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The present study explores English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' processes and strategies when using machine translation (MT) tools in academic abstract writing. Eight EFL graduate students were introduced to translation-friendly writing strategies using Google Translate and were required to produce an English abstract with the aid of a machine translation tool. The study used qualitative and quantitative approaches in data collection and analysis. A triangulation process was developed and implemented, including think-aloud protocols during the writing session, surveys, and individual interviews after the writing session. The findings suggested that the translation-friendly writing strategies introduced to the participants were useful in enhancing the quality of their writing. Each participant demonstrated individual strategic uses of MT. Among the various strategies reported, back translation was the most commonly adopted one; that is, they first composed an abstract in Chinese (L1) and engaged in multiple rounds of translation between Chinese and English using MT; when problems were identified in the English abstract, they modified the Chinese abstract using translation-friendly writing strategies to enhance the quality of MT translation output. Most of the translation problems identified by the participants were related to non-academic expressions. While participants were satisfied with the quality of the abstracts produced with the aid of MT, they raised ethical concerns regarding the use of MT in academic writing. These findings suggest that MT has fundamentally changed the process of academic writing in English and call for the re-examination of the purpose of academic writing instruction and the approaches employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to analyze visual attention during students' learning of Toulmin's argument pattern (TAP) and the effects of epistemic beliefs in science on the understanding of argument components. A total of 43 undergraduates were recruited through the Internet. Online questionnaires targeting beliefs about knowledge in science [Conley, A. M., Pintrich, P. R., Vekiri, I., & Harrison, D. (2004). Changes in epistemological beliefs in elementary science students. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29(2), 186–204] and beliefs about justification for knowing in science [Ferguson, L. E., & Bråten, I. (2013). Student profiles of knowledge and epistemic beliefs: Changes and relations to multiple-text comprehension. Learning and Instruction, 25, 49–61] were used to assess students' epistemic beliefs. Identification tests for the understanding of TAP were performed before and after an argument reading treatment designed as a self-learning activity. The whole reading process was recorded by the eye-tracking system. To explore the effect of the reading treatment, participants were divided into a progress (P) group and a no-progress (NP) group based on their learning gains.The results indicated that students' epistemic beliefs in science and their learning strategies would affect their TAP learning performance. The analyses of visual attention distribution indicated that integration information indicated by inter-scanning counts would enhance students' learning performance. In addition, the LSA results suggested that understanding of data is of primary importance when learning TAP. Suggestions on how to guide students in learning TAP are provided based on the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although AR technology seems to be promising for helping students learn complicated and abstract concepts, whether the positive effects of this new technology can be applied to the learning of three-dimensional geometric concepts, and what factors might mediate its effectiveness are questions worth further investigation. This study used the eye-tracking method to examine middle school students' learning of three-dimensional geometric concepts with AR-based instruction in comparison with a group of students who learned via paper-based instruction. Motivation and conceptual achievements were assessed using the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) questionnaire and Geometry Achievement Test (GAT), respectively. The results showed that while AR learners performed the same as the paper-based learners in the post concept test, the two groups differed significantly in terms of their motivation orientations and visual attention patterns. AR students were more satisfied with and engaged more in the corresponding instruction. To explore in-depth the effectiveness of the AR system, the AR participants were divided into improved and unimproved learners. The former displayed higher confidence in and perceived greater relevance of the AR instruction. Their attention to and engagement in the simple geometric concepts was higher. Correlation and regression analyses indicated that the performance of paper-based learners was affected by their visual attention, while the performance of the AR learners was predicted by their beliefs in the relevance of the material to the learning goals. Noticeably, for the AR learners, their motivation was significantly associated with their visual attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to compare the associations of epistemic beliefs in science, performance of scientific reasoning in university students from Taiwan and India, and the relations with their science learning experiences. A total of 126 university students including 67 from Taiwan and 59 from India who had science and mathematics backgrounds were involved in the study. Students' epistemic beliefs in science were assessed by the SEV questionnaire, while their reasoning performance and learning experiences were prompted by open-ended questions and survey items. Content analysis was performed to analyze their scientific reasoning, and correlation analysis, t tests and ANOVA were applied to reveal the associations between variables. The results showed that students from both countries differed in epistemic beliefs in the dimensions of certainty, development and justification. While few students from either country performed successfully in identifying genuine evidence and giving full rebuttals, Taiwanese participants seemed to demonstrate slightly better scientific reasoning. It was found that the Indian students were more balanced in receiving structured and engaged learning experiences. Varying associations for