The effectiveness of direct and indirect written corrective feedback in improving the grammatical accuracy of Omani EFL learners

ABSTRACT This research examined the effectiveness of direct and indirect written CF on improving the grammatical accuracy of Omani EFL students regarding two newly-learned linguistic structures: the comparative and prepositions of space. The research employed mixed methods whereby a quasi-experiment and think aloud protocol (TAP) were used to answer various questions about written CF. In the quasi-experiment, the participants were assigned to a control group and two treatment groups: 1) one group received direct corrections written above their errors and 2) one group received the underlining of errors only. Since the linguistic structures had not been previously introduced to the participants of this study, the researcher provided the students with an instruction lesson on them, a week prior to the data collection. A week later, the students received a pre-test and subsequent revision, where they were asked to revise their initial task. Three days after the revision, the students performed a new task focused on the same linguistic structure (immediate post-test) to measure the short-term learning effect of the written CF. The delayed post-tests were administered six weeks after the pre-test in order to measure the long-term effect of the treatment. In all of the tests, the students were required to describe pictures. The findings of the quasi-experiment show that the direct and indirect written CF improved the grammatical accuracy of the students during revision for both linguistic structures, but a significant effect was found for direct written CF only. The improved accuracy during revision for both the direct and indirect written CF groups was sustained in the new writing task (immediate post-test) regarding the comparative but not prepositions of space. The improvement of the indirect group was even better than that of the direct CF group on the new task (immediate post-test) with regard to the comparative. This might suggest that the indirect CF group processed the feedback in greater depth. No long-term effect was found for direct and indirect written CF for either linguistic structure. The quasi-experiment findings suggest that written CF had a short-term effect when targeting not only already-learned linguistic structures (as the majority of the previous research found) but also newly-learned linguistic structures as well. While many studies have examined the effectiveness of written CF on improving the grammatical accuracy of learners during revision and in new writing using quasi-experiment designs, little research has been conducted to explore how students engage with and process this feedback. In the current study, a think aloud protocol (TAP) was used to explore how the students processed and repaired their errors in response to both direct and indirect written CF. The findings show that both the direct and indirect written CF groups generated a similar amount of repair with understanding during their subsequent revision. About 35% of the direct group’s repair was without understanding. This result suggests that not all of the feedback that was noticed and incorporated into the students’ subsequent revision might be understood. Furthermore, the retrospective TAP produced some data that helped to identify some possible reasons why some students repeated their errors and failed to incorporate the written CF into their subsequent revision. One of the most important findings of this research is that certain factors, such as the type of error and the proficiency level of the student, were found to impact on the effectiveness of written CF. Moreover, the combination of a quasi-experiment and TAP in this research is unique, as it helped to understand the written CF from different perspectives

Effect of dental trauma management resources on dental practitioners' confidence and knowledge: A pilot cross-sectional study

Background/Aim: The knowledge of standardized care guidelines is critical to the confidence of practitioners in managing dental trauma. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the awareness, use and impact of the International Association of Dental Traumatology guidelines, and the online Dental Trauma Guide on general dental practitioners' self-reported confidence and knowledge in managing traumatic dental injuries in the primary and permanent dentitions. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional, pre-piloted, 27-item self-administered questionnaire survey was distributed electronically to general dental practitioners' working within five member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Kingdom of Bahrain, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar) between September and December 2020. Data were collected and analysed using descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon Signed Rank test analysis for relevant comparisons. Results: A total of 294 respondents completed the survey, with the majority being from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (47.4%) and Qatar (27.3%). A lack of evidence-based knowledge in managing traumatic dental injuries was evident among more than half of the respondents. Respondents who were cognizant of the recent International Association of Dental Traumatology guidelines (2020) and those who use the Dental Trauma Guide routinely demonstrated a higher self-reported confidence level in managing both simple and complex primary dentition trauma, as well as simple traumatic dental injuries in the permanent dentition (p <.05). Conclusion: This survey highlights critical deficiencies in the knowledge of a large number of the respondents in the management of dental trauma which is likely to cause irreversible long-term patient effects.Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library

Pulmonary Function Test Outcomes in Adult Omani Patients: Preliminary findings of single-centre study

Objectives: There is limited information regarding distribution of Pulmonary Diseases (PD) in Oman. Pulmonary Function Tests (PFT) outcome patterns could be a pointer to an indirect indication of the distribution of PD. This study aimed to document distribution of PFT outcomes among Omani adult patients. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted from January to December 2015 at a tertiary hospital in Oman. A total of 1,118 adults referred for PFTs during this period were included. Results: There were 605 (54.1%) female and 513 (45.9%) male patients. The mean age was 47.11±18.1 years. Most underwent spirometry with reversibility (36.8%) or full lung function testing with reversibility (29.7%). Of the 1,064 patients with conclusive PFT outcomes, 39.9% had normal findings, followed by 26.1% with obstructive defects, 19.6% restrictive defects and 10.6% had mixed obstructive/restrictive defects. Conclusion: This study generated important preliminary data regarding PFT outcomes (defects) in Omani patients. Keywords: Pulmonary Function Tests; Spirometry; Pulmonary Diseases; Asthma; Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; Oman