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The young generation, born into digital technologies and called Millennials or the Y-Generation, are raised in a world where everybody has a computer in their pockets (Hamari et al., 2014), and they are constantly engaged in digital activities. However, research on the impact of digital devices on learners’ educational performance and motivation is still an emerging field. This article aims to examine perceptions of the sixth-grade students in Turkey of their e-reading experiences on the basis of their personalized/gamified/PDF electronic reading practices in school and the influences of their perceptions on their reading comprehension and levels of motivation in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. The study follows a quasi-experimental approach with four treatment groups and a control group, involving 96 sixth-grade state school students in Turkey. The three treatment groups read in order from the personalized/gamified/PDF electronic reading for 5 weeks whereas the control group used printed guided reading program. The results indicate that EFL learners’ use of screen reading has the potential to increase reading motivation of the students. However, no significant difference was observed in their reading comprehension levels despite the use of different reading medium in control and experimental groups.

1. Robert Laurie[1][1][⇑][2] 2. Beatrice L. Bridglall[2][3] 3. Patrick Arseneault[3][4] 1. 1University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada 2. 2NYU-Shanghai Initiative, China 3. 3Ministere de l’Education et du Developpement de la petite enfance, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada 1. Robert Laurie, Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy, University of New Brunswick, Keirstead Hall, Suite 300, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada E3B 5A3. Email: robert.laurie{at}unb.ca The effect of using a computer or paper and pencil on student writing scores on a provincial standardized writing assessment was studied. A sample of 302 francophone students wrote a short essay using a computer equipped with Microsoft Word with all of its correction functions enabled. One week later, the same students wrote a second short essay using paper and pencil with access to dictionaries. Mean scores were compared for essays on each medium as well as scores on six specific criteria. There was no significant difference between the overall mean scores on the paper and pencil essays and those written using a computer. Significant differences favoring the paper and pencil essays were seen on the ideas, punctuation, and syntax criteria. A significant difference in favor of the computer written essays was seen on the orthography criterion. Possible practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. [1]: #aff-1 [2]: #corresp-1 [3]: #aff-2 [4]: #aff-3

“Conceptual Paper: Organizational Learning and Its Practices” by Mayuk Dasgupta, SAGE Open, February 1, 2012, DOI: 10.1177/2158244011432198

School self-evaluation (SSE) has emerged as a widely used approach to school evaluation in recent decades. This has occurred in the context of what is referred to as “New Public Management,” an element of which seeks to empower public institutions to make decisions locally about improving their processes and standards. Inspection regimes in many countries have developed legislative, methodological, and support mechanisms for schools to carry out SSE. This paper, by using the evolution of the SSE process in Irish education, analyses the efficacy of SSE by exploring teachers and school principals’ perceptions of both the challenges and supports concerning the integration of SSE in their schools. Results derived from this study suggest that respondents were, overall, fully aware of the support services available to them. However, support capacity challenges also emerged, in particular as it relates to data use and target setting. Importantly, it is argued that since there are striking resemblances between SSE as it has developed in Ireland and other systems, the challenges and solutions identified in this paper will have wide application in other contexts.

This paper studies Leopold Bloom’s social isolation and detached personality through the lens of neurosis in James Joyce’s Ulysses. To achieve this, this paper draws on Karen Horney’s theory of neurotics, in which people with detached personality feel as though they do not belong among other people. Such neurotics not only separate themselves from others but become alienated even from themselves. According to Horney, three neurotic elements lead to the formation of a detached personality: the need for “self-sufficiency,” “perfection,” and “narrow limits in life.” In Ulysses, Bloom distances himself from other people because of his anxiety and his desire for freedom, which results in his social alienation. To deal with his isolation, Bloom needs to flaunt his superiority, prove his independence, and set limitations on his life to relieve the pressures imposed on him by people and society.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. open access article Purpose: Amputation is seen to be a potentially distressing experience for patients and one which, for some patients, is seen as being akin to grief. Historically medical professionals have alluded to the relevance of considerations of disposal of amputates after the process of amputation as being implicated in the psychological adjustment too amputation, yet limited understandings around disposal are evident. The disruption of bodily integrity by the process of amputation also presents a disruption of our norms around the disposal of human tissue, presenting challenges for how healthcare professionals can support patients through enacting their decisions around disposal. Methods and Materials: This narrative review paper then explores the existing literature around disposal of amputates, drawing on literature from across the health and social sciences to examine what is known about disposal. Results and Conclusions: The paper then argues that our considerations of disposal remain lacking despite the increasing incidence of amputation and the potential distress that not managing disposal can cause for some patients. The paper also examines the social implications of disposal and how limitations around disposal can itself reinforce the overlooking of disposal within the process and experience of amputation.