the students from the different countries were found between epistemic beliefs and scientific reasoning performance, and between epistemic beliefs and science learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the study was to explore how different augmented 3D visualizations may affect the learning of complex science concepts using the eye tracking method. An Augmented Reality (AR) learning system incorporated with different 3D visualizations was developed to assist conceptual learning in the topic of "molecular shapes." Learners' visual attention during the AR learning was recorded using a mobile eye tracking system. Participants were 32 10th grade students. Pre- and post-tests were used to assess students' learning achievements. Learners were grouped into low and high achievers according to the posttest result. To analyze the associations between learners' visual attentions and learning achievements, correlation, t -test, correlation, and regression analyses were applied. Additionally, we conducted lag sequential analysis (LSA) to compare the visual transitions of different groups of achievers. The results showed that learners' conceptual understanding was improved after the AR learning activity. Among the different 3D visualizations, learners attended more to the static and dynamic types in the basic learning stage and to the static and interactive types in the advanced learning stage. Attention to the 3D static model was found to associate more to the attention to the interactive type. The correlation and regression analyses found that the cognitive effort to integrate information about the static 3D model was the key predictor for the learning achievement. LSA showed that high achievers displayed a higher chance of looking back to the static 3D model from other AOIs. The visual pattern analysis suggested that a guidance to connect information delivered by the static and the animated visual representations is necessary for complex conceptual learning. • Visual attention to the augmented 3D static objects predicted learning achievement. • Visual attentions to the 3D static and interactive models were highly correlated. • Low achievers attended more to the interactive 3D objects. • High achievers looked back to the static 3D object from other AOIs more frequently. • High achievers made more sequential transitions between text and 3D objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this study was to explore learners' beliefs about science reading and scientific epistemic beliefs, and how these beliefs were associating with their understanding of science texts. About 400 10th graders were involved in the development and validation of the Beliefs about Science Reading Inventory (BSRI). To find the effects of reader beliefs and epistemic beliefs, a new group of 65 10th grade students whose reader and epistemic beliefs were assessed by the newly developed BSRI and an existing SEB questionnaire were invited to take part in a science reading task. Students' text understanding in terms of concept gain and text interpretations was collected and analyzed. By the correlation analysis, it was found that when students had stronger beliefs about meaning construction based on personal goals and experiences (i.e. transaction beliefs), they produced more thematic and critical interpretations of the content of the test article. The regression analysis suggested that students SEBs could predict concept gain as a result of reading. Moreover, among all beliefs examined in the study, transaction beliefs stood out as the best predictor of overall science-text understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study aims to examine the paraphrasing strategies, sources, and self-plagiarism of 71 journal articles in the fields of language and education. Turnitin plagiarism detection software and human scrutiny were employed to uncover the full range of detectable text-borrowing practices in these publications. The results indicate 30 different types of paraphrasing strategies, among which copying verbatim and substitution were the most frequent. Additionally, authors in the study often integrated multiple paraphrasing strategies within single sentences. Journal articles represent the majority of the sources from which text is borrowed. Regarding authorship, overall, more than two-thirds (67.28%) of the observed textual borrowing involves the reuse (or recycling) of texts from an author's previous publications. The prevalence of matches with one's own publications calls for more explicit operational standards among disciplines in this regard and points toward factors that may contribute to unintentional self-plagiarism, such as lexical bundles or authors' stylistic habits in writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study integrates service learning into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) speaking class using Web 2.0 tools – YouTube and Facebook – as platforms. Fourteen undergraduate students participated in the study. The purpose of the service-learning project was to link service learning with oral communication training in an EFL speaking class by having each student create two YouTube videos in which they made informative presentations about the university (e.g., transportation system) and the city (e.g., sightseeing spots) in English to international students on campus. A Facebook community was established as a forum for students to share their videos with the international students and peers. The results suggest that the project enhanced EFL students’ public speaking-related skills (e.g., idea and content development, and pronunciation), built their confidence in speaking English, and allowed them to develop their own learning process and strategies. Moreover, Web 2.0 tools endow service learning with new possibilities of reaching a greater number of the target audience and provide the members of the community with alternative means of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of the study was to investigate university learners' visual attention during a PowerPoint (PPT) presentation on the topic of “Dinosaurs” in a real classroom. The presentation, which lasted for about 12–15 min, consisted of 12 slides with various text and graphic formats. An instructor gave the presentation to 21 students whose eye movements were recorded by the eye tracking system. Participants came from various science departments in a national university in Taiwan, of which ten were earth-science majors (ES) and the other 11 were assigned