cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.19657143.v1
title: Perceived_stress_levels_in_older_adults _with_financial_strain_are_diminished_after _theater_practice.xlsx

description: <strong>Background:</strong> Participating in theater has been shown to be useful for reducing cognitive decline in older adults. This study focused on the social inclusion aspect of the performing arts and aimed to examine whether participation in the theater could help prevent dementia in older adults who are vulnerable to social exclusion. <strong>Methods:</strong> Our participants were 371 community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre. The change in perceived stress levels after a month and a half of theater practice were compared between older adults with and without financial strain. <strong>Results:</strong> It was revealed that older adults with financial strain had a significantly greater reduction in perceived stress levels than those without financial strain after a month and a half of theater practice. <strong>Conclusions:</strong> Since stress is one of the risk factors for cognitive decline, the results of this study suggest that participation in theater may be an effective way of reducing cognitive decline associated with dementia in the elderly who feel strained financially. <br> <br> <strong>Method</strong> Our participants were community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre (https://www.saf.or.jp/arthall/). The Gold Arts Club performed one play each year between 2016 and 2018 after a month or two of rehearsals. Each member had participated in at least one performance at the time of this study. <strong>Financial Strain:</strong> Participants chose one of the following options to describe their financial situation: 1 = difficult, 2 = slightly difficult, 3 = somewhat secure, and 4 = secure. Those who chose 1 or 2 were categorized into the group with financial strain, while those who chose 3 or 4 were categorized into the group without financial strain. This question was asked only during the pre-survey. <strong>Stress Levels:</strong> The stress levels were assessed using the Comprehensive Stress Response Inventory for the elderly (http://labo-wakashima.c.ooco.jp/CSI_elder.pdf), a scale that assesses stress levels through the extent of psychological stress response experienced in the preceding month. The answers to the 17 questions were summed to calculate a perceived stress score. A Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4 (1 = “never” to 4 = “very often”) was used. These questions were asked both in the pre-and post-surveys. We subtracted the pre-survey score from the post-survey score to measure the change in stress levels before and after participating in the theater practice.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.19657143
title: Perceived_stress_levels_in_older_adults _with_financial_strain_are_diminished_after _theater_practice.xlsx

description: <strong>Background:</strong> Participating in theater has been shown to be useful for reducing cognitive decline in older adults. This study focused on the social inclusion aspect of the performing arts and aimed to examine whether participation in the theater could help prevent dementia in older adults who are vulnerable to social exclusion. <strong>Methods:</strong> Our participants were 371 community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre. The change in perceived stress levels after a month and a half of theater practice were compared between older adults with and without financial strain. <strong>Results:</strong> It was revealed that older adults with financial strain had a significantly greater reduction in perceived stress levels than those without financial strain after a month and a half of theater practice. <strong>Conclusions:</strong> Since stress is one of the risk factors for cognitive decline, the results of this study suggest that participation in theater may be an effective way of reducing cognitive decline associated with dementia in the elderly who feel strained financially. <br> <br> <strong>Method</strong> Our participants were community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre (https://www.saf.or.jp/arthall/). The Gold Arts Club performed one play each year between 2016 and 2018 after a month or two of rehearsals. Each member had participated in at least one performance at the time of this study. <strong>Financial Strain:</strong> Participants chose one of the following options to describe their financial situation: 1 = difficult, 2 = slightly difficult, 3 = somewhat secure, and 4 = secure. Those who chose 1 or 2 were categorized into the group with financial strain, while those who chose 3 or 4 were categorized into the group without financial strain. This question was asked only during the pre-survey. <strong>Stress Levels:</strong> The stress levels were assessed using the Comprehensive Stress Response Inventory for the elderly (http://labo-wakashima.c.ooco.jp/CSI_elder.pdf), a scale that assesses stress levels through the extent of psychological stress response experienced in the preceding month. The answers to the 17 questions were summed to calculate a perceived stress score. A Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4 (1 = “never” to 4 = “very often”) was used. These questions were asked both in the pre-and post-surveys. We subtracted the pre-survey score from the post-survey score to measure the change in stress levels before and after participating in the theater practice.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.19657143.v3
title: Perceived_stress_levels_in_older_adults _with_financial_strain_are_diminished_after _theater_practice.xlsx