A growing trend exists for authors to employ a more informal writing style that uses “we” in academic writing to acknowledge one’s stance and engagement. However, few studies have compared the ways in which the first-person pronoun “we” is used in the abstracts and conclusions of empirical papers. To address this lacuna in the literature, this study conducted a systematic corpus analysis of the use of “we” in the abstracts and conclusions of 400 articles collected from eight leading electrical and electronic (EE) engineering journals. The abstracts and conclusions were extracted to form two subcorpora, and an integrated framework was applied to analyze and seek to explain how we-clusters and we-collocations were employed. Results revealed whether authors’ use of first-person pronouns partially depends on a journal policy. The trend of using “we” showed that a yearly increase occurred in the frequency of “we” in EE journal papers, as well as the existence of three “we-use” types in the article conclusions and abstracts: exclusive, inclusive, and ambiguous. Other possible “we-use” alternatives such as “I” and other personal pronouns were used very rarely—if at all—in either section. These findings also suggest that the present tense was used more in article abstracts, but the present perfect tense was the most preferred tense in article conclusions. Both research and pedagogical implications are proffered and critically discussed.

A high percentage of information-based work is now conducted in open-plan offices as opposed to traditional cellular offices. In this systematic review, we compare health, work, and social outcomes as well as employee outcomes for workers in the two environments. From a total of 10,242 papers reviewed, we identified 31 papers which met strict inclusion/exclusion criteria of allowing a direct comparison between the office types. The results showed that working in open-plan workplace designs is associated with more negative outcomes on many measures relating to health, satisfaction, productivity, and social relationship. Notable health outcomes included decreased overall health and increased stress. Environmental characteristics of particular concern included noise and distractions, poor privacy, lighting and glare, and poorer temperature control. Most studies indicated negative effects on social relationships and interactions. Overall, the findings showed that while open-plan workplace designs may offer financial benefits for management, these appear to be offset by the intangible costs associated with the negative effects on workers. The study encourages further focused investigations into design factors as well as employee characteristics that might contribute to better outcomes in open-plan designs.

Collaborative writing is widely researched for its effects on students’ writing accuracy; however, previous research studies fail to prove its effects on students’ writing fluency. Also, none of the previous studies have investigated the framework for students to compose argumentative essays collaboratively. The purpose of this article is to fill these gaps. Sixty-two sophomore English-major students at a university in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, participated in the study. One difference in the treatment between the two groups was the composing stage. Twenty-seven students from the control group composed essays individually after they worked together for idea development to make an outline, whereas 35 students from the experimental group composed essays collaboratively. Data collection was from students’ pretests, posttests of both individually and collaboratively written papers, and from the semi-structured interviews. The study reveals that collaborative writing had great effects on students’ writing fluency in both collaboratively written papers and individually written papers. Also, the study invented an efficient framework for collaborative writing activities so that writing instructors could employ to their writing classrooms if they wish to.

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) appears to be a promising way to supporting people with long-term health problems but there is currently a lack of evidence to support this approach. Taking a realist approach, a review and concept-mapping exercise of ABCD approaches to improve health were conducted with a view to providing a better understanding about these approaches, how they work, and who they work for. Totally, 29 papers were deemed relevant and included in the review. The realist synthesis and concept mapping helped to identify concepts most commonly associated with ABCD but found no papers focused on long-term conditions (LTCs) and thus no evidence that this approach improves health outcomes for people with LTCs. While there is a lack of clarity about how to implement ABCD or how to evaluate it, this article offers a clearer theoretical framework about the essential ingredients needed to activate ABCD.

This study employed a mixed-design approach and the Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (MFRM) framework to investigate whether rater bias occurred between the onscreen scoring (OSS) mode and the paper-based scoring (PBS) mode. Nine human raters analytically marked scanned scripts and paper scripts using a six-category (i.e., six-criterion) rating rubric. Interviews with these raters were then conducted to gather their reflections concerning the marking experiences in the two modes. Software program FACETS was employed to estimate raters’ scores, with the results indicating that (a) four raters marked the scanned scripts more severely than they did the paper scripts, whereas the remaining four raters exhibited an opposite tendency; (b) the only rater whose composite scores were comparable between the two modes still awarded harsher scores to the category of Mechanics in PBS mode; and (c) the category of Mechanics was scored more harshly in OSS mode, whereas Topic Development/Support was scored more severely in PBS mode. Analyses of quantitative and qualitative data indicated that computers affected raters’ marking behaviors and their assessment, assuming a role in causing scoring bias. Implications for rater training were provided.

Similarity reports of plagiarism detectors should be approached with caution as they may not be sufficient to support allegations of plagiarism. This study developed a 50-item rubric to simplify and standardize evaluation of academic papers. In the spring semester of 2011-2012 academic year, 161 freshmen’s papers at the English Language Teaching Department of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, were assessed using the rubric. Validity and reliability were established. The results indicated citation as a particularly problematic aspect, and indicated that fairer assessment could be achieved by using the rubric along with plagiarism detectors’ similarity results.

The purpose of this article aims to analyze the effect of word-word space in written Chinese to advanced non-native speakers when they read and process Mandarin texts. The participants have performed one online reaction time experiment and another one offline pencil-paper test. The results indicate that the structure of word segmentation in written Chinese texts have play an effective role in sentences’ semantic processing, and the length and difficulty of sentences stimuli have also displayed significant function for their Chinese sentences processing. However, the results of offline test show that the combinational amount of segmental words have not affected the texts materials processed by advanced L2 participants. These results suggest that word boundary can facilitate L2 learners of Mandarin Chinese in processing text during their reading. Apart from theoretical implications, this article also proposes a new pedagogical approach to teaching text segmentation in Chinese, which can be useful in instructing Chinese as a second or foreign language.

In this paper, we report on the findings of our exploratory research investigating how the similarity or difference of the partners’ love styles could be related to dyadic and familial satisfaction. The empirical literature outlines how love styles are differently associated with various couple dimensions. While most studies employ an individual approach, we assessed whether the similarity of the prevalent love style in each couple was associated with greater dyadic satisfaction. In our sample, comprising 146 heterosexual couples (all married or cohabitating), no such association emerged. Storge and Pragma were the most prevalent love styles; moreover, there was a similar prevalence of the similarity in these two love styles between partners. Hence, the love styles similarity does not show a direct association with marital satisfaction. To establish whether there is some relationship between these variables, it would be useful for future research to investigate the impact of further individual and relational factors and of their interaction.

The aim of the paper was the validation of a psychosocial assessment tool for determining willingness to participate in child-centered safety promotion interventions, specifically in a low-income community in South Africa. A study was conducted as part of the initial validation to test the items and format the questionnaire. The instrument was then administered to Afrikaans speaking individuals in a community in the Western Cape. Iterative exploratory factor analysis was conducted at both the item and scale levels to select and reassign items and scales to determine the final composition of the questionnaire. The findings indicate that the instrument measures seven factors, namely incentives; priorities and community needs; perceived benefits; social approval; accessibility and values; altruistic capital; and community cohesion, which represents salient dimensions of the construct willingness to participate in interventions. The questionnaire and its subscales displayed acceptable to good reliability, with Cronbach’s α ranging from .55 to .80. Since willingness precedes actual participation, it is argued that insight into the factors that relate to willingness to participate provides an avenue for motivating actual participation.

Cheating is an academically dishonest behavior about which there has been a thrust of research. However, it has not been extensively researched in an Iranian context. Therefore, the current study was conducted with 310 Iranian students. A cheating questionnaire was devised and administered to the participants. Certain demographic variables were investigated. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the obtained data. The results of the descriptive statistics revealed that cheating was common among participants, and most students did not harbor any negative attitude toward cheating or at least were neutral about it. The most common method of cheating was “letting others look at their papers while taking exams.” The most common reason for cheating was “not being ready for the exam.” As for inferential statistics, one-way analysis of variance, an independent t-test, and correlational analyses were used to test the effect and relationship of demographic variables on and between the cheating behaviors of the participants. It was found that none of the two demographic variables of gender and year level had any effect on students’ cheating behaviors. Furthermore, achievement scores and age were not significantly correlated with cheating behavior scores.

