ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
The Learning Platform in Distance Higher Education: Students&apos; Perceptions
Author: Cachero-Gonzalez, Maria Luz
Date: 2019-01-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Student Attitudes,Teaching Methods,Distance Education,Higher Education,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Technological Literacy,Pedagogical Content Knowledge,Interaction,Computer Mediated Communication,Instructional Design,Learner Engagement,College Students

The aim of this study is to discover students' perceptions from the School of Education about the use of the learning platform to improve educational process in distance higher education. To this end, a descriptive study with a mixed approach (quantitative and qualitative) has been applied according to the objectives of the study. An ad-hoc semi-structured questionnaire has been validated by experts, obtaining the response of 111 students of the Spanish National University of Distance Education (UNED), who are conducting social education, pedagogy, and master's degrees in education. The results showed positive values in the different dimensions analyzed: (I) Role of learning platform in distance education, (II) Instructional of the design learning platform, (III) Didactic interaction through the learning platform and (IV) The learning platform and professional practice. The analysis of the open questions, provides guidelines for improving the use of the learning platform in distance higher education regarding strengths (student's exchange, and independent learning) and weaknesses (feedback delay, and content repository).
An Investigation into the Recognition and Production of Pitch Patterns of &quot;If&quot;-Clauses by Turkish Pre-Service Teachers of English
Author: Topal, Ibrahim Halil
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Intonation,Phrase Structure,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,State Universities,Preservice Teachers,Phonemes,Auditory Perception,Pronunciation,Grammar,Teaching Methods,Pretests Posttests,College Freshmen,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Remedial Instruction,Language Patterns,Pattern Drills (Language),Foreign Countries,Language Teachers,Phonology,Teacher Education

Teaching pitch patterns of English as part of one of the elements of intonation has considerably been undervalued in Turkish teacher education contexts despite its significance in communication (Roach, 2001; Scherer, 2003; Maastricht et al., 2016) hence less research was conducted on this subject (Wennerstrom, 2001; Pickering, 2002; Demirezen, 2014) especially in Turkish teacher education settings. This study therefore intended to explore the competency levels of Turkish pre-service teachers of English on the recognition and production of pitch phonemes of &quot;If&quot;-clauses. It further aimed to remediate any pitch-related problems of the participants through a variety of explicit drills utilizing Grammar/Intonation Model (Cauldwell &amp; Hewings, 1996) and Audio-Articulation Model (Demirezen, 2003) in the light of Discourse Intonation Model (Brazil, 1997). Data were gathered through pre-test/post-test experimental design with the participation of 61 freshmen of the ELT department of a state university in the academic year of 2015/16. Descriptive and inferential analyses demonstrated that the majority of the participants were in need of remedial training. It was also discovered that the treatment was effective in ameliorating the participants' problems in terms of recognition. It was concluded in this study that Turkish pre-service teachers of English must be exposed to continuous remedial training in intonation, especially pitch patterns.
The Effect of Distance Learning Model on Beginners&apos; Level Violin Instruction
Author: Okan, Soner
Date: 2019-01-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Distance Education,Teaching Methods,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Music Education,Musical Instruments,College Students,Conventional Instruction,Skill Development

In this study, it was aimed to determine the effect of distance education model on beginners' level violin instruction. To this aim, as the appropriate experimental research model, pre-test-posttest with control group, was used. The study group of consisted of students from State Conservatory of Dicle University (n = 12). Violin classes were given using face-to-face teaching method with control group for 8 weeks; and distance learning method with experimental group for 8 weeks. &quot;Student Academic Achievement Evaluation Form&quot; was used as the tool to collect data for the research. Percentage, mean and standard deviation were used as descriptive statistical methods in evaluating the data. Man Whitney-U test was used to compare quantitative longitudinal data between two independent groups. The Wilcoxon test was used to compare intra-group changes/differences. The findings were evaluated at 95% confidence interval and at 5% significance level. As a result of the research, there was a significant difference between the pretest-posttest scores of the beginner group. This difference is seen to be in favor of the posttest. There was a significant difference between the pretest-posttest scores of the control group in favor of posttest. However, there was no significant difference between pretest scores and posttest scores of baseline experimental and control groups. This result showed no significant difference between the traditional face to face instruction and distance instruction in terms of the basic skills acquired by the students.
Systematic Mapping Study 2012-2017: Quality and Effectiveness Measurement in MOOC
Author: Quiliano-Terreros, Rocio
Date: 2019-01-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Large Group Instruction,Educational Quality,Instructional Effectiveness,Measurement,Educational Assessment,Educational Indicators,Evaluation Methods,Research Methodology,Educational Research