description: <strong>Background:</strong> Participating in theater has been shown to be useful for reducing cognitive decline in older adults. This study focused on the social inclusion aspect of the performing arts and aimed to examine whether participation in the theater could help prevent dementia in older adults who are vulnerable to social exclusion. <strong>Methods:</strong> Our participants were 371 community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre. The change in perceived stress levels after a month and a half of theater practice were compared between older adults with and without financial strain. <strong>Results:</strong> It was revealed that older adults with financial strain had a significantly greater reduction in perceived stress levels than those without financial strain after a month and a half of theater practice. <strong>Conclusions:</strong> Since stress is one of the risk factors for cognitive decline, the results of this study suggest that participation in theater may be an effective way of reducing cognitive decline associated with dementia in the elderly who feel strained financially. <br> <br> <strong>Method</strong> Our participants were community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre (https://www.saf.or.jp/arthall/). The Gold Arts Club performed one play each year between 2016 and 2018 after a month or two of rehearsals. Each member had participated in at least one performance at the time of this study. <strong>Financial Strain:</strong> Participants chose one of the following options to describe their financial situation: 1 = difficult, 2 = slightly difficult, 3 = somewhat secure, and 4 = secure. Those who chose 1 or 2 were categorized into the group with financial strain, while those who chose 3 or 4 were categorized into the group without financial strain. This question was asked only during the pre-survey. <strong>Stress Levels:</strong> The stress levels were assessed using the Comprehensive Stress Response Inventory for the elderly (http://labo-wakashima.c.ooco.jp/CSI_elder.pdf), a scale that assesses stress levels through the extent of psychological stress response experienced in the preceding month. The answers to the 17 questions were summed to calculate a perceived stress score. A Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4 (1 = “never” to 4 = “very often”) was used. These questions were asked both in the pre-and post-surveys. We subtracted the pre-survey score from the post-survey score to measure the change in stress levels before and after participating in the theater practice.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.19657143.v2
title: Perceived_stress_levels_in_older_adults _with_financial_strain_are_diminished_after _theater_practice.xlsx

description: <strong>Background:</strong> Participating in theater has been shown to be useful for reducing cognitive decline in older adults. This study focused on the social inclusion aspect of the performing arts and aimed to examine whether participation in the theater could help prevent dementia in older adults who are vulnerable to social exclusion. <strong>Methods:</strong> Our participants were 371 community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre. The change in perceived stress levels after a month and a half of theater practice were compared between older adults with and without financial strain. <strong>Results:</strong> It was revealed that older adults with financial strain had a significantly greater reduction in perceived stress levels than those without financial strain after a month and a half of theater practice. <strong>Conclusions:</strong> Since stress is one of the risk factors for cognitive decline, the results of this study suggest that participation in theater may be an effective way of reducing cognitive decline associated with dementia in the elderly who feel strained financially. <br> <br> <strong>Method</strong> Our participants were community-dwelling older adults who belonged to the Gold Arts Club organized by the Saitama Arts Theatre (https://www.saf.or.jp/arthall/). The Gold Arts Club performed one play each year between 2016 and 2018 after a month or two of rehearsals. Each member had participated in at least one performance at the time of this study. <strong>Financial Strain:</strong> Participants chose one of the following options to describe their financial situation: 1 = difficult, 2 = slightly difficult, 3 = somewhat secure, and 4 = secure. Those who chose 1 or 2 were categorized into the group with financial strain, while those who chose 3 or 4 were categorized into the group without financial strain. This question was asked only during the pre-survey. <strong>Stress Levels:</strong> The stress levels were assessed using the Comprehensive Stress Response Inventory for the elderly (http://labo-wakashima.c.ooco.jp/CSI_elder.pdf), a scale that assesses stress levels through the extent of psychological stress response experienced in the preceding month. The answers to the 17 questions were summed to calculate a perceived stress score. A Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4 (1 = “never” to 4 = “very often”) was used. These questions were asked both in the pre-and post-surveys. We subtracted the pre-survey score from the post-survey score to measure the change in stress levels before and after participating in the theater practice.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1256
title: Dangerous, hazardous or risky: a corpus based study of English synonyms

