Migration Research in a Digitized World

This open access book explores implications of the digital revolution for migration scholars’ methodological toolkit. New information and communication technologies hold considerable potential to improve the quality of migration research by originating previously non-viable solutions to a myriad of methodological challenges in this field of study. Combining cutting-edge migration scholarship and methodological expertise, the book addresses a range of crucial issues related to both researcher-designed data collections and the secondary use of “big data”, highlighting opportunities as well as challenges and limitations. A valuable source for students and scholars engaged in migration research, the book will also be of keen interest to policymakers

Migration Research in a Digitized World: Using Innovative Technology to Tackle Methodological Challenges

This open access book explores implications of the digital revolution for migration scholars’ methodological toolkit. New information and communication technologies hold considerable potential to improve the quality of migration research by originating previously non-viable solutions to a myriad of methodological challenges in this field of study. Combining cutting-edge migration scholarship and methodological expertise, the book addresses a range of crucial issues related to both researcher-designed data collections and the secondary use of “big data”, highlighting opportunities as well as challenges and limitations. A valuable source for students and scholars engaged in migration research, the book will also be of keen interest to policymakers

Migration Research in a Digitized World: Using Innovative Technology to Tackle Methodological Challenges

This book explores implications of the digital revolution for migration scholars' methodological toolkit. New information and communication technologies hold considerable potential to improve the quality of migration research by originating previously non-viable solutions to a myriad of methodological challenges in this field of study. Combining cutting-edge migration scholarship and methodological expertise, the book addresses a range of crucial issues related to both researcher-designed data collections and the secondary use of "big data", highlighting opportunities as well as challenges and limitations. A valuable source for students and scholars engaged in migration research, the book will also be of keen interest to policymakers

EFL listening development through diagnosis: an assessment-based study of listening sub-skills using Rasch measurement

The lack of informed knowledge about listening subskills and their relationships has hindered the development of the diagnostic English language track assessment (DELTA) in three participating Hong Kong universities. This study investigates English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' listening proficiency development in understanding different spoken genres in the Hong Kong Chinese tertiary contexts. It aims to: i) identify the subskills and/or cognitive processes that underlie student performance on the DELTA listening component; ii) examine the difficulty levels of the DELTA listening subskills, and, consequentially, their hierarchical order; iii) investigate the impact of text type on difficulty level and the hierarchical order of the subskills; and iv) infer principles underlying the development of listening proficiency in the Hong Kong tertiary education contexts. A multi-method approach was employed for data collection and analysis. The primary quantitative data were derived from the DELTA listening component items answered by 2830 Chinese ELF learners who studied in their first or second year in the DELTA participating universities in the 2013-14 academic year. The item pool included 207 multiple-choice questions (MCQ) from 33 texts of three text types – conversation, interview and lecture. Each MCQ is intended to measure a particular listening subskill, including: 1) identifying specific information (SSK1); 2) understanding main idea and supporting ideas (SSK2); 3) understanding information and making an inference (SSK3); 4) interpreting a word or phrase as used by the speaker (SSK4); 5) inferring the attitude or intention of the speaker (SSK5); and 6) inferring the speaker's reasoning (SSK6). By adopting inter-related Rasch analyses using Winsteps and Facets, all test items were calibrated and analysed to determine their difficulty measures and their respective difficulties across the three text types. Qualitative Stimulated Recall Protocol (SRP) discussions were then conducted with 62 examinees of varying estimated listening abilities one month later, in a simulated test situation, where the test-taking process was video-recorded and the participants were asked to recall and to verbalise their thought processes and strategies they used to answer each question. The SRP results reveal an array of both cognitive processes and test-taking strategies in the listening comprehension and test-answering process. Firstly, various combinations of cognitive processes were utilised by both the high and low ability examinees to answer questions targeting the same listening sub-skill; however, the dominant cognitive process that was reported to have been used to answer each question corresponded with the particular listening subskill intended by DELTA item writers. Secondly, an array of test-taking strategies best identified as elimination, and guessing, were reported as used by examinees during the test. While this finding might not be surprising given the exam-oriented atmosphere prevailing in Hong Kong secondary school education, it alerted the researcher to scrutinise the validity of the DELTA listening component. The most striking observation from the listening test analysis is that, the DELTA listening subskills are measurably separable from each other, and a hierarchical pattern is established. In terms of their interaction with text type, the results showed that SSK1 and SSK6 were, respectively, the easiest and the most difficult subskills, whereas the hierarchical orders of the other four subskills varied across the three text types. More generally, these findings provide empirical evidence for the proposition that EFL listening comprehension is composed of multiple listening subskills, which operate interactively and interdependently in the listening process. The results regarding the difficulty level and the hierarchy of listening subskills corroborate the findings of prior research that low-level processing, such as identifying specific information, poses less challenge than high-level processing, such as summarising and inferencing. Because of the complexity in the interaction between text type and listening subskills, it is difficult to identify an overarching hierarchical order of the six listening subskills across the three text types. A general pattern, however, is that the difficulty increased from SSK1, SSK2 to SSK6 irrespective of the text type, and this corresponds to the general subskill hierarchy. The study will benefit teachers and students with diagnostic profiling and bridge the gap in diagnostic test design with targeted items of appropriate difficulty for predicting learners' listening development. It will extend second language acquisition theory with a hierarchical trajectory of listening proficiency growth. Limitations and future research recommendations are discussed

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 158, September 1976

This bibliography lists 191 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in August 1976

Attention Restraint, Working Memory Capacity, and Mind Wandering: Do Emotional Valence or Intentionality Matter?

Attention restraint appears to mediate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and mind wandering (Kane et al., 2016). Prior work has identifed two dimensions of mind wandering—emotional valence and intentionality. However, less is known about how WMC and attention restraint correlate with these dimensions. Te current study examined the relationship between WMC, attention restraint, and mind wandering by emotional valence and intentionality. A confrmatory factor analysis demonstrated that WMC and attention restraint were strongly correlated, but only attention restraint was related to overall mind wandering, consistent with prior fndings. However, when examining the emotional valence of mind wandering, attention restraint and WMC were related to negatively and positively valenced, but not neutral, mind wandering. Attention restraint was also related to intentional but not unintentional mind wandering. Tese results suggest that WMC and attention restraint predict some, but not all, types of mind wandering

Federal Register

Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii