Search

This paper reconceptualizes the role of the teacher in the university foreign language classroom in an age of generative AI chatbots and automatic translation tools. We call for a reconceptualization of this role based on two factors: the unique social interactivity of the university language classroom and the need for effective instruction on how to use Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) tools outside of the classroom. We argue that the teacher must master and integrate these two different modes of teaching and learning. Interpersonal exchanges in class respond to the need for real-time human interaction and relatedness in language learning and so cannot, and should not, be wholly replaced by chatbots. Rather, these sorts of exchanges must form a cornerstone of on-campus foreign language pedagogy. In contrast, teachers must also be able to leverage the benefits of learner-facing AI tools, especially for use outside of the classroom, given the learning gains associated with them. We provide detailed examples of how this dual approach can be realized and propose a five-step approach for incorporating AI into university language pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research demonstrating student mental distress typically focuses on mental wellbeing by combining questionnaire responses from students studying a variety of disciplines [see Ibrahim, A. K., S. J. Kelly, C. E. Adams, and C. Glazebrook. 2013. "A Systematic Review of Studies of Depression Prevalence in University Students." "Journal of Psychiatric Research" 47 (3): 391-400; Bewick, B., G. Koutsopoulou, J. Miles, E. Slaa, and M. Barkham. 2010. "Changes in Undergraduate Students' Psychological Well-being as they Progress Through University." "Studies in Higher Education" 35 (6): 633-645]. Little is known about how student mental health varies as a function of degree type. Psychology students are of interest here, as Psychology is one of few degrees where mental health is a topic of study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 undergraduate psychology students with mental health difficulties from a UK University. Thematic analysis showed that previous mental health problems were a motivator for studying psychology. The delivery of taught mental health content exacerbated pre-existing symptoms, induced concern and challenged perceptions of treatments. Students also experienced unique challenges when accessing a variety of University support networks. Findings can be used to inform policy changes to improve these students' university experiences.

Classic behaviorist and cognitivist approaches to consumer research are based on very different assumptions concerning the nature of the cognitive processes that drive consumption. Classic behaviorist research assumes that the underlying cognitive processes are extremely complex, and the effort to model them is not likely to lead to useful insights. In contrast, classic cognitivist research assumes that the underlying cognitive processes can be precisely captured with simple cognitive models. The current paper highlights the value of a middle ground. This middle ground favors the assumption that while the underlying processes are highly complex, their impact can be approximated with prediction‐oriented cognitive models. The potential of this approach is illustrated with a review of previous research demonstrating how a simple prediction‐oriented model can shed light on four interesting consumption puzzles: Buying and not using, the backfiring of certain safety devices, too much and insufficient checking, and underconsumption and overconsumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This quasi-experimental study investigated how direct contact between students with and without disabilities impacted disability-related attitudes and specific self-efficacy of study participants. Study participants (N = 170) were students without disabilities who attended general education schools. Students in an experimental group (N = 77) participated in a "Partners to Inclusion Programme." This 1-year programme provided direct contact with students with disabilities, via weekly or bi-weekly joint activities that lasted 30-90 min. Participants in a no-treatment control group (N = 93) did not participate in the programme. We found that disability-related attitudes and specific self-efficacy improved over time for participants in the experimental group, but not for participants in the control group. These results extend research findings and practical implications on how to change disability-related attitudes and biases. (Contains 2 tables and 1 note.)