This paper explores factors associated with intergenerational differences in home-based acculturation (HBA) and the attitude of Chinese college students and their parents toward intercultural marriage with a focus on China’s cultural context where parents have a strong influence on child’s decisions. In two related studies, we recruited a total of 749 Chinese college students and parents (387 in Study 1 and 362 in Study 2; all are living in China) to participate in the survey. The results indicate that (a) online intercultural contact is positively associated with HBA; (b) HBA is a strong predictor of attitude of intercultural marriages by Chinese parents and college students and the socioeconomic status has a divergent effect on the two groups; and (c) Chinese college students and parents differ in terms of their HBA and online intercultural contact. Findings from the research add knowledge to our understanding of the impact of globalization and digitalization on acculturation and Chinese residents’ perspectives on intercultural marriage.

The aim of this article was to propose a framework based on the theory of self-congruity and on Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance. The framework was to combine destination personality, self-congruity, uncertainty avoidance, and tourists’ revisit intention. The present conceptual paper proposed an integrated model of self-congruity which incorporates the effect of uncertainty avoidance. More importantly, the uncertainty avoidance was introduced as a moderator between self-congruity and revisit intention. Based on the theoretical framework proposed in this article, the estimated results affirmed the applicability of the theory of self-congruity for tourism research. Moreover, by extending the theoretical model through the incorporation of a variable of uncertainty avoidance in the context of tourism, this article offers a significant contribution to the tourism literature. It is important to understand how the theory of self-congruity applies across a broad cultural spectrum. This article also offers several implications for destination marketing organizations from a practical perspective.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative influences of the risk factors and protective factors that affect firefighters’ resilience. Based on previous studies, we selected three risk factors and four protective factors. The former included cognitive bias, socially prescribed perfectionism, and social anxiety. The latter included deliberate rumination, self-encouragement, family relations, and peer support. A total of 330 full-time professional firefighters in Korea participated in the study, and we analyzed 271 questionnaires. We conducted multiple regression analyses and the results were as follows. The risk factors explained 43.7% of resilience and both cognitive bias and social anxiety showed significant negative influences. Meanwhile, the protective factors explained 52.6% of resilience and we found both peer support and self-encouragement to be significant. Finally, we included seven variables in our multiple regression analysis to verify their relative influences on resilience, and these variables explained 59.5% of resilience. In the final analysis, we identified cognitive bias, peer support, and self-encouragement as the relatively significant variables that affect firefighters’ resilience. We conclude this paper by outlining the relevant implications of our findings and discussing the study’s limitations.

Transformational leadership has been studied as an essential trait for nurse leaders in the past; however, there is a dearth of studies on interpersonal leadership which is a combined construct of transformational leadership and interactional justice. The main objective of this article was to examine the relationship between interpersonal leadership and task performance. A cross-sectional research design was adopted for this study. 700 questionnaires were circulated among nurses from 14 major hospitals across the country. Out of these, 336 nurses replied. The final usable sample size was 283 full-time nurses, out of which 91.8% were female. The online and paper-based instruments were floated twice, at different timings with different cover letters to avoid common method bias. Nurses perceive that interpersonal leadership can significantly enhance their task performance. Similarly the study also found significant mediation of work engagement in the positive relationship between interpersonal leadership and task performance. Moreover, there was no significant difference between public and private sector nurses about interpersonal leadership and its relationship with work engagement and task performance. Interpersonal leadership has been found as significantly and positively effective toward work engagement and task performance of nurses working both in public and private sector hospitals. The results establish that by adopting the interpersonal leadership style, a nurse leader can enhance the work engagement of her followers. The study suggests that interpersonal leadership should be adopted as a total concept in nurse management to achieve better results in terms of work engagement and task performance.

