1,720,954 research outputs found
Task-based Language Teaching in Thai Context: a Call for Robust Evidence
Get PDFThe task-based language teaching (TBLT) is a learner-cantered pedagogical approach which promotes learners’ engagement in communicative tasks. TBLT has been implemented widely including in Thailand where English is used as a foreign language. However, the evidence of its effectiveness remains equivocal. This review was conducted to examine and synthesize the evidence of TBLT benefits in EFL contexts. However, it was found that most TBLT research in EFL contexts aiming to draw the effects of TBLT intervention tends to be predominated by low rigorous designs. For Thailand in particular, most studies report students’ positive perceptions about the TBLT interventions while the claims to improve language competences are vaguely proved due to the low evidence-based rigor. From such review-based findings, the paper proposes a call for design-based research to evaluate the impact of TBLT on language competences and learning skills. Adopting rigorous designs which provide counterfactuals would produce a more secure evidence for policy and practices of the TBLT implementation in the Thai EFL context
Evaluation of Metacognitive and Self-Regulatory Programmes for Learning, Pedagogy and Policy in Tertiary EFL Contexts
Get PDFIn the past few decades, numerous attempts have been made to promote thinking skills and improve learning standards. Among these efforts, thinking skills have been widely advocated in higher education policy and practice. For this reason, the notion of metacognitive and self-regulatory development has been extensively applied in various educational contexts, including English language education. Metacognitive and self-regulatory development is perceived to play an essential role in regulating reflective thinking, learning and agency. Emerging evidence also suggests that metacognitive and self-regulatory development is associated with improved learning outcomes.
To examine the existing evidence on the impact of metacognitive interventions in tertiary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, a systematic review was conducted. For this purpose, a priori review protocol was developed to minimise bias in identifying, screening and including studies for quality assessment and synthesis. The results from a meta-analysis indicate the potential of the metacognitive approach for EFL learning. However, the evidence remains inconclusive due to the limitations in the included studies. The findings from a thematic synthesis highlight the vital role of explicit instruction, clear pedagogical sequencing and the regulation of skills, rather than mere teaching about metacognition, for successful metacognitive development programmes.
Informed by the findings of the systematic review and a pilot study, the main study in the thesis was designed to assess the effectiveness of a metacognitive intervention on students’ learning and metacognitive awareness. The study design is a cluster randomised controlled trial conducted with a target group of approximately 800 tertiary Thai EFL learners in the southernmost areas of Thailand. They were faced with a new education policy challenge requiring students to pass a standardised English test to satisfy the additional graduation criteria. The study included fourteen classes, twelve of which were randomly allocated as either an intervention or a control group. The other two non-randomised clusters were included for comparison. Standardised English tests and student questionnaires were used to collect data for the main outcomes. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted for process evaluation. Secondary data analysis and regression analysis were also included to gain more insights into the role of metacognition and self-regulation in EFL learning.
The results suggest that the intervention group made more progress in the English language than their non-intervention peers. The intervention seems to offer more benefits to lower proficiency students than the more advanced ones. However, the impact of the intervention on metacognitive awareness had ambiguous results. The process evaluation describes both the positive features and the drawbacks of the intervention. The findings from multimethod analyses provide some valuable implications for learning, pedagogy and policy development
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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