to the non-earth-science group (NES). Eye movement indicators, such as total time spent on the interest zone, fixation count, total fixation duration, percent time spent in zone, etc., were abstracted to indicate their visual attention. One-way ANOVA as well as t-test analysis was applied to find the associations between the eye movement data and the students' background as well as different formats of PPT slides. The results showed that the students attended significantly more to the text zones on the PPT slides and the narrations delivered by the instruction. Nevertheless, the average fixation duration, indicating the average information processing time, was longer on the picture zones. In general, the ES students displayed higher visual attention than the NES students to the text zones, but few differences were found for the picture zones. When the students viewed those slides containing scientific hypotheses, the difference in attention distributions between the text and pictures reduced. Further analyses of fixation densities and saccade paths showed that the ES students were better at information decoding and integration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study measured high-school learners'' cognitive load as they interacted with different web-based curriculum components, and examined the interactions between cognitive load and web-based concept learning. Participants in this study were 105 11th graders from an academic senior high school in Taiwan. An online, multimedia curriculum on the topic of global warming, which lasted for four weeks, provided the learning context. After students worked through the curriculum, their feelings about the degree of mental effort that it took to complete the learning tasks were measured by self-report on a 9-point Likert scale. An online test and the flow-map method were applied to assess participants'' concept achievements. The results showed that curriculum components such as scientific articles, online notebooks, flash animations and the online test induced a relatively high cognitive load, and that a lower cognitive load resulted in better concept achievement. Also, students appeared to adopt different learning approaches that were corresponding to different levels of cognitive load. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The purpose of the study is to explore three kinds of personal affective traits among high-school students and their effects on web-based concept learning. The affective traits include personal preferences about web-based learning environments, personal epistemological beliefs, and beliefs about web-based learning. One hundred 11th graders participated in the study. Three questionnaires were developed to assess these affective characteristics. An online test and the flow-map technique were employed to probe concept achievements that indicated the learning outcome. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, correlation and regression analyses were conducted to present trends and relations among variables. It was found that participants of the study who mostly had not developed sophisticated epistemological beliefs displayed only moderate preferences toward explorative and interactive web-based learning environments, and they seemed to be conservative about the effectiveness of the new type of learning. According to the flow-map technique, the serial form of concept achievements was the main product of concept learning in the explorative web-based environments defined in the study. Regression analyses indicated that while preferences toward inquiry-based instructional designs and outward interactions, and the simple form of personal epistemology predicted concept achievements, beliefs about effectiveness of web-based learning resulted in a negative impact on concept learning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Psychological studies have shown that personal beliefs about learning and environmental preferences affect learning behaviors. However, these learner characteristics have not been widely discussed in the web-based context. By developing questionnaires, this study attempted to detect learners’ web-based learning environmental preferences (WLEP) and beliefs about web-based learning (BWL). The scope of WLEP focused on the pedagogical dimension of the web-based learning environment, while BWL concerned the attributes and control factors of the web-based learning. There were about five hundreds of Taiwan university students participating in the study. Through factor analysis, the scales discussed in the study revealed a satisfactory validity and reliability in assessing students’ preferences and beliefs. Further analyses showed that university students preferred more of individual and structured instructional configurations while expected the outward mode of interaction. In general, students held a rather contextual belief about web-based learning, which was found to be correlated with their environmental preferences. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Insect growth and development are precisely controlled by hormone homeostasis. The prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH) receptor, Torso, is a member of the receptor tyrosine kinase family in insects. Activation of Torso by PTTH triggers biosynthesis and release of the steroid hormone in the prothoracic gland (PG). Although numbers of genes functioning in steroid hormone synthesis and metabolism have been identified in insects, the PTTH transduction pathway via its receptor Torso is poorly understood. In the current study, we describe a loss‐of‐function analysis of Torso in the silkworm, Bombyx mori, by targeted gene disruption using the transgenic CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/RNA‐guided Cas9 nucleases) system. Depletion of B. mori Torso (BmTorso) did not eventually affect larval ecdysis and metamorphosis processes. Instead, BmTorso deficiency resulted in significant extension of developing time during larval and pupal stages with increased pupa and cocoon sizes. The ecdysteriod titers in the hemolymph of BmTorso mutants sharpy declined. Transcriptional levels of genes involved in ecdysone biosynthesis and ecdysteroid signaling pathways were significantly reduced in BmTorso‐deficient animals. Additionally, RNA‐Seq analysis revealed that genes involved in the longevity pathway and protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum pathway were affected after BmTorso deletion. These results indicate that Torso is critical