730 results on '"Ren, P."'
Search Results
2. Revision and Validation of the Parental Autonomy Support Scale among Chinese College Students
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Yuanshu Fu, Yang Wang, Min Hao, Zhenling Ou, Ziru Zeng, Wanting Ren, and Xinwen Xu
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To revise the Parental Autonomy Support Scale (PASS) and to validate its psychometric properties in Chinese college students, this study recruited 738 Chinese college students, with 72 of them retested four weeks later. The Parental Psychological Control Scale (PPCS) and the Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were used to evaluate the validity of the PASS. Results showed that the revised PASS contained a total of nine items measuring three dimensions: autonomous decision-making, transpositional thinking, and willingness to respect. Results showed that the three-factor ESEM model fitted the data well (TLI = 0.981, CFI = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.046). The PASS showed a significant negative correlation between the total score of the PASS and the total score of the PPCS (r = -0.344, p < 0.001), and a significant positive correlation of the PASS with the total score of the RSES (r = 0.297, p < 0.001). The composite reliability coefficient was 0.913 for the total score. The test-retest reliability coefficients were 0.827 for the total score and ranged from 0.626 to 0.744 for the three dimensions. The revised PASS is shown to have sound psychometric properties and thus can be used as a tool to measure the level of parental autonomy support among Chinese college students.
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- 2024
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3. Higher Sensory Sensitivity is Linked to Greater Expansion amongst Functional Connectivity Gradients
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Magdalena del Río, Chris Racey, Zhiting Ren, Jiang Qiu, Hao-Ting Wang, and Jamie Ward
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Insofar as the autistic-like phenotype presents in the general population, it consists of partially dissociable traits, such as social and sensory issues. Here, we investigate individual differences in cortical organisation related to autistic-like traits. Connectome gradient decomposition based on resting state fMRI data reliably reveals a principal gradient spanning from unimodal to transmodal regions, reflecting the transition from perception to abstract cognition. In our non-clinical sample, this gradient's expansion, indicating less integration between visual and default mode networks, correlates with subjective sensory sensitivity (measured using the Glasgow Sensory Questionnaire, GSQ), but not other autistic-like traits (measured using the Autism Spectrum Quotient, AQ). This novel brain-based correlate of the GSQ demonstrates sensory issues can be disentangled from the wider autistic-like phenotype.
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- 2024
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4. Enhancing Online Learning for Dance Majors: A Customized Teaching Approach Using Massive Open Online Courses
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Jiazi Li, Heung Kou, Jue Wang, and Wei Ren
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The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation among the components affecting MOOC ability to learn the Chinese dance majors. MOOC courses are easy to register and access whereas SPOC derived from MOOC allows access to selected students. MOOC implementing AI for teaching improves the quality of courses as AI determines content with data stored for subject and analysis in a short span. The subjects of this study are 200 dance students from Hanan Mass Media Vocational and Technical College in China. The researchers collected questionnaires based on the components affecting MOOC learning adaptability face-to-face one-on-one. The collected questionnaire data used in this study were analyzed by SPSS. As a result of the research, learning motivation, learning self-efficacy, MOOC platform, course content quality, learning support and teacher teaching are all important factors affecting learning adaptability. In this way, it not only provides guidance for MOOC teaching, but also provides help for dance students to adapt to MOOC learning.
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- 2024
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5. 'You Want to Be Better in Almost Every Aspect:' A Narrative Inquiry of Male Tongzhi University Student Identities in China
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Kai Ren, Gerardo L. Blanco, and Yi-Bing Xu
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LGBT students continue to be vastly invisible in the international higher education literature and often face hostile learning environments, both in the classroom and in the larger university environment. This study follows a narrative inquiry approach to explore and document the experiences of "tongzhi"--the most widely embraced identity label among individuals romantically and sexually attracted to people of their same gender in contemporary Chinese societies--students in Mainland China. We interviewed six male university students who identify as "tongzhi" in order to understand their educational experience, the learning environments they experience in the classroom, and their interactions with the academic staff. Despite very different individual narratives, the findings reveal a resilient student population and a strategic approach to managing complex relationships and navigating self-disclosure. We offer recommendations for future research and for practitioners invested in promoting inclusive learning environments for all students.
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- 2024
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6. From Hao to Hou - Stylising Online Communication with Chinese Dialects
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Yi Zhang and Wei Ren
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Although a growing body of literature has explored multilingual users' digital practice, dialects adoptions have received relatively little attention. As an important part of the Chinese language, spoken dialects, or '[Chinese characters omitted]' (fangyan), are highly complex in their classification and colloquial usage. Nevertheless, Chinese online users, especially those of younger generations, find ways to incorporate dialects in stylised online expressions for language play. This study explores the strategic adoptions of dialects by investigating stylised dialectal expressions through a leading video-sharing website in China, bilibili.com. By identifying representative Chinese dialectal phrases and phonetic features, the authors coded a total of 1779 instances of dialect-stylised expressions from 159 videos on bilibili.com. Further investigation and analysis reveal that the sampled expressions largely reflect the dialectal features found in Northeastern Guanhua, Cantonese, Southwestern Guanhua and Min, representing an overarching representation of some of the large dialectal groups in Chinese Mainland. In addition, various linguistic strategies, such as phonetic transliteration and Romanised letters, were used to facilitate and stylise the digital representations of these spoken dialects. The findings exhibit Bilibili users' flexible choices of multilingual resources for dialect stylisation.
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- 2024
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7. Cognitive Fusion and Experiential Avoidance Sequentially Mediate the Relationship between Cyber Victimization and Depression in Adolescents
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Congrong Shi, Wenke Chen, Jing Huang, and Zhihong Ren
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Although cyber victimization has been suggested as a significant risk factor for the development of adolescents' depression, the underlying psychopathological process that mediates this relationship needs further exploration. Based on the psychological inflexibility model, this study aimed to examine cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance as serial mediators in the relation between cyber victimization and depression. A total of 556 Chinese adolescents completed a set of online self-report questionnaires measuring cyber victimization, cognitive fusion, experiential avoidance, and depression. A bias-corrected bootstrap approach was used to test the serial mediation model. The results showed that cyber victimization predicted adolescents' depression not only directly but also indirectly through three paths: the mediating role of (1) cognitive fusion and (2) experiential avoidance, and (3) the serial mediating role of cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance. These findings provide insight into the interventions for depression in adolescent cyber victims.
