them to adjust to the workplace culture. All mentor-mentee relationships eventually end, and the mentee is able to develop independently. The mentor-mentee relationship is not only a means of transferring knowledge and skills, but it also represents their commitment to support each other’s overall development and well-being (Cherkowski & Walker, 2019; Woloshyn et al., 2019). Faculty members at Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)-accredited business schools have identified mentorship, business-student interaction, and alumni’s advice as having the greatest impact on students. Dollinger et al. (2019) observe that it is natural for mentees and mentors to have different motives for participating, but explicitly and transparently stating these differences in advance can help to avoid misunderstandings between them.

Peer mentoring, in which seniors share their experience with first-year students, is a strategy that is frequently used by institutions to assist students to make the transition from secondary to post-secondary education. According to a student transition study, students who struggle with change may underperform and/or drop out of college; therefore, it is critical to navigate this transition successfully. Mentors must share their perspective and knowledge of universities and academic programs with other students as part of their leadership role. Mentors act as a liaison between students and teachers and as a source of emotional support for students. Much of the research on peer mentoring has been focused on the experience and benefits to freshmen, such as increased integration and association with universities when compared to a control group, as well as improved average grades in some cases. According to Pinilla et al.’s (2015) work, peer mentoring is present in Facebook groups formed by undergraduate medical students. These groups appear to be effective in supporting responsive and large-scale peer-mentoring structures as well. Peer mentoring groups that assist students with academic issues and exam preparation may benefit from incorporating social media into their activity portfolio. Peer mentoring fosters a sense of connection and belonging, which is inextricably linked to a sense of community and the supportive social networks it fosters. Peer mentors who excel exemplify empathy, dependability, and support. According to these findings, their primary role is to provide social and emotional support to new students to help them to reach their full potential.

Furthermore, mentoring enables mentors to foster friendship and develop a genuine connection between themselves and the mentee. They may feel less isolated when mentoring peers because they are interacting with others who share their cultural and professional values. Mentoring also instills a sense of belonging, purpose, identity, and meaning in the mentor. Additionally, peer mentors can benefit by developing their skills because they are typically full-time students who need to overcome logistical, interpersonal, and emotional barriers while mentoring alongside their academic and other responsibilities. Tasks such as communicating with mentees, meeting them in person, and scheduling a meeting at a time convenient to both of them, can be difficult. Mentors may become dissatisfied if mentees disregard their assistance, fail to respond, miss scheduled meetings, or require immediate attention. All these situations may have an emotional impact on peer mentors who are unaware of their mentees’ perception of them or whether they possess the necessary skills to assume the role. On the other hand, they have the potential to be beneficial by enabling peer mentors to grow and learn, while also increasing their employability by providing them with valuable experience that fosters their resilience and team-building skills.

The rapid growth of the Internet has facilitated the implementation of e-mentoring, which is also known as Electronic Mentoring, Telementoring, Cybermentoring or Virtual Mentoring, in recent years. E-mentoring is defined as a system in which mentors assist mentees to develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities based on electronic communication, so that they can seek corporate mentoring and benefit from it. This system enables the two parties to engage in both synchronous and asynchronous communication, and records of e-mentoring conversations are kept so that they can both refer to and review developments in a timely manner. The use of e-mentoring in conjunction with industry-academia collaboration not only improves students’ professional capabilities, but also bridges the learning-application gap. Furthermore, asynchronous e-mentorship provides students with more time to reflect than face-to-face discussions, and they are not required to provide immediate feedback, which encourages them to interact and contributes to their learning outcomes and employment opportunities (Kaufman, Levine, et al., 2022).

Teachers’ instructional methods have been dramatically altered by the rapid spread of COVID-19 (Kaufman, Levine, et al., 2022; Kaufman, Wright, et al., 2022). They are now frequently required to teach their students remotely instead of face-to-face in a classroom setting. This abrupt shift from face-to-face to remote learning has caused several challenges that have necessitated the rethinking of established teaching practices. Online peer mentoring will provide students with meaningful learning opportunities in a distance learning environment.

Procedure

Course Design

This method will be utilized in a Marketing Management course, in which all undergraduate students are required to participate, being especially designed to prepare students for careers in general management or a specialized staff function called Marketing Management. A pilot study was carried out in an EMI Human Resource Management course during a previous semester. The Marketing Management course covers marketing strategies, brand management, consumer relations, impact of technology on consumers, digital marketing, global Marketing Management practices, and current Marketing Management issues. Attendance and participation will be graded, as will 16 VT activities (both in-class and out-of-class), as well as midterm and final exams. Each participant has prior experience of web-based education, and many of them are acquainted with one another, as well as with the moderator. The procedure planned for each class session is (1) VT is used to introduce 10 technical terms; (2) Lecture with PowerPoint slides; (3) Case study; (4) Group discussion of case study; and (5) Self-evaluation activities (i.e., 10 multiple choice questions prepared by the instructor).