Postsecondary transition planning and programing is a fundamental process that allows students with disabilities (SWDs) to engage in adult roles such as higher education, employment, and independent living successfully. Despite the importance of the role of teachers regarding the effective implementation of transition practices and principles, teachers’ transition attitudes in Botswana are not clearly understood. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ attitudes concerning the effective implementation of transition practices and principles to SWDs in Botswana secondary and vocational schools. The study further examined the differences between teachers on their attitudes toward delivery of transition services for SWDs based on demographic variables of gender, age, education qualification, teaching experience, school type, current position in school, and school region. A quantitative research approach entailing the use of a paper survey to collect data was adopted in this study. A total of 1,186 teachers participated in this study and mean scores were calculated to determine teachers’ transition attitudes. Moreover, t tests and one-way ANOVA tests were conducted to determine teachers’ attitude differences based on demographic variables. The findings of this study showed that generally teachers had somewhat positive attitudes toward transition practices and principles for SWDs. Furthermore, significant differences were noted on teachers’ attitudes based on all demographic variables except gender. The results indicate the importance of positive transition attitudes as well as the need to develop a national transition framework to guide and improve the transition process in Botswana.

English-medium instruction (EMI) has become increasingly popular in higher educational institutions across the world due to the prominence of English and the internationalization of higher education. Nevertheless, limited research to date has investigated its impacts on content learning through objective measures. The present study addresses this gap by examining whether students taught in English at a university in China perform differently in a business course from their counterparts taught in Chinese and how English-taught students’ English proficiency and academic ability (as measured by grade point average) relate to their EMI academic outcomes. The study employed a quasi-experimental design and adopted inter-translated versions of the same syllabus, textbook, class materials, and exam paper for the English- and Chinese-medium classes. It found no significant differences in students’ academic outcomes (i.e., total score, assignment, participation, and final exam) between the English- and the Chinese-taught classes. It also showed that both English proficiency and academic ability were statistically significant predictors of English-taught students’ academic outcomes with academic ability being a much stronger predictor than English proficiency. These findings add to a growing but still limited body of evidence on the impacts of EMI on content learning and point to several important implications for EMI.

The construct of entrepreneurial alertness has been gaining considerable interest from academics because it is at the heart of the entrepreneurial process. Consequently, there has been a substantial increase in the number of academic papers over the years. However, this is a highly fragmented field of research that aggregates contributions from researchers in the fields of economics and strategy, entrepreneurship, and psychology. Also, in recent decades, the concept of entrepreneurial alertness has been studied from different perspectives, being considered, on one hand, as cognitive capacity, a dynamic capacity or a skill of the entrepreneur and, on the other hand, as an organizational factor that affects a company’s performance and a source of competitive advantage. The analysis reveals a set of future research avenues that may contribute to the development of the entrepreneurial alertness research field.

There have been many studies on spiritual leadership (SL) and its effects on organizational outcomes, ranging from commitment to organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Precisely, researches regarding SL and OCB were conducted in different regions, cultures, and industries. These topics attracted a growing interest in the second half of the last decade. To clarify the SL–OCB relationship with regard to varied regions and industries, a meta-analysis was needed. Thus, the purpose of this study was to systematically analyze the quantitative studies exploring SL and OCB and to determine whether region, school, or other variables have any moderating effects on the link between SL and OCB. Upon a thorough analysis of the papers on the relationship between both SL and OCB in the literature, 43 studies met the search terms, but only 17 of them were included in this study. The results revealed a mean effect size of [Formula: see text] = .465, which displayed a statistically significant and positive relationship at the medium level between SL and OCB. The research also explored the effects of both Middle Eastern and Far Eastern samples, along with the factors of schools and other industries, on the link between SL and OCB. Neither different regions nor type of institutions had a significant effect on the link between SL and OCB.

In the current times, knowledge work and knowledge worker play an important role in organizational development. The purpose of this paper is to examine the associations between perceptions of the work environment and job burnout among 679 knowledge workers with a publicly available data. Based on the exploratory factor analysis, five multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) models are acceptable and confirm, including socioeconomic factors→perceptions of the work environment model, socioeconomic factors→job burnout model, perceptions of the work environment←socioeconomic factors→job burnout model, perceptions of the work environment→job burnout model, and job burnout→perceptions of the work environment model. The results from MIMIC models indicated job burnout has significant associations with perceptions of the work environment. The implications of these results for well-beings among the knowledge workers are discussed.