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- 2024
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8. The Community of Inquiry Perspective on Teachers' Role and Students' Evaluations of Online Project-Based Learning
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Guo, Pengyue, Saab, Nadira, Ren, Danli, and Admiraal, Wilfri
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The role of teachers is an important element of online project-based learning courses. Based on the Community of Inquiry framework, this study examined how students' perceptions of teaching presence, through social presence and cognitive presence, were related to their evaluations of online project-based learning. A 16-week online project-based legal education course was implemented. During the course, students engaged in two small group activities and created two final products. Survey data were collected twice from 38 and 41 students in two course phases. Results from partial least squares analyses revealed that teaching presence was directly related to students' evaluations in the early stage of the course and indirectly related to students' evaluations, through the effects of social presence, in the entire course. Practical implications for teachers and suggestions for further studies are provided.
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- 2022
9. Intervention Targeting Different Visual Attention Span Components in Chinese Children with Developmental Dyslexia: A Study Based on Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention
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Ren, Xiaoyu, Li, Jie, Liu, Jinqiu, Liu, Duo, and Zhao, Jing
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Within the framework of the theory of visual attention (TVA), the visual attention span (VAS) deficit among individuals with developmental dyslexia has been ascribed to the problems entailed by bottom-up (BotU) and top-down (TopD) attentional processes. The former involves two VAS subcomponents: the visual short-term memory storage and perceptual processing speed; the latter consists of the spatial bias of attentional weight and the inhibitory control. Then, what about the influences of the BotU and TopD components on reading? Are there differences in the roles of the two types of attentional processes in reading? This study addresses these issues by using two types of training tasks separately, corresponding to the BotU and TopD attentional components. Three groups of Chinese children with dyslexia--15 children each in the BotU training, TopD training, and non-trained active control groups were recruited here. Participants completed reading measures and a CombiTVA task which was used to estimate VAS subcomponents, before and after the training procedure. Results showed that BotU training improved both the within-category and between-category VAS subcomponents and sentence reading performance; meanwhile, TopD training enhanced character reading fluency through improving spatial attention capacity. Moreover, benefits on attentional capacities and reading skills in the two training groups were generally maintained three months after the intervention. The present findings revealed diverse patterns in the influences of VAS on reading within the TVA framework, which contributes to enriching the understanding of VAS-reading relation.
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- 2023
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10. Reflections on Translation Instruction for BTI in China's Mainland: Current Situation and Implications
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Ren, Junhong
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Effective translation instruction is crucial to the improvement of translation competence and language abilities of undergraduates majoring in translation. On the basis of an analysis of the problems in translation teaching, this paper provides an overview of the development of translation teaching reform, and puts forward some suggestions on translation teaching in terms of teaching philosophy, teaching content, teaching methods and assessment system.
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- 2022
11. Think Twice before Seeking Private Supplementary Tutoring in Mathematics: A Data Set from China Questioned Its Effectiveness
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Ren, Ping, Dou, Zhongchen, Wang, Xici, Li, Simeng, and Wang, Lidong
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Private supplementary tutoring (PT) has expanded significantly and attracted widespread public interest in China in recent years. It deserves systematic empirical research and reflection, given its crucial theoretical and practical implications. Based on the data of a large-scale survey and testing project, this study examined its effects on the students' academic achievements in mathematics. The results revealed that PT in the current semester did not have any significant positive effect on the students' academic achievement in mathematics. This suggested that households' huge financial investment in PT failed to achieve the desired result. Accordingly, these findings imply that parents should carefully select private tutoring for their children, and the government should provide more comprehensive professional guidelines to regulate the private tutoring industry.
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- 2023
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12. How Executive Processes Explain the Overlap between Working Memory Capacity and Fluid Intelligence: A Test of Process Overlap Theory
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Wang, Tengfei, Li, Chenyu, Ren, Xuezhu, and Schweizer, Karl
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Working memory capacity (WMC) and fluid intelligence (Gf) are highly correlated, but what accounts for this relationship remains elusive. Process-overlap theory (POT) proposes that the positive manifold is mainly caused by the overlap of domain-general executive processes which are involved in a battery of mental tests. Thus, executive processes are proposed to explain the relationship between WMC and Gf. The current study aims to (1) achieve a relatively purified representation of the core executive processes including shifting and inhibition by a novel approach combining experimental manipulations and fixed-links modeling, and (2) to explore whether these executive processes account for the overlap between WMC and Gf. To these ends, we reanalyzed data of 215 university students who completed measures of WMC, Gf, and executive processes. Results showed that the model with a common factor, as well as shifting and inhibition factors, provided the best fit to the data of the executive function (EF) task. These components explained around 88% of the variance shared by WMC and Gf. However, it was the common EF factor, rather than inhibition and shifting, that played a major part in explaining the common variance. These results do not support POT as underlying the relationship between WMC and Gf.
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- 2021
13. Autistic Traits in the Neurotypical Chinese Population: A Chinese Version of Glasgow Sensory Questionnaire and a Cross-Cultural Difference in Attention-to-Detail
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Ward, Jamie, Ren, Zhiting, and Qiu, Jiang
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The aim of this study was to assess cross-cultural differences in autistic traits relating to sensory sensitivity/attention-to-detail versus socio-communicative problems in a Chinese sample. A measure of atypical sensory sensitivity (Glasgow Sensory Questionnaire, GSQ) was translated into Chinese and compared against another measure of autistic traits (Chinese version of Autism Quotient, AQ). A second Chinese sample was administered English-language versions. We show that the translated GSQ has: good internal reliability; a similar profile of item responses to the English version; and a significant correlation with the AQ. Secondly we report an unexpected, but replicable, finding amongst the Chinese. Specifically, attention-to-detail was negatively correlated with socio-communicative difficulties (whereas in Western samples it is the reverse).
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- 2023
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14. Developmental Implications of Preschool Children's Affective Experiences during Organized Activities
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Ren, Lixin, Wang, Suqing, and Mang, Lingyun
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This study examined Chinese preschoolers' affective experiences during organized activities. One-on-one child interviews were conducted in which children were asked to rate their general affect during each organized activity in which they participated, and then provide reasons for their responses. Child-reported emotional engagement was related to children's social-emotional development, approaches to learning, as well as cognitive development. The reasons children mentioned for both their positive and negative affect were coded into six major categories: "interest-utility value, activity format, activity difficulty level, interpersonal relationships, external reinforcement," and "activity arrangement." Notably, interest-utility value was most frequently used by children to explain their positive affect, while difficulty level was most frequently cited to explain their negative affect. The findings underline the need to better understand young children's organized activity experiences from their own perspectives, as well as the importance of children's affective experiences during organized activities for their development in multiple domains.