The research will take place at a University in northern Taiwan over an 18-week required EMI course with 20 sophomores enrolled (three international and 17 domestic students). VT will be integrated into a Marketing Management classroom as part of a dual degree program of Business Administration. The course will be delivered in three one-hour sessions per week in a traditional classroom setting. Two Indian practitioners will co-teach this course for four sessions (see course curriculum), after which they will mentor learners via a virtual space for the rest of the semester. Both formative and summative assessments will be made, with the formative evaluation taking place via VT.

Course Implementation

Establish a Peer Mentorship Program

Junior or sophomore students who successfully complete this program will be able to assist new students to adjust to university life and connect them to the necessary resources. Those students interested in becoming mentors must complete and submit an application to the course instructor, in which they describe the types of mentees they can and will accept, as well as the types of referrals they can make. Mentors must complete a mentoring workshop session with the instructor prior to the beginning of the semester and are then provided with ongoing support throughout the semester. They must have a firm grasp on the mentorship role and the program’s framework, be familiar with the essential resources available to new students and have learnt how to communicate with the mentees via VT. Additionally, cultural diversity and other sensitive issues will be discussed. Mentors will be provided with a mentor manual, as well as various printed materials and online tools. They must have successfully completed an online assessment to receive their final reward and certificate. The Mentor Program is an entirely voluntary endeavor. Three to four students in the class are assigned a tutor in the same course, but they can decline the assignment if they wish. Mentors and mentees will meet for the first time during the first week of the program and they will be encouraged to reconnect throughout the first week of the semester. Subsequently, each group must decide whether to meet in small groups or on an individual basis via VT communication and whether to continue to communicate regularly throughout the semester, only via VT. Tutors will be officially recognized by the instructor through stipends and an official certificate. The following procedures should be completed via VT on a weekly basis:

(1) Mentees read the transcript provided by the instructor. It is related to the case study they learned in that specific week.

(2) Mentees provide their own formative assessment on a weekly basis.

(3) Mentees ask questions about what they learned this week.

(4) Mentors respond to their questions with a comment or a response.

(5) Mentors provide more examples and further explain the weekly course topics.

Using VT in the Classroom

The instructor had previously used VT and also participated in a free asynchronous workshop offered on the VT website. This course will be purchased with a single site VT user license (i.e., US$99 for access by 50 students). It will be available on the school’s Moodle Learning Management System to enable sophomore students to leave direct comments (LMS). For this project, the instructors will act as participant observers, trainers, and curriculum designers. VT will be used for both in-class and out-of-class activities on a weekly basis. Each student must find the answers to 10 technical terms (the answer keys are listed in the textbook) and submit them as a voice/audio file on a weekly basis for the in-class VT activity. Peer learning and collaboration will be encouraged throughout the course. Each student must participate in the VT out-of-class activities and answer the questions (i.e., formative evaluation) listed below:

(1) What points were most interesting?

(2) What points were most confusing?

(3) What did you want to say or inquire about this session?

Students can read and respond to the instructor’s messages on their profile. They must submit their first post within a week of the due date. This course only allows students to comment through voice or webcam in the lectures or for the out-of-class activities. The instructor will provide written instructions, grading rubrics, and duplication, with video instructions available in each VT discussion. Each week, the participants will be given the option of completing the assigned tasks in one of two ways. They can create multiple files for each assignment and delete them if they wish to practice more than once as long as they video or audio-record their responses and upload them, along with the task, for teacher feedback and peer response.

It is intended to provide asynchronous opportunities for participants to hear and see one another, as well as multiple means of engagement, and to keep learners motivated by providing options and making them more engaged (see Figure 2). When everything is finished, VT includes an excellent export tool that compresses the entire project into a single movie with all comments.

Figure 2.

A Screenshot of VoiceThread Being Used in the Classroom.

Research Design: Measuring Subjectivity

The Q-methodology will serve as the primary research tool to explore students’ perceptions. This approach, widely utilized in psychology and social sciences, examines individual “subjectivity.” Initially developed by psychologist William Stephenson, it provides a structured framework for subjective analysis (Burke, 2015; Shinebourne, 2009). According to McKeown and Thomas (2013), Q-methodology integrates psychometric and operational principles with statistical methods such as correlation and factor analysis to systematically and quantitatively explore subjective dimensions of human behavior. The set of statements used in the Q-sort is carefully derived to represent a “concourse,” encompassing all the ideas and opinions people express regarding the topic under study.

