This study investigates rice productivity in the coastal area of the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam focusing on relationships with the influences of seawater intrusion and recent changes in the land use at regional scale. We examined the statistical data on rice production at 30 districts of 4 provinces in the coastal area for the years 2003-2005, together with the average salinity concentration observed at 48 points in canals and rivers during the dry season. As an index of the extent of seawater intrusion to be compared with rice statistical data in each district, average salinity of each district was derived by using spatial interpolation from the data in the observation points. It was shown that seawater intrusion was the major factor leading to regional differences in rice cropping systems and land use patterns in the region. Rice cropping intensities, which is defined as the ratio of planted area to district area, decreased with increasing salinity level in canal water, but rice yields averaged over the district are independent of the salinity level. To avoid salinity stress to rice growth, rice cultivation in the coastal area is mainly undertaken during the period when seawater intrusion is weakened by the seasonal decrease in salinity in the rainy season. Specifically, in districts with high salinity, the salinity-free duration required for rice cultivation is short. There, rice cropping intensities are potentially limited by the salinity. In addition, recently, the area of paddy fields in the coastal area has been decreased through land use conversion to aquaculture, especially shrimp farms. Intensity of aquaculture, which requires brackish water, was also limited by seawater intrusion. Thus, rice production in the coastal area of the Mekong Delta was limited by the interrelationship between seawater intrusion and land-use diversification.

The article aims at pointing out what kinds of activities designed to improve the learners’ writing proficiency are effective in a Vietnamese context. With a two-group pretest and posttest design of an empirical research, the authors implemented a series of teaching activities in the classroom. The data were collected by means of pre-tests, post-tests, and interviews. The results indicated that the participants in the experimental condition significantly gained in their writing performance. Qualitative analysis of the data shows that the majority of participants positively evaluated the effectiveness of the activities. However, a consideration for contextual adjustment should be taken when several activities together might be overload to the learners. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/nelta.v16i1-2.6132 NELTA 2011; 16(1-2): 82-96

This article introduces the new application of Raymond Padilla's unfolding matrix in setting boundaries for postcollection qualitative data in educational research. It focuses on displaying the sample ways of using Padilla's technique to solve the common problems of qualitative research when the researcher may have collected unnecessary data or may have missed important data in certain research. Using the sample of a real educational research aims to illustrate how this technique is used and modified to be different from its original versions. This article would call for attention and be helpful to any researchers with qualitative data of similar research contexts and designs.Keywords unfolding matrix, Padilla's unfolding matrix, technique for qualitative data, framing qualitative data, post-data collection What Is Already Known?In qualitative research, researchers tend to design and make appropriate estimation for their samples, data, and how the data would be analyzed. The collected data in a research are usually framed before the completion of the collecting process. This protocol is popular and commonly used among the researchers. What This Paper Adds?This paper adds a new solution for the case when the data collection turns to be too huge and exceeds the estimation before conducting the research. When the researchers collect a lot of data and the scale of these data exceeding all the possible slots. The researchers should find a way to frame the data so that they will not miss any pieces of information during the analysis process. The new application, described in this paper, would facilitate the process of framing data in the stage of post-collection data. The newbie researchers of qualitative methods would have one more option for their academic practices.The inquiry of learning about Raymond Padilla's unfolding matrix arose during the stage of sorting and framing the collection of qualitative data for my doctoral studies. The problem was not estimated in the earlier stages until the collection of data reached over 62,000 words from interviews and feedback.Regardless of the reliability and validity of the tools and assuming that research methods have been used correctly for that process, this huge collection created the needs for an essential way to set boundaries for answering the research questions and analyze these qualitative data.At the time Padilla's 1 unfolding matrix was introduced, the challenges seemed to be resolved until mastering the process of self-studying and figured out how the unfolding matrix should be understood and applied to the current set of data. This technique was soon recognized to be good for qualitative acquisition and analyses (Padilla, 1994). However, the unfolding matrix is a technique for pre-data collection as described in Padilla's book chapter about it.The new application of the unfolding matrix in this article is especially viable because the research leading to this technique has large qualitative data sets which contain enough data to

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This paper investigates how the values of negative feedback from students’reflections should be exploited and utilized as an approach of pedagogical development. It was extracted as a step of the 3-year-action-research circles with an empirical study using the data collected from 96 cases of students’ reflections in a university of Poland for both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Regardless the limitation of the diversity of the research tools and types of data, the study found the noticeable lessons through the process of problematizing the significant learning. The data was framed from the negative awareness at the wording and surface levels for quantitative descriptive and then these signals were directed to locate the messages holding the negative signals for qualitative analysis. Eight groups of codes were categorized using Atlas.ti from 172 quotations, extracted from 140 extracts of 96 cases of students’ reflections. The findings show that the negative signals are important to the teacher’s modifications and actions to alternate the future plans and teaching. In addition, seven problems were also generated from analyzing the quotations using this design. The attempts to fix these problems would facilitate the teachers to improve the skills of teaching and quality of the course. A different way of looking at students’ negative signals of this paper could be seen as an innovative approach to pedagogical development in comparison to the common usage of feedback itself which has been exploited divergently in education.