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- 2023
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15. Academic Association through Overseas Visits: A Multiple-Case Study of Chinese Doctoral Students from the Perspectives of A(N)T
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Shan, H., Ren, Z., and Ma, Y.
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Studies of Chinese (visiting) international doctoral students typically focus on how students are socialized into the Western academy. Not only does the literature reinforce Western institutions as 'the academic centre', but it also conjures a unidirectional image of academic learning and knowledge transfer from the West to the rest of the world. This paper complexifies these images by proposing academic association as an alternative image to understand students' experiences. Inspired by assemblage thinking and actor network theory, academic association directs attention to the processes through which students translate themselves within research and knowledge practices and become researchers and knowledge producers. Empirically, drawing on a multiple-case study, this paper traces how 18 short-term Chinese visiting doctoral students built pathways to overseas studies, became enrolled within academic networks and practices, and assembled research and knowledge projects. It also highlights how the students' subjectivities shifted as they knotted themselves into various relations with others, both human and non-human, in the academy. It is argued that as students articulated themselves to 'the academic highways' during their visits, they also multiplied the highways and became, simultaneously, the subjects of academic 'freedom' and 'control'.
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- 2023
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16. The Effect of EF on PM Performance in School-Age Children
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Ren, Zhi, Liang, Xiao, Sun, Fanhui, and Wang, Lijuan
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Prospective memory (PM) is vital for children to live independently. Theoretical and empirical evidence has shown that executive function (EF) plays an important role in children's PM. However, there is no EF training for the PM of school-age children. Therefore, a 4-week EF training programme was conducted in this study to investigate the transfer effects of training on event-based PM in 8- to 12-year-old children. Children were randomly assigned to the EF training or control groups. The results revealed that EF training was more effective in enhancing children's PM performance; in particular, there was a transfer effect of EF. Further findings suggested that this transfer effect was observed only in older children, which supported the magnification account that those with strong EF abilities profit most. Moreover, the benefits of training were predicted by inhibition and switching ability. Altogether, EF training has the potential to improve children's PM, especially for children with better EF.
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- 2023
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17. Decoding EFL Learners' Internalization of English Modal Verbs in Concept-Based Language Instruction: Integrating SCOBAs with Languaging
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Qin, Lili, Ouyang, Xibei, and Ren, Wei
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Concept-based language instruction (C-BLI) is a pedagogy guided by sociocultural theory, which has been shown to be effective in facilitating second language learning. Typical activities include materialization by using a schema for a complete orienting basis of an action (SCOBA) and languaging, through which learners' internalization of scientific knowledge can be observed. However, previous studies have mainly used languaging as an assessment tool to examine the outcome of the internalization of concepts. Few studies have integrated SCOBAs (visual) and languaging (oral or written) in their investigation of the internalization process. This 5-week study involved 53 Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language learners in a university who were all taught with the C-BLI approach to learn English modal verbs. Among them, there were 26 lower proficiency students and 27 higher proficiency students. Visual, oral, and written data were collected to examine the participants' internalization of the modal verb concepts. All 53 learners participated in SCOBA drawing and written-languaging tasks. Twelve students (6 per group) volunteered to participate in oral languaging. The results showed that in the SCOBA drawing activity, higher level learners produced more abstract, systematic, and imitated visualizations of the concepts, while lower level learners produced more concrete, disconnected, and emulated visualizations. With regard to oral languaging, both groups largely abandoned their previously learned "rule of thumb" after the C-BLI intervention, and there were no obvious differences in oral-languaging performance between the two groups, except that the higher group produced more languaging units. Finally, we also found that the changes between pre- and post-written-languaging tasks for lower level students were more obvious, especially in the appropriation of SCOBAs in written languaging.
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- 2023
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18. Does Having Vulnerable Friends Help Vulnerable Youth? The Co-Evolution of Friendships, Victimization, and Depressive Symptoms in Chinese Adolescents' Social Networks
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Qin, Xingna, Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia, Steglich, Christian, Zhang, Yunyun, Ren, Ping, and Veenstra, René
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This study examined whether having vulnerable friends helps or hurts victimized and depressed (i.e., vulnerable) adolescents and whether this depends on classroom supportive norms. Students (n = 1461, 46.7% girls, 93.4% Han nationality) were surveyed four times from seventh and eighth grade (M[subscript age] = 13 years) in 2015 and 2016 in Central China. Longitudinal social network analyses indicated that having vulnerable friends can both hurt and help vulnerable adolescents. Depressed adolescents with depressed friends increased in victimization over time. Victimized adolescents with victimized friends increased in victimization but decreased in depressive symptoms. These processes were most likely in classrooms with high supportive norms. Having friends and a supportive classroom may hurt vulnerable adolescents' social position but help victims' emotional development.
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- 2023
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19. Preschoolers Can Match the Facial and Bodily Emotional Expressions: A Behavior and Eye-Tracking Study
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Hanlin Ren, Liang Huang, Fangyuan Du, Wenxin Huang, Guoyao Lin, Mariska E. Kret, and Shunsen Chen
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The preschool age is an important period in the development of children's emotional abilities. The face and body are both vital carriers of emotional information and adults readily match the emotional cues coming from these two modalities. However, it is unknown whether preschoolers have this ability or not. In the current study, 36 preschoolers (22 boys, aged 44-73 months old) participated in an emotional facial and bodily matching test including angry, happy, and neutral expressions (Experiment 1) and an eye-tracking experiment (Experiment 2). The results show that: (1) preschoolers can accurately match three categories of facial and bodily expressions of emotion (all matching rates were above 93% in Experiment 1); (2) robust emotional matching was observed across conditions in Experiment 2. That is, the eye-tracking indexes including the total fixation duration, the first fixation duration, and the fixation count, all indicated that the preschoolers more thoroughly processed bodily expressions of emotion which were congruent to the facial expressions compared to incongruent bodily expressions of emotion. This study shows that the ability to match facial and bodily expressions of emotion develops at an early age. Preschool children have already reached a high level of this ability.
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- 2023
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20. Am I Gonna Get a Job? Graduating Students' Psychological Capital, Coping Styles, and Employment Anxiety
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Belle, Michelle A., Antwi, Collins O., Ntim, Seth Y., Affum-Osei, Emmanuel, and Ren, Jun
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Thoughts about life after school can be frightening for college students. The uncertainty about employment expectancies can engender crippling anxiety, especially in a time of a major pandemic--COVID-19, and urgent attention is needed. This study, drawing on the self-determination theory, demonstrates preliminary protective effect of positive psychological capital (PsyCap) on employment anxiety among a relatively understudied group--graduating college students (Chinese sample = 546). It further illustrates the mediating mechanism of coping styles in this relation. Thus, the motivational impetus of PsyCap facilitates positive coping style (PCS) while diminishing negative coping style (NCS) which, in turn, hinders students' employment anxiety. Furthermore, the results revealed that students' internship experience strengthens the influence of graduating students' PsyCap on their PCS, but that with NCS and anxiety was nonsignificant. This research proffers valuable insights on college students' from-school-to-work transition for higher education institutions and career counselors, particularly in this turbulent labor market.