Experience is the best teacher. Yet, in the context of repeated decisions, experience was found to trigger deviations from maximization in the direction of underweighting of rare events. Evaluations of alternative explanations for this bias led to contradicting conclusions. Studies that focused on the aggregate choice rates, including a series of choice prediction competitions, favored the assumption that this bias reflects reliance on small samples. In contrast, studies that focused on individual decisions suggest that the bias reflects a strong myopic tendency by a significant minority of participants. The current analysis clarifies the apparent inconsistency by reanalyzing a data set that previously led to contradicting conclusions. Our analysis suggests that the apparent inconsistency reflects the differing focus of the cognitive models. Specifically, se- quential adjustment models (that assume sensitivity to the payoffs' weighted averages) tend to find support for the hypothesis that the deviations from maximization are a product of strong positive recency (a form of myopia). Conversely, models assuming random sampling of past experiences tend to find support to the hypothesis that the deviations reflect reliance on small samples. We propose that the debate should be re- solved by using the assumptions that provide better predictions. Applying this solution to the data set we analyzed shows that the random sampling assumption outperforms the weighted average assumption both when predicting the aggregate choice rates and when predicting the individual decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental perturbations and noise are source of mode mixing and interferences between the propagating modes of a complex multi-mode fiber (MMF). Typically, they are characterized by their correlation (paraxial) length, and their spectral content which describes the degree of coupling between various modes. We show that an appropriate control of these quantities allows to engineer Levy-type relaxation processes of an initial mode excitation. Our theory, based on random matrix theory modeling, is tested against realistic simulations with MMFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many natural activities involve "stopping dilemmas": situations that require a repeated decision between investing effort to achieve some valued goal and stopping that effort to try something else. Previous research into these problems highlights two contradicting biases. While one class of studies suggests a tendency to stop too late (e.g., escalation of commitment), another class of studies suggests a tendency to give up too early (e.g., learned helplessness). Our paper clarifies the conditions that trigger these biases by focusing on two factors: the decision mode (ongoing decisions vs. planning in advance) and the probability each search effort will be costly. We find that experience with stopping dilemmas produces a reversed sunk-cost effect: Most participants stop too early when search is frequently costly but stop too late when search is usually rewarding. This effect can be explained by assuming that stopping decisions reflect reliance on small samples of past experiences with similar stopping dilemmas. Comparison of ongoing and planning decisions reveals an interaction: planning in advance increased search when searching was frequently costly, but decreased search when most search efforts were rewarding. This interaction can be explained by assuming a contingent re-evaluation process: Recent losses increase the tendency to reevaluate a plan to continue the search, and recent gains increase the tendency to reevaluate a plan to stop. In addition, we observe a preference for stopping strategies that imply maximal search. We assume this reflects an attempt to explore the full problem space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insufficient exploration of one's surroundings is at the root of many real-life problems, as demonstrated by many famous biases (e.g., the status quo bias, learned helplessness). The current work focuses on the emergence of this phenomenon at the strategy level: the tendency to under-explore the set of available choice strategies. We demonstrate that insufficient exploration of strategies can also manifest as excessive exploration between options. In such cases, interventions aimed at improving choices by reducing the costs of exploration of options are likely to fail. In Study 1, participants faced an exploration task that implies an infinite number of choice strategies and a small sub-set of (near) optimal solutions. We manipulated the amount of practice participants underwent during the first, shorter game and compared their performance in a second, longer game with an identical payoff structure. Our results show that regardless of the amount of practice, participants in all experimental groups tended to under-explore the strategy space and relied on a specific strategy that implied over-exploration of the option space. That is, under-exploration of strategies was manifested as over-exploration of options. In Study 2, we added a constraint that, on a subset of practice trials, forced participants to exploit familiar options. This manipulation almost doubled the per-trial average outcome on the comparable longer second game. This suggests that forcing participants to experience the effects of different (underexplored) strategy components during practice can greatly increase the chance they make better choices later on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technology can be used to enhance safety by imposing costs, or taxes, on certain reckless behaviors. The current paper presents two pre-registered experiments that clarify the impact of taxation of this type on decisions from experience between three alternatives. Experiment 1 focuses on an environment in which safe choices maximize expected returns and examines the impact of taxing the more attractive of two risky options. The results reveal a U-shaped effect of taxation: some taxation improves safety, but too much taxation impairs safety. Experiment 2 shows a clear negative effect of high taxation even when the taxation eliminates the expected benefit from risk-taking. Comparison of alternative models suggests that taxing reckless behaviors backfires when it significantly increases the proportion of experiences in which a more dangerous behavior leads to better outcomes than the taxed behavior. Qualitative hypotheses derived from naïve sampling models assuming small samples were only partially supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a small-scale study of students with medium to high levels of foreign language anxiety (FLA) enrolled in synchronous, online French classes at an Australian university. We conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 10 such students, focusing specifically on their experience with speaking activities and their perceptions of questions requiring self-disclosure that are routinely asked in foreign language classes. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings reveal that students overwhelmingly prefer the physical classroom to the online environment, and that this is largely due to increased possibilities for easier interaction with fellow students. In addition, these students were all at ease with disclosing low-level personal information in class. This suggests that the social nature of language learning is a key feature of a positive second language (L2) learning experience. Second, all students had strategies in place to mitigate the negative effects of their FLA. These included not only preparation strategies (e.g. anticipating questions and preparing responses in advance) but also the use of technology (e.g. Google Translate and other online resources). We therefore suggest that low-level self-disclosure does not negatively impact students with moderate to high levels of FLA, and that technological tools provide useful scaffolds to support their learning and mitigate the negative effects of their FLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the time evolution of a bipartite Bose-Hubbard model prepared far from equilibrium. When the classical dynamics is chaotic, we observe ergodization of the number distribution and a constant increase of the entanglement entropy between the constituent subsystems until it saturates to thermal equilibrium values. No thermalization is obtained when the system is launched in quasi-integrable phase space regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The S-parameters method for bi-anisotropic metamaterials effective constitutive parameters extraction is extended to oblique incidence. The proposed method enables to extract all unknown parameters using S-parameters measured over a single metamaterial slab. The bi-anisotropic metamaterial is a pseudochiral omega medium and assumed to have diagonal permittivity and permeability tensors. The extraction process suggested involves both analytical extraction equations and numerical optimization. This method is utilized to show the limited validity of the assumption of absence of spatial dispersion on which the proposed approach is based. The extraction method is demonstrated over bulk and artificial media such as SRR metamaterial and the results are validated with satisfactory agreement published data in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The celebrated Einstein relation between the diffusion coefficient D and the drift velocity v is violated in nonequilibrium circumstances. We analyze how this violation emerges for the simplest example of a Brownian motion on a lattice, taking into account the interplay between the periodicity, the randomness, and the asymmetry of the transition rates. Based on the nonequilibrium fluctuation theorem the v/D ratio is found to be a nonlinear function of the affinity. Hence it depends in a nontrivial way on the microscopics of the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite efforts to deal with the underrepresentation of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) staff in higher education, progress to date has been limited. We investigate the role of possible implicit attitudes towards ethnic diversity among staff and students at a leading British university. Ninety-six participants (48 White and 48 non-White) were presented with matched C.V.s of White and non- White applicants and were instructed to rate the suitability of candidates against two pre-defined job descriptions for positions at the same university (Lectureship versus Administrative role). Participants were also asked to shortlist two applicants for a subsequent interview, before completing a new multi-ethnic IAT. The new IAT assesses implicit attitudes towards BME groups as a whole, rather than focusing exclusively on a single ethnic minority. Evidence of implicit bias was observed in the IAT scores and in the White participants showing an own-race bias in terms of the proportion of Whites that they selected for the academic post, but not the administrative position. Implicit measures were a better predictor than explicit measures of actual shortlisting decisions. Policy recommendations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]