description: The study investigates a set of three synonyms, namely dangerous, hazardous, and risky, based on three criteria: senses of meaning, degrees of formality, and collocations. The data of the three synonyms was derived from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), Merriam-Webster Dictionary, along with the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results indicate that these synonyms differ with respect to the three criteria mentioned above. With regard to the senses of meaning, dangerous implies danger in general, while hazardous and risky may be more specific in meaning; hazardous is connected with people’s health relating to scientific facts, and risky relates to a known and accepted danger, especially in terms of the economy. In terms of their genres, hazardous seems to be the most formal word, as it tends to appear with the highest frequency in academic texts, while dangerous seems to be the least formal word since its frequencies are highest in informal genres, i.e., spoken and TV/movie subtitles. Based on COCA frequency and the MI value (≥ 3), the majority of noun collocates of dangerous are associated with broader and more general themes, whereas most of the noun collocates of hazardous and risky are related to a narrower sense. For this reason, these synonyms are regarded as loose synonyms, as they cannot substitute for each other in all contexts. This corpus-based study not only provides lexical knowledge about the synonyms but also has pedagogical implications. Since a corpus can provide much more insightful lexical knowledge about synonyms than dictionaries, this may encourage English teachers to use corpora as a complementary source, in addition to dictionaries.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1257
title: Structural and functional analyses of four-word lexical bundles from the articles in the Forbes website

description: Lexical bundles are multiword sequences that commonly co-occur in a register (Bier & Conrad, 1999). Therefore, the lexical bundles used in various registers should be explored and investigated. The present study aimed to investigate and analyze the structures and discourse functions of lexical bundles employed in online articles regarding AI and 5G in Forbes.com, which belong to the journalism register. For these purposes, 362 articles under the AI and 5G subsections in Forbes.com were collected to build a corpus. The list of four-word lexical bundles was generated with the use of AntConc software. The structures of the bundles were analyzed and classified according to Biber et al.’s (2004) taxonomy, while the discourse functions were analyzed and classified employing Biber et al.’s (2004) and Hyland’s (2008b) taxonomies. The results revealed that the most prevalent structure used in the journalism register was lexical bundles incorporating noun phrase and prepositional phrase fragments. Regarding the discourse functions, most bundles served as research-oriented bundles or referential expressions.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1258
title: English teaching practices of non-major English teachers in Thai primary schools

description: This study aimed to investigate the non-major English teachers’ practices related to teaching English in primary schools. The participants were ten non-major English teachers who worked in primary public schools. The participants were chosen by purposive sampling from seven schools in Samut Sakhon. All the participants were Thai teachers who are non-major English teachers and taught English classes in grades 1-6. This research study was a qualitative research design. The semi-structured interviews were the data collection technique used to gather the data of the study in order to intensively explore the practices of non-major English teachers teaching English in primary schools. Once the interviews were completed, the results from the qualitative data were transcribed and interpreted to form the relationships between the groups of findings to answer the research question. The results revealed that pronunciation was the major concern when the participants had to teach English in classes. By reason of being non-major English teachers, the participants stated that English teaching was difficult for them. Most of the participants teachings were based on Distance Learning Television (DLTV). They rarely used the textbooks provided by their schools in their English classes. Some participants mentioned that they lack technology to help them with teaching in classes. To keep their students focused on the lessons, the participants used a variety of methods and encouraged students with positive reinforcement. To hold students' attentions, the majority of them used games, activities, and attractive teaching aids. Most participants were unfamiliar with Thailand's English core curriculum. The participants’ level of knowledge regarding the curriculum was very low and rather superficial. Also, they were not clear on how they assessed their students in classes. This study brings substantial understanding of the practices of non-major English teachers teaching English in Thai primary public schools, which reflects the situation of English teaching in Thailand.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1259
title: Distinguishing the English verb synonyms improve and enhance: a corpus base study

description: This research was conducted to investigate two English synonymous verbs, improve and enhance, with the purpose of exploring the similarities and differences in terms of the senses of meaning, collocations, and degrees of formality. The data were obtained from two sources, which were the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results indicated that the two synonymous verbs shared some core meanings and can be used interchangeably in particular contexts. However, more differences were found in the collocations of improve and enhance when they were categorized into wider ranges of themes. This implies that improve and enhance cannot be substituted interchangeably in every context. Since the two synonyms differ in terms of formality of context and collocations, it is of vital importance that learners of English as a foreign language take this variation with regard to the authentic usage of these synonyms into account.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1260
title: A systematic review of songs used in the research studies in English language learning