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- 2022
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21. A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience Improves Outcomes in Mentored Research
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Fendos, Justin, Cai, Liang, Yang, Xianmei, Ren, Guodong, Li, Lin, Yan, Zhiqiang, Lu, Boxun, Pi, Yan, Ma, Jinbiao, Guo, Bin, Wu, Xiaohui, Lu, Pingli, Zhang, Ruilin, and Yang, Ji
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Infusing undergraduate curricula with authentic research training is an important contemporary challenge. Such exposure typically occurs through mentored research (MR) or course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). In Asian contexts, CURE implementation is rare, while MR is often a graduation requirement. In this study, mentor interviews and mentee focus groups were used to characterize the learning challenges associated with this requirement at a Chinese university. An intensive 6-week CURE was then implemented as an MR preparatory program to help mitigate the identified challenges. This program contained seven site-specific features not typically included in other CUREs, each designed to improve different aspects of student readiness for MR. Post-CURE surveys, focus groups, and interviews demonstrated CURE enrollment significantly improved subsequent MR outcomes. Almost 90% of all enrollees, for example, began their first MR experience in their second year, more than twice the rate of non-enrollees. Enrollees also reported greater confidence in their research skills and more frequent experiences working in multiple labs. This study reports both immediate CURE and downstream MR outcomes, using the former to help explain the latter. A comprehensive CURE implementation process is described, offering a potential model for the design of other programs with similar research enhancement goals.
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- 2022
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22. Poisson Diagnostic Classification Models: A Framework and an Exploratory Example
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Liu, Ren, Liu, Haiyan, Shi, Dexin, and Jiang, Zhehan
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Assessments with a large amount of small, similar, or often repetitive tasks are being used in educational, neurocognitive, and psychological contexts. For example, respondents are asked to recognize numbers or letters from a large pool of those and the number of correct answers is a count variable. In 1960, George Rasch developed the Rasch Poisson counts model (RPCM) to handle that type of assessment. This article extends the RPCM into the world of diagnostic classification models (DCMs) where a Poisson distribution is applied to traditional DCMs. A framework of Poisson DCMs is proposed and demonstrated through an operational dataset. This study aims to be exploratory with recommendations for future research given in the end.
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- 2022
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23. A Statistical Study of Health Literacy at a University in Jiangsu, China
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Xinmeng, Ye, Si, Tian, and Fangrong, Ren
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This paper aims to understand students' health literacy condition at a university in Jiangsu Province by determining possible influencing factors, and to give suggestions to improve health literacy education. A total of 165 first, second, and third-year students completed the Mandarin Health Literacy Scale (MHLS) questionnaire. Statistical analyses, including difference analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and interactive analysis, were applied to examine the relationships between variables. The average score on the questionnaires was 45.78 out of a possible 50. The correlation coefficients between the Medical Service System and other sections were lower than those among the other sections. In addition, the high- and lowscoring groups on the Medication Information section had a significant interactive relationship with the Medical Service System in the Health Education Passage. In short, the health literacy of the students at this university was excellent. It can be concluded from the inter-section analysis that not only should their knowledge of the information in the Medical Service System section be strengthened, but Outpatient Department Conversation and Medication Information were key to improving overall health literacy.
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- 2019
24. The Effects of Proficiency and Study-Abroad on Chinese EFL Learners' Refusals
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Wang, Yuqi and Ren, Wei
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L2 pragmatics have explored the effects of different factors on different aspects of learners' pragmatic performance, but often not simultaneously. In addition, syntactic complexity is rarely examined in L2 pragmatics. This cross-sectional study aimed to conduct a multidimensional analysis to explore the effects of proficiency and study-abroad (SA) on Chinese EFL learners' refusals. Data were collected from 90 Chinese university students via a computer-animated elicitation task. The participants were divided into three groups: low-proficiency learners without SA experience and advanced learners with/without SA. The scenarios were kept consistent in imposition and social distance but varied in social status. Each participant interacted with a computer-animated native-speaker interlocutor in the scenarios. 20 American native speakers also participated in the study; their responses were used as the comparison data. Participants' performance was evaluated in five aspects: appropriateness, syntactic complexity, refusal strategies, adjuncts and internal modifiers. Results revealed that there were significant effects of L2 proficiency on appropriateness and of SA on syntactic complexity. The interactions of the two factors and social status were also analysed in learners' employment of refusal strategies and internal modification. Implications for pragmatic instruction and feasible suggestions for future research are discussed.
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- 2022
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25. Distressing Experiences of Chinese Schooling Winners: School Infiltration in Chinese Family Parenting
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Song, Apei and Ren, Zhongyuan
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School infiltration is an important aspect of family parenting research in recent years. This study reexamines the evaluation mechanism of higher education access path to explore the feelings of schooling winners (also Gaokao winners). Different from stratified education's understanding of family authority, this study proposes to deconstruct the rough understanding of stratified type, presenting a more historical and life-sense process of education acquisition and family parenting mode permeated by school education. This paper mainly uses the method of narrative analysis to explore the family parenting experiences of eight successful participants in higher education. The study found that Chinese family parenting was heavily influenced by schooling. Through discipline, empathy, and home-school cooperation, families reinforce the ideals and goals of schooling (high scores) in the field outside the school. Thus, participants expressed negative views and feelings about teachers, classmates and families. After completing the admission examination of higher education, some participants take the initiative to try to repair the relationship and adjust themselves to reach a reconciliation; Others are still growing up in the distressing experience.
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- 2022
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26. 'This Is so Skrrrrr' -- Creative Translanguaging by Chinese Micro-Blogging Users
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Zhang, Yi and Ren, Wei
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This study investigates the use of a popular online expression 'skr' by Chinese micro-blogging users on Weibo. Used originally as a hip-hop term for the sound of cars drifting tires, 'skr' was exploited by Chinese micro-blogging users for other meanings and functions. Data were collected from Weibo users' postings over a month. Using the Search function, we examined micro-blogs with 'skr' embedded in the text of the Weibo postings. A total of 1,861 instances of 'skr' were collected. Based on linguistic and communicative functions, the analysis identified eight types of literacy practices of 'skr'. In the decreasing order of frequency, these eight types include phonetic substitution of Chinese, affective exclamation, adjective as appreciation, hip-hop element, intensification device, searchable hashtag, metonymy, and onomatopoeia. The results of the present study suggest that the relocalisation of 'skr' demonstrates Chinese online users' creative and discursive literacy practices, and how the meaning and functions of an American hip-hop oriented term may shift when the expression enters a different lingua-culture.