for maintaining steroid hormone homeostasis in insects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The purpose of the study is to explore English as a foreign language (EFL) college students’ needs in English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific/Academic Purposes (ESP/EAP) courses in terms of their perceptions of three subcategories of needs—necessities, wants, and lacks—and reasons for students’ course enrollment. A questionnaire was administered to 972 EFL college students from six universities in Taiwan. The results showed that students had different perceptions of necessities, wants, and lacks in the different language skills taught in EGP and ESP/EAP courses. The findings also demonstrated discrepancies between the students’ perceptions of needs and the actual courses they took, thereby highlighting the importance of understanding needs as a complex, multiple, and conflicting concept. Finally, factors that determined students’ enrollment in EGP courses included necessities, short-term, and long-term goals while enrollment in ESP/EAP courses depended more on job relevancy. Implications for language instructors and curriculum designers are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The educational reform movement since the 1990s has led the secondary earth science curriculum in Taiwan into a stage of reshaping. The present study investigated secondary earth science teachers' perceptions on the Goals of Earth Science Education (GESE). The GESE should express the statements of philosophy and purpose toward which educators direct their attention, and provide the visions or broad aims that earth science education is designed to achieve. Based on this rationale, the purpose of this study was to explore teachers' perceptions on the GESE at secondary school level (Grades 7-12) in Taiwan. A national survey of 1,000 earth science teachers was conducted in May 2004, with a response rate of 70.2%. The results revealed that 'Students acquire basic earth science concepts' is the most important GESE both in teachers' preferred goal and their actual teaching practice in the secondary earth science education; that there is a major gap between teachers' preferred and actual GESE in terms of 'Preparing students for the entrance examinations'; and that the differences between teachers' preferred and actual GESE are contingent on the teachers' age, the school size, and the teacher education background of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The IEEE Education Society, the IEEE Computer Society, and the American Society for Engineering Education Educational Research and Methods Division (ASEE-ERM) sponsored the 47th Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference in Indianapolis, IN, USA, held October 18–21, 2017. Claudio R. Brito, President of the IEEE Education Society, and Stephen T. Frezza, Chair of the FIE Steering Committee, presented awards sponsored by the Education Society and the FIE Conference. In addition, the IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award, which is administered by the IEEE Awards Board and sponsored by the IEEE Education Society, was presented by Karen Bartleson, IEEE President. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores students' cognitive processes while debugging programs by using an eye tracker. Students' eye movements during debugging were recorded by an eye tracker to investigate whether and how high- and low-performance students act differently during debugging. Thirty-eight computer science undergraduates were asked to debug two C programs. The path of students' gaze while following program codes was subjected to sequential analysis to reveal significant sequences of areas examined. These significant gaze path sequences were then compared to those of students with different debugging performances. The results show that, when debugging, high-performance students traced programs in a more logical manner, whereas low-performance students tended to stick to a line-by-line sequence and were unable to quickly derive the program's higher-level logic. Low-performance students also often jumped directly to certain suspected statements to find bugs, without following the program's logic. They also often needed to trace back to prior statements to recall information, and spent more time on manual computation. Based on the research results, adaptive instructional strategies and materials can be developed for students of different performance levels, to improve associated cognitive activities during debugging, which can foster learning during debugging and programming. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study employed an eye-tracking technique to examine students’ visual attention when solving a multiple-choice science problem. Six university students participated in a problem-solving task to predict occurrences of landslide hazards from four images representing four combinations of four factors. Participants’ responses and visual attention were recorded by an eye tracker. Participants were asked to think aloud during the entire task. A 4 (options) × 4 (factors) repeated measures design, two paired t-tests and effect sizes analyses were conducted to compare the fixation duration between chosen and rejected options and between relevant and irrelevant factors. Content analyses were performed to analyze participants’ responses and think aloud protocols and to examine individual’s Hot Zone image. Finally, sequential analysis on fixated LookZones was further utilized to compare the scan patterns between successful and unsuccessful problem solvers. The results showed that, while solving an image-based multiple-choice science problem, students, in general, paid more attention to chosen options than rejected alternatives, and spent more time inspecting relevant factors than irrelevant ones. Additionally, successful problem solvers focused more on relevant factors, while unsuccessful problem solvers experienced difficulties in decoding the problem, in recognizing the relevant factors, and in self-regulating of concentration. Future study can be done to examine the reliability and the usability of providing adaptive instructional scaffoldings for problem solving according to students’ visual attention allocations and transformations in a larger scale. Eye-tracking techniques are suggested to be used to deeply explore the cognitive process during e-learning and be applied to future online assessment systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]