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) concentrate an important number of students and are set up as an alternative for acquiring knowledge and continuing education. The objective of this article is to analyze how the quality and effectiveness of the MOOCs were measured in empirical studies between 2012 and 2017. For which a systematic mapping study of articles was performed by using databases of Scopus and Web of Science. These articles were analyzed according to the: (1) context of the publication, (2) type of developing institutions and distribution platforms of the MOOC, and (3) characteristics of the empirical studies. It was identified that 54% of the developing institutions were universities and that 31% of the platforms that distributed the MOOC are of Coursera. These articles were also analyzed by type of study, the more frequently used indicators to measure the effectiveness, and the more frequently used focus points (approaches) to measure quality. The results of this study are useful because it allows having a general view of the most frequently utilized methodologies to measure quality and effectiveness in MOOCs.
Survival Modeling on Non Active Students&apos; Study of Universitas Terbuka: A Case Study
Author: Ratnaningsih, Dewi Juliah
Date: 2019-01-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Distance Education,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,College Students,Age Differences,Marital Status,Intellectual Disciplines,Employment Level,Educational Attainment,College Credits,Grade Point Average,Student Characteristics,Academic Persistence

Survival analysis is a statistical method, a part of the Generalized Linear Models, used to study the survival time of an individual to an event. The application of survival analysis is indispensable in open and distance education, like Universitas Terbuka (UT), Indonesia. This analysis can determine students' durability of study opportunities within a certain time. The analysis showed that the appropriate survival model to describe the covariate that was supposed to influence the study durability of the UT students of the Non Basic Education Program was Log Logistics. Covariate that influenced the survival of study was course of study, age, marital status, employment status, educational background, number of credits taken, 1st semester's result, Grade Point Average (GPA), and the courses taken per semester.
Learner Effectiveness: A Cause of Learner Strategy Use?
Author: Halvaei, Mohammadreza Yousefi
Date: 2018-10-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Learning Strategies,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Foreign Countries,Individual Differences,Graduate Students,Student Attitudes,Course Descriptions,Instructional Materials,Learning Processes,Language Teachers

The study of the individual learner differences including learner effectiveness has been a genuine concern for second language researchers. The present study strove to examine the impact of learner effectiveness on the language learners' learning strategy use. According to this purpose, first, the researchers developed the two-part 40-item learning strategy questionnaire of the study according to the strategy questionnaire developed by Wong and Nunan (2011). Second, they selected 441 students (224 male &amp; 217 female) studying at the first year of their graduate program at universities in East Azerbaijan Province (Iran) as the participants of the study. Third, they administered the questionnaire of the study to the chosen participants and asked them to complete it. Finally, the researchers employed the chi-square test to analyze the collected data of the study. Based on the results of the study, there were significant differences between the more effective and less effective EFL learners' use of language learning strategies. On the basis of these results, it was argued that the syllabus designers should include specific parts in the teaching materials of the EFL classrooms in which the learners become familiar with various learning strategies and are trained to employ the most efficient strategies for the performance of language learning tasks. Similarly, it was pointed out that the EFL teachers should familiarize their learners with the diverse language learning strategies and their predominant role in the process of second language acquisition.
The Students&apos; Perceptions of the Use of L1 in EFL Classes: A Private Anatolian High School Sample
Author: Kocaman, Orhan
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: High School Students,Native Language,Language Usage,Teaching Methods,Translation,Code Switching (Language),English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Private Schools,Student Attitudes,Learning Processes,Turkish,Foreign Countries