Game-based vocabulary learning that is well documented to improve students’ vocabulary learning outcomes is gaining increasing attention. However, no consensus has been reached regarding the impact of game-based vocabulary learning application (APP) on the vocabulary learning achievement, motivation, and self-confidence among Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) students, so large a population that should never be neglected. To address the issues, a total of 70 college students in two groups participated in a quasi-experiment. One is the experimental group in which students received the game-based vocabulary learning; the other is the control group in which students received the conventional paper-based wordlist learning. Each group consisted of 35 students. The experiment was carried out to evaluate how the implementation of game-based vocabulary learning influences students’ vocabulary learning achievement, motivation, and self-confidence. In addition, a regression analysis was exploited to examine the influence of motivation and self-confidence on vocabulary achievement. Results demonstrated that the game-based vocabulary learning APP benefited students in vocabulary achievement, motivation, and self-confidence. Furthermore, learning self-confidence and motivation did not predict learning achievement. Implications of the study were also given.

This article aims to elaborate a systematic literature review (SLR) on the subject of experiments in behavioral finance, including papers published between 2014 and 2018. Methodology involved the careful selection of articles published in Web of Science and Scopus databases, and bibliometric analysis was applied. Final sample included 60 articles, the Journal of Behavioral Finance was the most productive journal and the majority of the 152 authors worked in the Americas. For cocitation, important authors, such as Kahneman and Tversky and Barber and Odean were among the most cited and with greater relational ties. For bibliographic coupling, Bursztyn et al. and Bigelow et al. were the most cited, whereas Kadous et al. presented more relational ties. The research contribution lies in the application of the SLR to a growing research area, allowing to know the most relevant subjects, articles, journals, authors, and countries in the area nowadays.

Researchers have accumulated much social scientific knowledge about the scope, distribution, causes, and outcomes of the physical and sexual abuse of female students in North American institutions of higher learning. However, surveys of technology-facilitated stalking and the dissemination of unwanted sexual messages/images in college campus communities are in short supply. The few that have been conducted do not identify key sociological risk factors associated with these two electronic forms of victimization. This paper, then, has two objectives: (1) to examine the influence of two types of negative peer support and (2) to determine if being the target of technology-facilitated stalking and receiving unwanted sexual messages/images are associated with female students’ intimate partner violence and sexual assault experiences. The results confirm that the two variants of negative peer support examined in this study are significant predictors of digital victimization and that such abuse is strongly associated with intimate partner violence and sexual assault.

Professional standards increasingly call for early childhood educators to hold a bachelor’s degree as one measure of educator quality. This has prompted many educators to return to college, creating both a need and an opportunity to better understand the factors that support educators to complete their degree and apply what they learn to their teaching practice. This qualitative study examined the higher education experiences of early educators enrolled in a public urban university early childhood teacher education program. Using a theoretical lens grounded in relational theory, this study explored how relationships in the university and the workplace influenced educators’ progress toward degree completion and their application of learning into practice. Data included in-depth individual interviews with educators and their workplace supervisors. This study shows how positive relationships with university faculty, staff, peers, and workplace colleagues and supervisors can support educators as they work toward earning their bachelor’s degree. The results revealed four characteristics of these relationships that influenced educators, as well as key barriers and challenges. In particular, the findings show how several negative relational dynamics may act as a barrier to educators’ efforts to apply new learning in the workplace. The paper concludes with implications for research and practice, and calls for increased attention to the relational contexts in which educators pursue their degree and make improvements in their teaching practices.

Literature is life. It is the gateway of looking the world outside. We can learn, understand and appreciate the world. Reading literature is the best way to know who we are, what we are, and what we used to be. Using descriptive correlational research design, the study ventured on assessing the literary appreciation skills and reading performance of university students in literature, which may provide input to propose innovative learning tasks in enhancing their literary competence. Ninety students enrolled in the literature subject of the three college departments of one campus of a public higher education institution in the Philippines, were the participants of the study. Findings revealed that the students have a moderate level of skill in literary appreciation areas but a relatively low skill level in recognizing author’s point of view, ability to judge the text, recognizing personal philosophy based on literary text read, and relating the stories to their personal lives. Meanwhile, students showed fair performance in literature learning, while literary appreciation skills and reading performance differed when students are grouped according to their college affiliations. Furthermore, a positive relationship exits between literary appreciation skills and reading performance of the students. This study proposes the implementation of twenty-nine innovative learning tasks for literature classes. The different learning tasks were presented in this paper for classroom use.