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- 2022
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27. Assessment of Blended Biochemistry Classes Based on Massive Open Online Courses and a 'Semi-Flipped' Learning Environment
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Ren, Guijie, Zeng, Jiping, Guan, Xianren, Zhuang, Peiyue, Zhang, Pengju, Liu, Zhifang, and Tian, Keli
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Flipped classroom based on active learning is becoming an increasingly popular pedagogical method in higher education capable of increasing student performance in higher-order learning outcomes including application, analysis, evaluation, and creation. However, the success of a flipped classroom model relies on various supporting elements such as the accessibility of technology, and it may not be appropriate for all students and courses. In this study, a new blended biochemistry classroom model based on massive open online courses and a "semi-flipped" environment was applied to the students enrolled in three majors (stomatology, pharmacy, and preventive medicine) at Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, China. To assess the improvement of the students' perception of self-cognition in the blended biochemistry classes, surveys were conducted before and after undertaking the biochemistry course. Survey responses and total (final) score for the biochemistry course were analyzed using appropriate statistical methods. Compared to students who received traditional classroom instruction, students who participated in the blended classroom model achieved higher academic performance (p < 0.01) and reported a significant improvement in their perception of self-cognition (p < 0.01, or p < 0.05). More than 80% of participants preferred the blended classroom model to that of traditional classroom instruction.
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- 2022
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28. Using Environment Based Design Method to Improve Mechanical Curriculum Teaching
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Meng, Jie, He, Gaofa, Li, Xiang, Ren, Liancheng, Dong, Chaoqun, and Liu, Min
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This paper regards the mechanical curriculum teaching as a design problem and uses environment-based design (EBD) method to solve it. First, environment components and their relations of the mechanical curriculum are found out by recursive object model (ROM). Then, conflicts in the teaching process are identified by analysing the above relations. Finally, solutions for solving these conflicts are generated. The proposed method is applied to mechanical manufacturing technology foundation (MMTF) curriculum with 217 students in grade 2016 in China. The solutions used in MMTF include decreasing the mental stress of students, developing more experimental projects, applying real cases and projects, adopting variety of assessments and so on. Compared with the performance of students in grade 2015, the average attendance rate and final scores are both increased, and three of the four achievement values of graduation attributes are risen. The practical example illustrates the EBD method is effective in improving curriculum teaching.
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- 2022
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29. Undergraduate Research and Inquiry-Based Learning in Geographical Information Science: A Case Study from China
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Tian, Jing, Wang, Yiheng, Ren, Chang, and Lei, Yingzhe
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Undergraduate research experience is the process where undergraduates contribute to the development of a subject field through their inquiry-based learning (IBL). IBL is a student-centered learning strategy. Students work as professional scientists do, through inquiry. This article presents approaches to IBL and practices of an instructor from China for strengthening and facilitating IBL in geographical information science (GIS). Two paths were proposed for the development of the students on the basis of four modes of IBL. The practical experience was introduced in two parts: course design and IBL tool development for classroom teaching, and undergraduate mentoring outside of the classroom.
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- 2022
30. Relationships between the ?eacher-Child Conflict and Children's Problem Behaviors in the Cultural Context of Chinese Preschools
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Hu, Bi Ying, Ren, Lixin, Wu, Zhongling, Chen, Jiani, and He, Jinbo
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This study used a cross-lagged design to examine the longitudinal relations between teacher-child conflict and children's problem behavior during the preschool years based on a stratified sample of 515 Chinese preschool children. Children's problem behavior was reported by parents, and teachers rated their levels of conflict with children. Results showed that children's externalizing problems and hyperactivity/inattention had unidirectional effects on teacher-child conflict during some of the time points, supporting the child-driven model. However, teacher-child conflict had unidirectional effects on children's bullying problems, supporting the relationship-driven model. No transactional associations were found between children's behavioral problems and teacher-child conflict. The findings suggest that the nature of the relations between teacher-child conflict and children's problem behavior depends on the specific types of behavior under consideration. To promote Chinese preschool children's social-emotional functioning, teacher preparation and professional development programs should provide teachers with strategies to build quality relationships with children and manage children's problem behavior effectively. Impact Statement: (1) Preschool children's externalizing problems and hyperactivity/inattention had unidirectional effects on teacher-child conflict in a Chinese context; (2) Teacher-child conflict had unidirectional effects on children's bullying problems; and (3) The relations between teacher-child conflict and children's problem behavior vary depending on the specific types of behavior under consideration.
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- 2022
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31. Analysis of Mapping Knowledge Domains of Special Education Research: A Comparison of CSSCI and SSCI Indexes
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Lu, Cuiwei, Li, Deyang, Ren, Jie, Liu, Huanmin, and Zhang, Xueqin
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Special education is a natural yardstick to measure a country's educational level and the whole civilization. China has a massive special education undertaking that develops rapidly and forms a unique system. This study used bibliometric methods to conduct a macroscopic comparative analysis of Chinese and global literature, discuss the existing problems of China's special education, and put forward relevant recommendations accordingly. The CiteSpace V visual analysis software was used to draw the scientific knowledge map of the Chinese local database CSSCI and the global database SSCI, and the results of the map were discussed. Research conclusions: Firstly, China's research institutions lack a macro-level cooperation network. Second, there are differences in the focus of special education objects between China and the world. This difference is mainly caused by the definition of special education objects, which may be influenced by the formulation of educational concepts and policies. Thirdly, in the reference co-citation analysis, the focus of Chinese research is narrow and generally focuses on special education teachers. This article provides implications for solving special education problems in China, and its research method provides a reference for future related research for other countries.