The current study aims to demonstrate a Private Anatolian High School students' tendencies towards the issue of mother tongue (L1) use in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes. The study was conducted in the 2016-2017 academic year. The data were collected through the questionnaire developed by Prodromou (2002). 96 Private Anatolian High School students participated in the study. The motive for investigating this subject lies within the fact that using translation or code switching has been a subject of debate throughout the language history. Some studies assert the idea that the use of the mother tongue (L1) should be forbidden in classes due to the conflicts in students' minds especially when they are thinking a word's equal meaning in their L1. Others claim that the use of learners' mother tongue in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes can sometimes be helpful for the learning process. Nowadays, researchers highlight that the importance of English-only attitudes has been declining. In the light of these views, a descriptive study was conducted to bring about the students' perceptions of L1 use while learning English in EFL classes. Findings revealed that, in parallel with most studies on this issue, students seemed willing to use their mother tongue.
Sociolinguistic Analysis of Slangy Expressions in Nigerian Pidgin
Author: Odogwu, Cynthia Nkechinyere
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Pidgins,Language Usage,Sociolinguistics,Team Sports,Radio,Singing,Food,Vendors,Foreign Countries,Computational Linguistics,Language Variation,Discourse Analysis,Retailing,Campuses,Universities,Social Environment,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,African Languages,Linguistic Borrowing

This paper undertakes a sociolinguistic analysis of slangy expressions in Nigerian Pidgin. The corpus for this study was gotten systematically through participant observation of conversational discourses in everyday contexts amongst Nigerians living in the Warri-Ughelli-Sapele axes of Delta State. These linguistic data were then recorded and transcribed to aid analysis. The study adopted the Referential theory of Richards and Ogden (1923) in the analysis of data using the descriptive research methodology. These set of data were from conversations in football viewing centres, bukas (roadside food vendors), motor-parks, university campuses, and the market. Slangy expressions as used by presenters on private radio stations and lyrics of popular Nigerian songs were also analysed descriptively. A total of thirty-three (33) slangy expressions were analysed contextually and referentially. The paper ended on the note that every speaker poses a variety of slangy expressions and tends to choose among them in accordance with the social situation that calls for their use and that these expressions are fully intelligible to the speakers. Nigerian pidgin slangy expressions are a product of social force and the creative use of language by Nigerians in order to satisfy their communication needs.
Parent-School Engagement in a Public Elementary School in Southern Arizona: Immigrant and Refugee Parent Perspectives
Author: Snell, Amanda Marie Shufflebarger
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Parent Participation,Parent Attitudes,Parent School Relationship,Parent Responsibility,Teacher Responsibility,Native Language,English (Second Language),Language Usage,Elementary Schools,Magnet Schools,Family Role,Family Environment,Bullying,Food,Cultural Influences,Elementary School Teachers,Volunteers,Teacher Attitudes

This project invited parents who spoke languages other than English at home to share their perspectives (in their native languages) with the elementary school their children attended. The researcher--a volunteer at the school affiliated with a local university--collaborated closely with school staff on this project. Using a funds of knowledge framework, parents were asked about their goals for their children, their children's strengths, and things they taught their children at home, as well as things they liked about the school and concerns they had. Results revealed that parents had high respect for their children's teachers and often saw themselves as collaborators with the school. They viewed themselves as responsible for teaching children respect and manners and the teachers as responsible for academic growth, which at times caused misunderstandings with teachers, who expected parents to support children in specific, academic ways. In addition to sharing how much they believed teachers loved their children, parents expressed interest in maintaining their native languages and concerns about not understanding communication from the school. The following article describes themes in the interviews as well as recommendations based on parent feedback. It also discusses ways the school and the researcher worked together to address this feedback. This research provides a model for other schools wishing to solicit immigrant and refugee parent perspectives, as well as a model for university-school collaborations.
Does Indirect Writing Assessment Have Any Relevance to Direct Writing Assessment? Focus on Validity and Reliability
Author: Kural, Faruk
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Writing Evaluation,Cloze Procedure,Comparative Analysis,Essays,Writing Skills,Grammar,Validity,Reliability,Correlation,Writing Tests,Scoring,Multiple Choice Tests,Secondary School Students,English (Second Language),College Preparation,Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Foreign Countries,Language Tests

The present paper, which is a study based on midterm exam results of 53 University English prep-school students, examines correlation between a direct writing test, measured holistically by multiple-trait scoring, and two indirect writing tests used in a competence exam, one of which is a multiple-choice cloze test and the other a rewrite test measured on the sentence grammar scale. The purpose of the study is to compare and analyse the results obtained from the use of these distinct strategies in writing assessment and to see to what extent they are of value to account for the students' writing skills and in what areas they can offer validity and reliability in diagnostic terms as well as investigating whether any quantitative correlations exist between the choice of topics and the level of achievement in essay-writing, in which the choice of topic also implied the choice of a particular rhetoric to be used as part of the essay writing task.
Training Teachers on Corpus-Based Language Pedagogy: Perceptions on Vocabulary Instruction
Author: Çaliskan, Gamze
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Computational Linguistics,Vocabulary Development,Teaching Methods,Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Language Teachers,Foreign Countries,Teacher Attitudes,Indexes,Diaries,College Faculty,Prior Learning,Metalinguistics,College Students,Teacher Education