description: Songs are used as an instrument in learning the English language around the world. This systematic review gathered and reviewed the data in songs used in language learning research studies. The objective of this study is to study the features of songs used in English language learning research studies and to study how the songs are used as intervention conditions in language learning studies. The data collection was driven by using PRISMA as a model in protocol. There were 7 databases using 2 keywords to search the research studies on songs used in English language learning. Searches retrieved 680 unique records. After screening 680 full texts, only 12 research studies which met the inclusion criteria were found in 4 sources including Thai Journals Online (ThaiJO), Oxford University Press, Springer and Wiley Online Library. There are 44 songs included. In ThaiJO, 36 songs are found. In Springer, there are 6 songs. In both Oxford University Press and Wiley Online Library only one song was found. The features of songs were classified into seven parts such as music genres, the period of songs’ release, the singers’ countries of origin, the speech rate of the song, the speed of the songs (Tempo), the words' difficulty level of the songs, and the age of the learners. Regarding the 12 research studies, they have different purposes for the songs used which depend on each research aim. From 44 songs, the main purpose of song usage in research studies is used for motivation. The second purpose is song usage for listening, the third is speaking, the fourth is for building vocabulary skill, the fifth is for improving grammar structure, the sixth is for practicing reading, the seventh is used for enhancing writing skill, and the last purpose is used for practicing critical thinking.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1261
title: Lived experiences of Filipino teachers teaching English in a bilingual and English program in government schools of Thailand: a phenomenology inquiry

description: Bilingual education is recognized worldwide as an effective pedagogical approach to learning a new language. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of Filipino teachers teaching in a Bilingual and English Program in government schools of Thailand. The research employed semi-structured interviews for data collection. The participants were 26 Filipino teachers who were teaching English and other subjects under the BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Administration) English and Bilingual Project in Bangkok. The purposive sampling technique was used to select the participants who shared common experiences of teaching in a Bilingual and English Program in both primary and secondary schools in Bangkok. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and organized into various themes based on the research purpose. The emergent results were categorized into five main themes, such as (1) positive experience, (2) negative experience, (3) sources of employment information in Thailand, (4) solutions and (5) motivations. The results revealed that those who were working in the Bilingual and English Program had various opinions mainly relating to the lack of systematic criteria of assessing students’ performance, large class size, salary issues, attitudinal and behavioral problems of Thai students, language problems, problems of teaching materials and teaching pedagogies.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1262
title: Effects of the active learning approach on the English achievement of Thai EFL secondary school students

description: This study investigated the effects of the active learning approach on the English achievement of Thai EFL secondary school students. There were 188 participants in the study, chosen through the convenience sampling technique. The instruments were a pretest and posttest used to measure the students’ performance after being taught with the passive as well as active approaches and a five-point Likert scale questionnaire to survey students’ satisfaction levels toward the active learning approach as a teaching methodology. The data was collected from 188 Thai EFL secondary school students and analyzed by conducting a paired sample t-test using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to compare the students’ performance on the pretest and posttest, and the data on students’ satisfaction levels toward the active learning approach (ALA) was analyzed using means and standard deviations. The average mean score of their pretest was at 4.96, while the average mean score of their posttest was at 13.51. The results from the questionnaire showed that the students’ satisfaction level toward the active learning approach was high with mean score of 3.47 and a standard deviation of .508. Moreover, it could be interpreted from the questionnaire and the pretest as well as the posttest that the students had effective satisfaction toward the active learning approach on the English achievement of Thai EFL secondary school students.
DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1263
title: Attitudes towards English speaking skills among Thai pre-engineering students

description: This study investigated the attitudes towards speaking skills of pre-engineering students in Bangkok, Thailand. The participants were 81 students. A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were used to collect data. The findings showed that the students have positive attitudes towards speaking skills and saw the importance of English speaking skills for their future, both academically and professionally. In addition, this study revealed that the challenges they face in language classroom are their lack of confidence, unfamiliar topics, and students’ own unpreparedness when performing a speaking task. Furthermore, students suggested class presentations, collaborative group work, and class discussions as their preferred speaking activities.