An Assessment of Bullying/Victimization Behaviors among Third-Graders in Jordanian Public Schools

This study investigates the prevalence of bullying/victimization behaviors among third graders in Jordanian public schools from the perspectives of both students and their teachers. The study involved 500 third-grade students and 52 teachers who randomly selected from 20 Jordanian public schools in the first Irbid directorate schools. Results of the students’ perceptions of bullying and victims of bullying behaviors indicated a generally low amount of bullying and victims of bullying among third graders. However, teachers reported more bullying by other students than the students reported. Also, teachers in this study reported physical bullying/victims of bullying as the most frequent and verbal bullying as the least frequent. Implications for ministry of education and schools were discussed. Key words: bullying, victimization, physical, verbal, relational

The Impact of Small Group Instruction on Preschool Literacy Skills

This study focused on 17 preschool students in a northern Jordan city. Preschoolerswere taught specific literacy skills in a small group instructional setting. The students’ skill level was assessed at the beginning and middle of the school year. The researcher’s goal was to determine if teaching literacy skills in a small group setting would improve the skill level of the preschool students. Results showed that using small groups was an effective way to increase preschool students’ literacy skill levels

Diglossic Code-Switching between Standard Arabic and Najdi Arabic in Religious Discourse

This study investigates the linguistic structural constraints of diglossic intra-sentential code-switching between Standard Arabic and Najdi Arabic in religious speeches by six Saudi preachers: three males and three females. To analyse the data, both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis are used. In accounting for the structural constraints found in the diglossic intra-sentential code-switching, diglossic variants of four linguistic variables are considered: negation, relative pronouns, demonstratives and future particles. This study shows that both male and female preachers switched from one variety to the other across sentence boundaries and within the same sentence. This process does not proceed randomly but is instead governed by particular principles. In the case of Standard Arabic variants of the four variables investigated, where Standard Arabic is the non-dominant variety, diglossic code-switching is restricted as its variants are found to co-occur mostly only with Standard Arabic or neutral lexis. On the other hand, in the case of Najdi Arabic, which is considered the dominant variety, Najdi Arabic variants are found to co-exist with both Standard Arabic and Najdi Arabic as well as neutral lexis. The study supports the validity of the ‘dominant language hypothesis’ proposed by Petersen (1988) and the word-internal mixing constraints. It also partially supports Eid’s (1982, 1988) constraints. The directionality and the contradictory effect constraints are shown to be relevant to the data. Moreover, the study demonstrates the validity of the triggering hypothesis (Clyne, 2003) and the neutralization site hypothesis (Clyne, 1987) for analysing diglossic code-switching. The study makes a number of contributions to the field of sociolinguistics and code-switching in particular. Firstly, it adds to sociolinguistic knowledge on Standard Arabic and Najdi Arabic spoken in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, to date there is only limited knowledge about the mixed speech of educated speakers in Saudi Arabia. The current study shows in detail how this mixed speech is derived, with the analysis of the four key variables; and it argues that the process is one of diglossic intra-sentential code-switching. Focusing on religious preachers’ extemporaneous monologues therefore helps to fill this research gap. Thirdly, previous studies of religious speeches have focused only on male preachers, and previous studies of Saudi Arabic have disproportionately investigated the speech of men. Given the gender segregation of this speech context, and the sociolinguistic studies of Arabic showing some gender variation (Walters, 1991; Daher, 1998, 1999; Al-Wer, 1999), there is a question over whether there may be gender variation in code-switching in religious speeches in segregated speech contexts. By analysing the code-switching of both male and female preachers, this study makes an original contribution by demonstrating that there is no obvious correlation between gender and any variation in code-switching in this religious speech context in this corpus of data. Fourthly, this study contains original data which has not been previously published or analysed

Psychological maltreatment : the case of verbal abuse

The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between parental verbal abuse and children\u27s emotional development (depression, anxiety, stress, self esteem, and anger). The participants were 29 male and 89 female college students whose average age was 19. Five instruments were used to collect data: Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS-21), Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, Verbal Abuse Measure, Child Attitude Toward Parents Measure, and State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory. For data analyses, several tests were used. The Pearson correlation was calculated to see the inter-correlations of each emotional variable. A multiple regression analysis was used to find out what variables predicted the level of state anger. Moreover, an independent simple t-Test was conducted to examine gender differences. Finally, a one-way ANOVA was used to see family configuration and the effects of verbal abuse. The findings indicate several correlations between parents\u27 verbal abuse and children\u27s depression, anxiety, stress, anger, and self-esteem. The results show that the more verbal abuse participants experience, the higher their depression, anxiety, and stress, and the lower their self-esteem. In addition, the findings show an inverse correlation between anger and parents\u27 verbal abuse. The findings also indicate that males have more negative attitudes toward their mothers than females. In addition, the findings show that different family configurations have an impact on the individuals. Therefore, parental verbal abuse has both short- and long-term effects on children\u27s emotional development. Although, implications were drawn for teachers, counselors, and parents, further research is needed to investigate the effects of parental verbal abuse