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using concordance lines as part of corpus-based language pedagogy to enhance vocabulary instruction. However, teachers in various L2 teaching contexts may lack awareness on how to design and use concordance lines while teaching vocabulary, and they may need guidance in order to implement corpus-based language pedagogy effectively in their actual teaching practices. Based on this need, the present study aimed at offering in-service training on the design and implementation of corpus-based materials in vocabulary instruction, and exploring teachers' perceptions of using these materials in their classrooms. For these purposes, three EFL instructors at a Turkish state university participated in the study. Participants received a four-week training on corpus-based language pedagogy, the use of corpus in L2 vocabulary learning and how to design and implement concordance lines to enhance their instruction. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, reflective logs and an open-ended questionnaire. Qualitative analyses revealed that EFL university instructors did not have prior knowledge about how to use corpus-based materials in vocabulary instruction before the study, and training increased their awareness on incorporating corpus-based language pedagogy into vocabulary instruction. Moreover, the participants perceived the implementation of the corpus-based materials beneficial for raising students' awareness on specific vocabulary items as well. Nevertheless, the participants stated their concerns regarding the use of corpus-based language pedagogy due to challenges in using technology and designing corpus-based materials. The findings of this study may shed light on teachers' classroom practices of corpus-based language pedagogy in vocabulary instruction.
Perceptions of Expanded Shared Use of Schools: A Mixed Method Examination of Pathways and Barriers to Community Well-Being
Author: Talmage, Craig A.
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Urban Areas,School Community Relationship,Barriers,Legal Responsibility,Maintenance,Operating Expenses,Educational Facilities,Recreational Activities,School Districts,Physical Activities,Safety,After School Programs,Supervision,Communication Strategies,Adults,Public Opinion

Local schools can promote positive social change through expanding shared use of their facilities and campuses. This study investigates the merits of expanding shared use in an urban community in Phoenix, Arizona. Shared use--the use of schools during off-hours--can provide pathways to greater community well-being, specifically through supplying space and amenities for physical and social activity for children, adolescents, and adults. Schools must overcome barriers when expanding shared use, such as safety and supervision; liability, maintenance, and operating costs; as well as communication issues between districts, schools, and communities.
Understanding the Sociolinguistic Variation in EFL among Arab Siblings
Author: Al Ghazali, Fawzi
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Arabs,Sociolinguistics,Native Language,Discourse Analysis,Siblings,Grounded Theory,Interference (Language),Language Proficiency,Sociocultural Patterns,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Undergraduate Students,Linguistic Theory,Language Usage,Language Fluency,Accuracy,Semitic Languages,Linguistic Input,Personal Autonomy,Educational Quality,Second Language Instruction,Context Effect,Foreign Countries

This study investigated the various linguistic, psychological, and sociocultural variables that explain the sociolinguistic variation in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) among Arab siblings. The variables are not predetermined but extracted from the participants' contributions and data in a grounded theory research. The siblings participated in this study (N=15) are university undergraduates, who are educated in the UAE schools. While all human beings are empowered with the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) proposed by Chomsky, this does not explain the sociolinguistic variation among people and siblings in particular in using the language. The innate ability is not also evidence that siblings will have similar proficiency levels. The discourse analysis showed noticeable sociolinguistic variation among siblings in terms of language accuracy &amp; fluency, L1 interference, spontaneity, and automaticity of speech. Some of these siblings have equal opportunities for improving their English; however, the analysis showed that some affective variables influence the development of their proficiency levels. The thematic analysis signaled three variables namely exposure to quality input and interaction opportunities, provision of quality education, and autonomy and independent activities. Eight of the fifteen participants attributed their deficiency in English to the inefficiency of the education system that did not facilitate sufficient exposure to linguistic input. Autonomy and independence proved to be effectual in creating the variation among siblings as well. This study sheds light on the significance of contextual factors in influencing proficiency levels among EFL learners in the UAE. The implications and recommendations of research findings are discussed.