Dr. Barbara Schmidt-Rinehart Involved in Research with U.S. Air Force Academy

Ashland University and the United States Air Force Academy have entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement that will allow Spanish professors from the two institutions to engage in a linguistic study.

Dr. Barbara Schmidt-Rinehart, professor of Spanish at Ashland University, and Dr. Jean LeLoup, professor of Spanish at the U.S. Air Force Academy, will work together on a study titled “Register and forms of address in Costa Rican Spanish: Sociolinguistic realities and pedagogical implications.”

The two-phase project will involve the interviewing of students in Costa Rica and a questionnaire being sent to U.S. students of Spanish. 

“The goals of the research are to provide a comprehensive explanation of the current usage of ‘you’ in Costa Rica as well as suggestions for Spanish curriculum in the U.S.,” Schmidt-Rinehart said.

Drs. Schmidt-Rinehart and LeLoup have worked together for a number of years on different projects and teaching endeavors. They have co-instructed summer graduate courses in Mexico, Venezuela and Costa Rica. 

The results of their most recent research project will be published this year under the title, “The Effectiveness of Courses Abroad as a Professional Development Model for Foreign Language Teachers.”