1,720,957 research outputs found
Promoting critical thinking in language learning through computer-mediated collaborative learning : a preliminary investigation
Get PDFThai School Teachers’ Preparedness and Perceptions of More-English-in-schools (MEIS) Policy
Get PDFAs far as English language ability is concerned, Thailand has a lot of room for improvement. Efforts to boost Thailand’s language skills abound. In this study, Thai school teachers in two primary schools were asked to answer questionnaires on their English language use in their schools, their preparedness, and their perceptions of the policy to add more English into the schools. Twenty-three school teachers from two schools participated in the study. The data collection was done in March 2018. Those school teachers participated in the English Plus Program (EPP) workshops, aiming to equip them with concepts and techniques to add more English elements in their classes and their schools. The teachers underwent six hours of training. At the end of the workshops, they were asked to reflect on the lessons and answer the questionnaires. It was found that the majority of the school teachers perceived themselves to be moderately prepared for the MEIS policy. They believed it was a useful policy and recognized the role of support from the students’ parents, the community, as well as the school administrators
Taxi Drivers' Cross-Cultural Communication Problems and Challenges in Bangkok, Thailand
Get PDFThis paper reports an investigation of Thai taxi drivers' cross-cultural communication problems and challenges by synthesizing the research findings from two related studies: (1) a classroom investigation of Thai taxi drivers' communication challenges; and (2) a study of Thai taxi drivers' English language competence. The findings reveal that Thai taxi drivers had relatively low level of English competence, and had experienced three cross-cultural communication problems and challenges in the language, cultural, and attitudinal domains. Efforts to improve their English skills need to take into consideration the nature of their work and work conditions
Factors Affecting Thai Taxi Drivers’ English Competence
Get PDFThis study investigated the factors affecting Thai taxi drivers’ English competence. Altogether, 342 taxi drivers answered questionnaires and performed tasks that measured their English language competency; aiming to find out what the factors are that affect their English competency. The taxi drivers were all Thais sampled from three zones in the Bangkok metropolis. The instruments included the test and the questionnaires. The data collection was carried out during January to May 2016. The structural equation model, based on relevant theories and research findings, was constructed to explain the factors affecting their English language competence. The exogenous factors were their educational background and previous English language training, attitudes towards non-Thai passengers, motivation, and their independent language learning behavior. The results showed that the model was supported by the empirical evidence. The model was fitted with the Chi-square of 53.821, CFI of 0.996, NFI of 0.972, GFI of 0.977, and RMSEA of 0.022. The majority of Thai taxi drivers’ English language competence was at the low level (Mean = 2.50). It was also found that their educational background and English language training significantly affected their English competence directly and indirectly.</jats:p
Thai University Students’ Perceptions of Factors Affecting the Thai Tourism Industry: A Case Study
Get PDFPurpose: The aim of this study was to investigate Thai university students’ perceptions of the factors that would affect the tourism industry of Thailand.
Method: Forty-five (45) undergraduates in a university in Thailand were asked to answer the questionnaire of nine questions on the effects of selected factors affecting the Thai tourism industry. The data collection was done in March 2021. The collected data were analyzed using basic descriptive statistics.
Result: The results showed that Covid-19 pandemic was perceived to be the factor with the greatest impact on Thai tourism (Mean = 4.86), followed closely by the internal political problems (Mean = 4.40). .The lowest three factors were found to be the climate crises (Mean = 3.64), US-China trade war (Mean = 3.55), and robots/AI (Mean = 3.13). Foreign language skills, communication, and technology use were among the highly cited skills and abilities Thai people should be focusing more on.
Contribution: This study adds valuable insights to the existing body of knowledge in the field of tourism and hospitality management. The findings provide a perspective on the factors influencing the industry\u27s performance, especially revealing the intricate interplay between socio-political, environmental, and economic factors
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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