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- 2022
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32. Family Socioeconomic Status, Parental Involvement, and Academic Achievement: The Moderating Role of Adolescents' Subjective Social Mobility
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Zhang, Feng, Jiang, Ying, Huang, Silin, Ming, Hua, Ren, Yi, and Wang, Lei
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The correlations between a low family socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescents' poor academic outcomes have been widely documented. However, the mechanisms through which family SES is associated with adolescents' academic achievement are not well understood. Therefore, this study examined the mediating roles of different types of parental involvement (i.e., parental school-based involvement, academic socialization, and home-based involvement) and the moderating role of adolescents' subjective social mobility in the relationships between family SES and academic achievement by using multisource data. The valid sample consisted of 842 adolescents (x-bar [superscript age] = 12.28 years, 40.97% girls) who were recruited from five township public schools in China. The results indicated that all three types of parental involvement partially mediated the relationships between family SES and adolescents' Chinese and math achievement; parental school-based involvement had the strongest mediating effects, followed by academic socialization, and home-based involvement had the lowest mediating effects. Moreover, the path from parental home-based involvement to Chinese achievement in the mediation model was moderated by the adolescents' subjective social mobility. In conclusion, parental involvement is an important mediating mechanism through which a low family SES impedes adolescents' academic achievement, and adolescents' subjective social mobility can play a buffering role in the relationship between parental home-based involvement and Chinese achievement.
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- 2021
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33. The Cost and Benefit of Fear Induction Parenting on Children's Health during the COVID-19 Outbreak
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Ren, Huiguang, Cheah, Charissa S. L., and Liu, Junsheng
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The outbreak of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was an unprecedented global public health emergency with a significant psychological toll. This study aimed to understand how specific COVID-19 related stressors contributed to Chinese parents' fear induction practices, and how these practices, in turn, contributed to their children's disease prevention practices during the outbreak and depressive symptoms after the outbreak. Parents (N = 240, M[subscript age] = 38.50 years, 75% mothers) with elementary-school-age children (M[subscript age] = 9.48 years, 46% girls) in Wenzhou, 1 of the most impacted cities in China, reported on the presence of confirmed or suspected cases in their communities, their frequencies of consuming COVID-19-related information, fear induction practices, and their children's trait anxiety and disease prevention practices during the outbreak (January 28-30, 2020). Child-reported depressive symptoms were collected between March 7-11, 2020; during which there were very few remaining cases and no new confirmed cases or deaths. Parents' higher frequency of virus-related information consumption but not the presence of community infection was associated with their engagement in more fear induction practices, which was in turn associated with children's greater engagement in prevention practices during the outbreak, but more post-quarantine depressive symptoms. Child trait anxiety exacerbated the association between parent fear induction and child depressive symptoms. Using fear induction parenting may promote children's willingness to cooperate and participate in disease prevention practices during the crisis but at the cost of children's long-term mental health.
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- 2021
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34. College English Reading Instruction in North China Electric Power University: The Production-Driven Approach
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Ren, Junhong and Wang, Na
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Production-oriented approach may provide us with a brand new perspective to our current college English reading instruction. Under this approach, teaching reforms need to be initiated in respects of teaching objectives, teaching materials, teaching methods and assessment. Instructors are required to design appropriate output tasks to stimulate learners' motivation in reading. In addition, a wide variety of teaching activities need to be designed to fully involve students in classroom activities and ensure the completion of output tasks. The teaching materials should not only be aimed at improving students' language knowledge, but also is conducive to students' cross-cultural competence. Finally, immediate assessing and delayed assessing should be employed to guarantee the best possible learning results.
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- 2018
35. A Survey of Students' Motivation in College English Learning under Production-Oriented Approach in NCEPU
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Ren, Junhong and Wang, Na
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This study investigates students' motivation in college English learning under production-oriented approach by means of a questionnaire. Forty students in their first-year study participated in this survey. They came from four different disciplines: electronic engineering, automatic engineering, mechanic engineering and power engineering. They were required to fill in the questionnaire at the beginning of the second semester before the teaching reform and at the end of the second semester when the teaching reform was conducted respectively. Our study indicates that students in increasing numbers begin to show great interest in college English learning under the production-oriented approach (POA), and their intrinsic motivation in English learning has been strengthened while at the same time extrinsic motivation shows a tendency of decline. The potential implication of this finding is that POA may be effective in stimulating students' motivation in college English learning.
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- 2018
36. Production-Oriented Approach and Its Implications for the Cultivation of Critical Thinking Skills in College English Instruction in Mainland China
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Ren, Junhong and Wang, Na
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Absence of critical thinking skills is perceived to be a growing problem among many university students. The production-oriented approach, an initiative to college English instruction reform in mainland China, may offer a better solution to this problem. To cultivate critical thinking skills under this approach, reforms have to be implemented in teaching objectives, teaching materials, teaching approaches and assessment.
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- 2018
37. A Survey of Students' Attitudes toward English Graded Teaching in China: A Case Study of North China Electric Power University
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Ren, Junhong and Wang, Na
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The present study investigates students' attitudes toward English graded teaching in North China Electric Power University (NCEPU for short). In essence, differences between learners of different grades and achievement groups were examined with regard to five constructs, namely, their perception of English graded teaching, the impact of English graded teaching on their learning, their attitudes toward teaching materials, their attitudes toward teaching content and their expectations for college English instructions. The study also aims to put forth proposals to alter the undesirable aspects of college English graded teaching. Sixty-six students from ten departments participated in the survey. Questionnaire containing both questions with best choices and open-ended questions was the main instrument. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data shows that students from different achievement groups tend to hold neutral attitude toward our teaching practice, the teaching materials, and the teaching content. Despite this tendency, students from high achievement group tend to take positive attitude toward the undesirable aspects of this teaching practice. Finding from the questions with best choices indicates that our teaching practice may have lost its appeal to the language learners due to its failure to stimulate their motivation and meet their demand and interest. In addition, results of open-ended questions reveal that alterations are needed in teaching contents, teaching focus and assessment system if it were to regain students' interest. The results of the study contribute to a good understanding of current English teaching situation in NCEPU. Proposals to alter this undesirable situation are put forward.
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- 2018
38. The Most Familiar Stranger: The Acculturation of Mainland Chinese Students Studying in Taiwan
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Chao, Ren-Fang and Yen, Jih-Rong
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Mainland China and Taiwan have a homogenous macroculture, but a heterogenous microculture. To understand the acculturation of students from mainland China to Taiwan, the present study applies Berry's (1997) two-dimensional model of acculturation, together with the concept of cultural types as its analytical framework, using focus group interviews to analyze different directions of acculturation among students from mainland China in Taiwan. The results show that regarding personal values, due to Taiwan's restrictions on students from mainland China and the fact that they must eventually return to their place of origin, the acculturation of students from mainland China mainly takes the "separation/segregation" mode. Regarding peer selection, due to differences between individuals in their interpersonal choices, they may adopt "separation/segregation" or "integration" modes. Regarding the period of residence in Taiwan, as students from mainland China spend longer in Taiwan, they tend more towards "integration." However, when teachers show greater contempt for the culture of mainland China, the acculturation of students from mainland China tends toward the "separation/segregation" mode.