Q-methodology uniquely blends qualitative and quantitative approaches but does not aim to identify causation or generalize findings to demographic variables in large populations (Churruca et al., 2021). Its strength lies in uncovering patterns in participants’ perspectives, typically using a sample of 40–60 participants, although smaller samples are often sufficient (Alanazi et al., 2021; Van Exel et al., 2015). In Q-methodology, a larger sample size does not necessarily improve the study. Participants are not randomly chosen but are instead purposefully or strategically selected to represent diverse and strong viewpoints on the subject (Brown, 1993, 1996; Valenta & Wigger, 1997; Webler et al., 2009; Westbrook et al., 2013). The selection process ensures that the study captures a range of subjectivities relevant to the research focus.

Data Collection

The implementation of Q-methodology consists of five key stages: (i) identifying a broad set of items that capture diverse perspectives on the topic, known as the concourse, (ii) refining these items into a structured Q-sample (Q-statements or Q-sets) to ensure comprehensive representation, (iii) purposefully selecting the P-set (participants) to include individuals with relevant viewpoints rather than relying on random sampling, (iv) conducting Q-sorting, in which participants rank the Q-statements along a forced normal distribution based on their level of agreement, and (v) performing statistical analyses—including computing correlations among Q-sorts, conducting factor analysis, and deriving factor scores—followed by interpreting the extracted factors to uncover participant perspectives based on the results of the Q-factor analysis (see Figure 3) (Liu, 2013; McKeown & Thomas, 2013).

Figure 3.

Steps of Q-Methodology.

On the 17th week of the course, the instructor will interview the 20 Q-study students and solicit their feedback on this novel pedagogy. Semi-structured one-on-on interview will be conducted with the participants. Each Interview will last 40–60 min. Participants will be asked by those nine main questions (see Appendix A). The research instrument will be developed using a representative sample of 30 statements from the interviews that contain key ideas. The final Q-set of statements will be chosen based on a content analysis that consists of the technology, content, as well as the teacher and the participants. On completion of the course (i.e. the 18th week), the students will be instructed to divide the 30 Q-statements into three piles: those they believe to be most agreeable to their learning, those they believe to be least agreeable to their learning, and those they believe to be neutral. They will then be required to sort the 30 statements into a quasi-normal, symmetrical distribution in order to prioritize them according to the research question. They will be asked to rank order the 40 statements without bias, from most disagreeable (−4) to most agreeable (+4), while treating disagreements and agreements equally, resulting in Q-sorts on the answer sheet (see Figure 4). In other words, the 20 students will sort the 30 self-referential statements about this teaching method as the research participants.

Figure 4.

An Example of a Q-Sort.

Data Interpretation

The PQMethod statistical software program (http://schmolck.org/qmethod/downpqwin.htm) will be employed to analyze the Q-sorts, producing factor arrays and calculating the relationships between factors. This process ensures the integrity of the analysis by employing methods to preserve factor reliability. Unlike the Likert-scale approach, related statements will be evaluated using various statistical techniques, including correlation, centroid factor analysis, and manual (i.e. judgmental) rotation, to identify the key factors.

Survey research reveals correlations and factors between traits, whereas Q-methodology reveals correlations and factors between people and their opinions. The software also helps to identify distinguishing and consensus statements, emphasizing the similarities and differences between factors. The emergent factors are the various ways that participants’ Q-sorts will be grouped based on their perception of the instructional method. Participants who share similar viewpoints will agree with the same factor. An analysis of the students’ various perspectives will help the instructor to determine whether various aspects of the course need to be redesigned to improve its effectiveness in meeting different learning preferences. The methodology is particularly useful when researchers wish to understand and describe the variety of subjective viewpoints on an issue (Brown, 1993, 1996).

Research Ethics

This study has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (IRB No. NYCU-REC-111-069EF). All data collection procedures will adhere to ethical guidelines to protect participants, ensure confidentiality, obtain informed consent, and uphold scientific integrity. Written informed consent will be obtained from all participants, who will retain the right to withdraw from the study at any time. To safeguard anonymity and confidentiality, pseudonyms will be used. Measures will be implemented to minimize potential risks, and debriefing sessions will be conducted as needed. The study will be conducted with transparency, rigor, and impartiality to ensure accurate and unbiased reporting of results.