Quantitiatve Research

JALT was conceived in 2017 as a high-quality collection of work articulating the myriad possibilities in the ‘classroom’ in all its forms, which also gives a voice to research and commentary on alternative approaches to teaching and learning.

The journal is open to contributions from around the world. Our journal is intended to have no geographical limits and to be within an international context on the broad subject of learning and teaching (predominantly within Higher Education). Also, we may have a focus on qualitative research, but articles will be taken on their merit.

This second issue in December 2018 consists of: three peer-reviewed articles; one education technology review; a section on book reviews; and a section with more journalistic pieces. A new genre, Interview with an educational leader, is included here with a fascinating look at education futures with Chan-Zuckerberg-Initiative's Dr. Bror Saxberg.

The distribution is conceived to be online and open. In addition, we distribute the journal through different channels to maximize the impact for our worthy contributors.

The editorial team consists of me, Chris Harris with Juergen Rudolph as the co-editor and Eric Yeo as associate editor.

The focus of this study was on investigating the response of tobacco exports to real exchange rates and real exchange rate volatility and other factors in Zimbabwe using secondary data spanning from 1980 to 2019. Bilateral nominal exchange rates and time-variant weights of Zimbabwe's 10 major trading partners were calculated and used to compute the real exchange rate index. The time-dependent weighting system was used to better represent the evolution of trade patterns in the index. The arithmetic method was employed for computing the index. Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) models were used to generate the real exchange rate volatility index. The export response function was adopted as the tobacco exports response model. The variables in the tobacco exports response model were the real-world Gross Domestic Product (GDP), real exchange rate, terms of trade, real exchange rate volatility and dollarization. A vector error correction model (VECM) was used to estimate the response of tobacco exports to real exchange rate, real exchange rate volatility and other factors. The VECM results indicated that real world GDP was insignificant in both the short and long run. In the long run, the real exchange rate appreciation had a negative impact on tobacco exports. Conversely, in the short run, the depreciation of real exchange rate had a positive impact on tobacco exports. Hence, the government has to adopt other mechanisms that reduce uncertain movements of exchange rates.