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- 2018
39. Implementing Curriculum and Program Changes at a Chinese University to Foster Excellent Chemistry Teachers for Rural Middle Schools
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Cai, Longfei, Zhong, Minghua, Yan, Zankai, Huang, Junsheng, Zhang, Huiying, Lin, Manbin, Lai, Heyun, Pan, Hui, Ke, Dongxian, and Ren, Nailin
- Abstract
Given the big gap between rural areas and cities and developed areas of China in basic education, it is of great significance to train a large number of excellent teachers for basic education in the vast rural areas so as to boost basic education there and achieve educational equity. Hanshan Normal University is a regional normal university located in Chaoshan, Guangdong, China. The Chemistry Education major aims to foster outstanding chemistry teachers for rural middle schools in Guangdong, especially for the Chaoshan region. The university is committed to forming a reasonable knowledge structure for Chemistry Education majors, improving their experimental skills and capabilities in experimental design and educational research while cultivating their emotion in taking root in rural areas as well. Practice has proven that this program for training outstanding chemistry teachers for rural middle schools is fruitful.
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- 2021
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40. College English Writing Instruction for Non-English Majors in Mainland China: The 'Output-Driven, Input-Enabled' Hypothesis Perspective
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Ren, Junhong
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College English writing instruction has been a prominent research area in EFL field in mainland China. This paper has continued the focus by exploring a seemingly effective way for college English writing instruction in China--teaching writing based on reading on the basis of the "output-driven, input-enabled" hypothesis. This hypothesis places emphasis on the important role that language output plays in second language acquisition. Under this hypothesis, language output is both the driving power and objective of EFL teaching; language input provides with the language learners the language forms and content essential for output tasks. This hypothesis meets language learners' psychological needs, our social needs and current educational needs. In essence, theoretical considerations on carrying out writing instruction based on this hypothesis are discussed. To construct writing instruction, teachers may teach writing based on reading since reading could provide the learners with meaningful language input, which language learners could take advantage of to accomplish the writing tasks. Requirements for writing instructions in reading classes are then identified and illustrations on how to conduct writing are provided under this new hypothesis.
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- 2017
41. The Impact of Personal Moral Philosophies on the Safe Practice of Students in Chemistry and Related Majors
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Ren, Xiaohong, Wang, Xiaoyan, Jin, Xinglong, and Li, Mengting
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Moral ethic prevails in the science and education of chemistry. These issues are unique to chemistry and arise from between the theoretical and the practical behavior in laboratory. The study reported in the paper investigated the impact of personal moral philosophies on the safety practices of students in chemistry and related majors. The results showed that lab anxiety, safety attitude, safety knowledge, and idealism were significant predictors of safety practice, with the last item being the strongest predictor. According to Forsyth's four distinct personal moral philosophies, among Chinese students, situationism was the most common, followed by exceptionism and then absolutism, with subjectivism as the least common. All lowest scores are from exceptionism. Idealism was more common among males than females, more among higher grade students than lower, and more among students from eastern as compare to western regions of China. All the results showed that the content of idealism should be incorporated into safety training to improve safety practices. Attention to idealistic education in all aspects of university education can help to improve safety behavior.
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- 2021
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42. Tracking the Trajectories of International Students' Pragmatic Choices in Studying Abroad in China: A Social Network Perspective
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Li, Citing, Li, Wendong, and Ren, Wei
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This paper reports on a longitudinal study that investigated how international students' personal network mediated their pragmatic choices during studying abroad in China. Data were collected over a year through different ways, including Study Abroad Network Questionnaire, role-plays, retrospective verbal reports, ethnographic interviews and observation field notes. Findings showed that with respect to pragmatic performance, the students exercised their subjectivity to converge to or diverge from the native-speaker norms. The ethnographic accounts revealed that the changes in learners' pragmatic choices were closely related to the composition and structure of their social network. Using two case learners, we highlighted that social network may work in synergy with pragmatic subjectivity to contribute to the trajectory changes over learners' socialisation processes. We discussed how social network may serve as both a theoretical lens and an analytical tool for investigating pragmatic development in study-abroad contexts.
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- 2021
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43. Informant Discrepancies in the Rating of Chinese Preschoolers' Approaches to Learning: Looking for the Role of Parent-Teacher Relationships
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Ren, Lixin and Fan, Jieqiong
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Ratings from multiple informants, such as parents and teachers, are often used in child development research. Although informant discrepancies have been the rule rather than the exception, factors that may contribute to such discrepancies are not well understood. This study examined the role of parent-teacher relationships in the discrepancies between parents' and teachers' ratings of approaches to learning in Chinese preschoolers. Data were collected from the parents and teachers of 354 Chinese children (M[subscript age] = 5.26 years). Discrepancies between parents' and teachers' ratings were analysed, and poor agreement was found. Better parent-teacher relationships slightly contributed to smaller parent-teacher discrepancies on ratings of children's attention/persistence and competence motivation. The findings suggest that strategies promoting parent-teacher relationships may improve the consistency between parents' and teachers' view on children's learning behaviours to some degree. The observed discrepancies also imply that multi-informant ratings are imperative to achieve comprehensive understandings of children's behaviour.
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- 2021
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44. Parent-Child Number Application Activities Predict Children's Math Trajectories from Preschool to Primary School
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Zhang, Xiao, Hu, Bi Ying, Zou, Xinzhuo, and Ren, Lixin
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This study (N=196) examined the extent to which the frequency of parent-child math activities in preschool was associated with children's developmental trajectories of math skills from preschool to primary school. Parents reported the frequency of their involvement in a variety of math activities with their preschool children. Children were tested individually on their formal (i.e., math knowledge that involves verbal or written symbolism, such as rote counting and written computation) and informal (i.e., object-based numeration and operations, such as number line concepts and object-based calculation) math skills from preschool to first grade. The results showed that the frequency of parent-child formal math activities, including number skill and book activities, was not associated with children's formal or informal math trajectories. In contrast, the frequency of informal math activities, including number game and application activities, was associated with formal math skill levels in preschool. More important, parental involvement in application activities in preschool significantly predicted the rate of growth in formal math skills through first grade. This predictive relation persisted after controlling for the other three types of math activities and other child- and family-level variables. The findings underscore the importance of early parent-child application activities in engendering possible long-term effects on children's math skill development.