University education is increasingly becoming international. Therefore, it is important that universities prepare their new students for the challenges of an intercultural academic environment. The aim of the current study was to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of an intercultural peer-to-peer training offered to all new incoming students at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. The training aims to facilitate the social and academic integration of students at this international university. A total of 117 first-year undergraduate students completed a pen-and-paper questionnaire with 47 items one semester (6 months) after attending the intercultural training. The results suggest that participants liked the structure of the training and the use of senior students as peer trainers. It appears that the training improved the awareness of the effects of culture (own and other) on the social life of students. However, the training was less adequate at preparing the participants for the student-centered academic culture at this university. In light of its cost-effectiveness, the intercultural training could be easily adopted for use at other universities as part of the campus-wide orientation activities. However, regardless of their culture, all new university students require more assistance to academically adapt to and succeed in multicultural classrooms.

Despite the numerous psychological areas in which optimism has been studied, including career planning, only a small amount of research has been done to investigate the relationship between optimism and decision-making styles. Consequently, we have investigated the role of dispositional optimism as a correlate of different decision-making styles, in particular, positive for effective styles and negative for ineffective ones (doubtfulness, procrastination, and delegation). Data were gathered through questionnaires administered to 803 Italian adolescents in their last 2 years of high schools with different fields of study, each at the beginning stages of planning for their professional future. A paper questionnaire was completed containing measures of dispositional optimism and career-related decision styles, during a vocational guidance intervention conducted at school. Data were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression. Results supported the proposed model by showing optimism to be a strong correlate of decision-making styles, thereby offering important intervention guidelines aimed at modifying unrealistically negative expectations regarding their future and helping students learn adaptive decision-making skills.

The evolution of the Internet diminishes learning’s limits on time and location and attracts more and more students to learning websites or online learning environments to pursue their chosen studies. The purpose of this study is to explore Taiwanese college students’ needs for English E-learning websites. Accordingly, this paper uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to investigate and explain Taiwanese college students’ acceptance of English E-learning websites. After analysis, the results demonstrate that performance expectations, effort expectancy, and social influence have positive effects on behavior intentions and facilitating conditions; behavioral intentions also have positive effects on use behavior. Overall, if students believe that English E-learning websites can help them increase their performance and that they are easy to use, there is an increase in their intention to use them. This suggests that web designers should improve knowledge management functions and improve user interfaces to be easier to operate.

This paper reports a review of studies on admission criteria for MBA programs. The method consisted in a literary review based on a systematic search in international databases (Emerald, ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest Education Journals, ProQuest European Business, ProQuest Science Journal, ProQuest Research Library, ProQuest Psychology Journals, ProQuest Social Science Journals and Business Source Complete) of studies published from January 1990 to December 2013, which explore the academic performance of students or graduates of MBA programs. A quantitative review was performed. Results show that most researchers studied relations between GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) and UGPA (Undergraduate Grade Point Average) as predictors of GGPA (Graduate Grade Point Average). On the other hand, work experience and personal traits (such as personality, motivation, learning strategies, self-efficacy beliefs and achievement expectations) and their relation with GGPA had been less studied, and results are not consistent enough to consider them valid predictors of student performance at this time.

In this study, we used a paper–pencil questionnaire to investigate whether teachers, administrators, and parents differed in their preferences and accuracy when interpreting visual data displays for decision making. For the data analysis, we used nonparametric tests due to violations of distributional assumptions for using parametric tests. We found no significant differences between the three groups on graph preference, but within two groups, we found statistically significant differences in preference. We also found statistically significant differences in accuracy between parents and administrators for two graphs—grouped columns and stacked columns. Implications for researchers and education stakeholders, and recommendations for further research are provided.

This article examines the effectiveness of using online survey methods in planning research. This study measured travel behavior and physical activity of office workers over a month period. An online travel diary, pedometer, and online survey were used to assess walking levels and transportation habits for office workers. A subset of the sample used a paper travel diary, which was used for comparison. Analysis of missing data was performed to explore implications of using online survey methods. Using online travel diaries and surveys to assess objective and subjective data can help to reduce recall bias, missing data, and greater flexibility survey administration.