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- 2020
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45. A Study of the Relationship between Learning Belief and English Achievement of Chinese English Major College Students
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Ren, Hulin and Bai, Yulian
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It is generally accepted that learning belief has great effect on learning, however, few studies examine the extent to which learning belief affects related achievement. This paper mainly discusses the study of relationship between learning belief and English achievement of Chinese English major students in College. Through the data analysis of Horwitz's BALLI and TEM4 scores, we tested on 100 English major students in college, which was focused on the correlation between learning belief and learning achievements. Based on this, a further study was made on influencing factors such as student's personality, learning motivation, aptitude, teachers and learning participators on students' English learning belief and achievements. The results show that the relation between learning belief has a general positive effect on learning achievement, but not determinative; personality plays important role in learning belief; aptitude and hard work are able to produce high scores; good achievement students are driven by both integrative and instrumental motivation, teachers and the classmates have mutual influence on learning achievement. The study is very important as it provides implications for college English language teaching and further help to improve students' English proficiency.
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- 2016
46. Family Socio-Economic Status and Children's Academic Achievement: The Different Roles of Parental Academic Involvement and Subjective Social Mobility
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Zhang, Feng, Jiang, Ying, Ming, Hua, Ren, Yi, Wang, Lei, and Huang, Silin
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Background: Low family socio-economic status (SES) is usually associated with children's poor academic achievement, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship are less understood. Aims: The present study examined the mediating role of parental academic involvement and the moderating role of parental subjective social mobility in this relationship with cross-sectional data. Sample and methods: A total of 815 fourth- to sixth-grade children were recruited from five elementary schools in China. Family SES (measured by parents' education, parents' occupation and family income) and parental subjective social mobility were obtained directly from parents, parental academic involvement was reported by children, and information on children's academic achievement was collected from their teachers. Results: The results showed that (1) both family SES and parental academic involvement were positively correlated with children's Chinese and math achievement, (2) parental academic involvement mediated the relationships between family SES and children's Chinese and math achievement, and (3) parental subjective social mobility moderated the path from family SES to parental academic involvement. The models of children's Chinese and math achievement showed that the association between family SES and parental academic involvement was weak among children's parents who reported high levels of subjective social mobility. Conclusions: These findings suggest that there is a pathway from family SES to children's academic achievement through parental academic involvement and that this pathway is dependent on the level of parental subjective social mobility.
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- 2020
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47. Designing MATLAB Course for Undergraduates in Cartography and Geographic Information Science: Linking Research and Teaching
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Tian, Jing, Ren, Chang, Lei, Yingzhe, and Wang, Yiheng
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Participation of undergraduate students in research helps them nurture critical thinking, develop research skills, enhance self-confidence, and clarify their education or career paths. The curriculum is central to integrating teaching and research, and is a primary source for providing undergraduate research experience. This study designed a MATLAB course for undergraduate students in Cartography and Geographic Information Science. This course integrated various models of research-teaching nexus and combined MATLAB with the profession, aiming to benefit students' learning, improve their general understanding and specific skills of research, and teach them how to conduct research. A total of 47 students were enrolled, and 37 of them completed this course. Benefits and costs of the course for students were investigated, and students' perception of the course was evaluated. Students benefited from the course in four aspects: personal gain (setback resilience and independence), understanding of knowledge synthesis (research process and problem solving), skills (literature reading and writing), and professional development (community engagement and ethical conduct). Although time costs and relatively high difficulty were reported to potentially conflict with other activities, the students still had a high degree of satisfaction and acceptance for this course.
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- 2020
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48. Tracking the Evolution of Chinese Learners' Multilingual Motivation through a Longitudinal Q Methodology
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Zheng, Yongyan, Lu, Xiuchuan, and Ren, Wei
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This study uses a Q methodology to track the changing motivational profiles of 15 Chinese university students simultaneously engaged in second-language (L2) English and third-language (L3) Spanish learning over 1.5 years. Guided by complex dynamic systems theory (CDST), the study aims to investigate the initial trigger that propelled the Chinese learners to engage in intensive L3 learning and to chart the different routes of multilingual self-development. Over the 1.5 years, Q sort tasks were administered at 3 time points, and retrospective interviews elicited data to complement the Q sort analysis. A nonspecific multilingual posture was found to be the initial trigger for voluntary investment in intensive L3 learning. A motivational profile with a dominating translingual and transcultural orientation develops into either more constitutive ideal multilingual selves or more language-specific integrative ideal selves, continuously exerting motivational forces. Another profile, which has a dominating instrumental orientation, generates diminishing motivational forces. We argue that different aspects of multilingual learning motivation may be operating in parallel through correlative associations in the holistic, dynamic, and relational system of multilingual self. The article concludes by discussing pedagogical implications for learning and teaching multiple foreign languages for university students.
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- 2020
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49. Inner Speech in the Learning Context and the Prediction of Students' Learning Strategy and Academic Performance
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Lee, Shuangshuang, Wang, Tengfei, and Ren, Xuezhu
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The present study investigated whether and how learning-specific inner speech predicted students' learning strategy and academic performance. Frequencies of inner speech use in specific learning settings were assessed. Four dimensions of inner speech including self-criticism, self-reinforcement, self-management, and social assessment were investigated and linked to the learning strategy and academic performance. Data were collected from both secondary school students and university students. The results indicated that both the cognitive regulative function (self-management) and the affective regulatory function (self-criticism or self-reinforcement) of inner speech contributed to students' learning strategy, while only the cognitive regulative function of inner speech significantly predicted students' academic performance. Furthermore, the prediction of inner speech to academic performance was partly mediated by the learning strategy.
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- 2020
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50. A Survey on College English Writing in China: A Cultural Perspective
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Ren, Junhong and Wang, Na
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This survey investigates to what degree the Chinese learners know about the discrepancies between Chinese and English thought patterns and their possible effects on English writing. Eighty-one students from North China Electric Power University participate in the survey. Qualitative and quantities approaches, involving the adoption of both questionnaire and data analysis, underpin the survey. A questionnaire is used to examine five constructs, namely, students' writing condition, students' knowledge about discrepancies of the Chinese and English thought patterns and their effect on Chinese learners' English writing in terms of wording, sentence structure and discourse organization. Data collected from the questionnaires are then analyzed. Findings from the study reveal that a vast majority of Chinese students are surprisingly not fully aware of the important influence thought patterns exert on languages and how discrepancies in thought patterns are associated with differences in languages. As a consequence of this, their English essays preserve some features of Chinese despite years of English learning. The results of the study contribute to a good understanding of the Chinese learners' current writing condition in EFL teaching. Suggestions to alter this undesirable situation are put forward.
- Published
- 2015
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