This article explores the researcher’s use of field trips as an experiential learning tool in a social studies methods course as a pilot study. The researchers analyzed course evaluations and student reflection papers using document analysis to determine (a) the positive and negative aspects of utilizing field trips during the course, and (b) the ways the field trips advanced or limited pre-service teachers’ learning. The findings indicate that students found the field trips to be worthwhile but had concerns about the time and distance. They were able to make important connections to course content but reacted negatively to the inclusion of diversity in the field trips.

This study examined the salient characteristics of trained ineffective teachers in secondary schools in Kenya. Participants comprised 80 students from eight schools drawn from four provinces in the country. Of the 80 participants, 40 were females and 40 were males. This qualitative research adopted phenomenological design. Two research instruments—a biographical form and a blank sheet of paper—were used in data collection. Content analysis method was used in analyzing the written and nonquantitative data collected. Results of data analysis revealed 20 salient characteristics of trained ineffective teachers in secondary schools. These characteristics are as follows: wastage of students’ time, poor mastery of the subject, source of boredom to students, partial treatment of students, lack of respect for students, low level of self-confidence, poor mastery of teaching skills, emotional immaturity, inappropriate dressing, injurious to students, fond of frivolous talk, miscommunicate in class, poor in providing feedback, nondialogical in class, poor in maintaining discipline, immoral in behavior, unapproachable to students, poor in counseling, poor psychological health, and autocratic to students. The findings of this study may be useful to stakeholders in education in developing instruments that may be used to identify ineffective teachers in schools.

The purpose of the current study is to examine patterns in public perceptions and attitudes toward marijuana use among adolescents. Computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) was used to collect data from a statewide sample of adults in Michigan identified through random-digit dialing ( n = 560). CATI interviews were supplemented with web- and paper-based surveys for nonrespondents. We used latent class analysis to characterize patterns in public perception, using a vignette technique that assessed (a) whether adults recognize adolescent marijuana use as a problem, (b) how they view the efficacy of treatment, (c) how they view help-seeking with mental health professionals, and (d) whether they support prevention services for adolescents. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between class membership and demographics, substance use, and methodological factors. Three latent classes were identified: (a) a discriminating group, (b) a low-concern group, and (c) a high-concern group. Age and substance use were among the strongest determinants for membership in the discriminating group. Results provide insight into how the general public perceives marijuana use and marijuana-related problems among adolescents.

Though abused women are often depicted in the media as passive, women in abusive relationships often resist their partner’s abuse. However, the experience of an abused woman will depend on her position in the social structure. First, an overview of resistance in abusive relationship is presented followed by a series of resistance strategies often used. The goal of this paper is to retell the intimate partner violence story and identify structural reforms that are consistent with the experience of intimate partner violence survivors. The response to intimate partner violence should move beyond criminal justice sanctions by involving the community.

Based on data from qualitative interviews with 40 engaged heterosexual couples, this paper examines how couples transform their relationship from “serious” to being “engaged to be married.” Social Scientists have developed relationship models designed to explain the transformation, but these models fail to adequately capture how couples transform their relationship and the context in which this behavior occurs. Using a constructionist framework, an alternative process model is offered. The five-process model captures the ongoing and fluid work couples perform to negotiate a redefinition of the relationship. Couples reflexively use a host of complex symbolic interaction including talk, rituals, relationships with others, testing, and use of time to construct their relationship in a new way. By examining the underlying reality construction process, rather than merely looking at the outcome, the social processes and human actions that shape relationships are revealed.

Academic accountability is of great concern, therefore grade retention is being considered for both students with and without disabilities who are not meeting end-of-the-year achievement benchmarks. The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher attitudes toward grade retention and whether practices differ when recommending retention of students with or without disabilities. This mixed-methods study utilized a paper-and-pencil questionnaire using a Likert-type scale, as well as two open-ended questions and a checklist. Teacher interviews were also conducted. The findings of this study indicate that teachers are considering a multitude of factors when considering grade retention for their struggling students. Academic performance was the factor that teachers (77%) indicated the most frequently. Although teachers felt pressure and accountability from high stakes testing, they felt test results should be one of many factors considered in the retention decision.