Evaluating different visualization designs for multivariate personal health data

Over the past decade, self-tracking devices and apps have been increasingly used for personal data collection, particularly in the monitoring of health and physical activity. Data visualization is crucial to helping people understand and make sense of collected data. The literature review carried out on this topic revealed several studies which focus on data visualization, personal informatics systems and people’s self-tracking practice and their requirements. However, in terms of personal health data, there is a significant limitation in addressing the knowledge gap between these areas and the visualizations supported by self-tracking apps/dashboards, which people frequently use when viewing and exploring their health data. The literature review is followed by a user study and a visualization review, which explores the methods used to represent personal health data on popular self-tracking devices, apps and dashboards in order to understand the main limitations of various designs. The work goes on to address two main challenges: the need for combining multiple personal health variables to support a better representation of an individual’s health status, which could help in understanding the relationships between different health data; and to find a more suitable layout that is related to the periodic and temporal nature of personal health data. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the design and evaluation of visualizations to address these challenges by considering different design aspects of the visual layout, methods and visual encoding, while taking into account the multivariate nature of the data. With respect to the visual layout, the design proposes a novel Radial layout that utilizes an analogue clock metaphor to provide cognitive support by representing the data on an hourly basis through a clock-type display. The Radial representation is effective for data that naturally exhibit a periodic pattern. It also supports understanding of patterns with either a circular or seasonal behaviour. The developed visualizations’ evaluation process implements controlled lab-experiments. The evaluation follows a two-step method, starting with a preliminary study that leads to the design of the main evaluation study, which includes quantitative and qualitative measures of participants’ performance and preferences in the designs. The main contributions of the thesis are: (1) A thorough overview of the visualization methods provided by companion apps, dashboards and embedded displays of popular self-tracking devices. It also discusses their limitations and strengths, providing a taxonomy for the applied visualizations. (2) Suggestions and recommendations for addressing the challenges highlighted in personal health visualizations on apps and dashboards. (3) The design and implementation of multiple visualization alternatives to combine multivariate personal health data using various charts, methods and layouts. (4) Insights regarding personal health visualization gained from the results and in-depth analysis of data resulting from a controlled lab experiment. This experiment evaluated the proposed visualizations with respect to the participants’ performance regarding visual tasks related to real datasets. (5) Insights on people’s preferences on the visualizations and a structured qualitative analysis of their feedback, which demonstrated the effects of each implemented visual element. In addition to structuring design guidelines for this specific data type, the results of the study prove that the traditional Linear layout either outperforms or is comparable to the proposed Radial layout. The study also shows how the applied visual encoding and the visualization method influence the performance according to specific tasks and under different data densities. It provides plausible explanations for the significant differences in the observed performance and preferences patterns, which inform future visualization designs for personal health data

The Impact of Strategy of Dramatizing the Curricula in Developing Reading Comprehension Skills and Oral Language Ability among Third Grade students

ملخص: هدفت الدراسة الى تقصي أثر استراتيجية مسرحة المناهج في تنمية مهارات استيعاب المقروء والقدرة اللغوية الشفوية لدى طلاب الصف الثالث الابتدائي، واتبعت الدراسة منهج البحث شبه التجريبي، حيث يعدّ منهجا مناسبا لتحقيق أهدافها. بلغ عدد المشاركين في الدراسة (65) طالبا، بواقع (33) طالبا في المجموعة التجريبية، و(32) طالبا في المجموعة الضابطة. تم اعداد أداتين للدراسة الحالية، وهما: اختبار في مهارات استيعاب المقروء، واقتصر اختبار استيعاب المقروء على المستويين الحرفي، وبعض جوانب المستوى الاستنتاجي، التي تقع ضمن مستوى طلبة الصف الثالث الابتدائي، واختبار في القدرة اللغوية الشفوية، وتضمن اختبار القدرة اللغوية الشفوية مجالي الشكل والمضمون، اللذين جرى تصحيحهما وفقا لمعايير الشكل والمضمون. أظهرت نتائج الدراسة وجود أثر ذي دلالة إحصائية لاستراتيجية مسرحة المناهج في تنمية مهارات استيعاب المقروء، والقدرة اللغوية الشفوية. وفي ضوء هذه النتائج أوصت الدراسة بضرورة تدريب معلمي الصفوف الثلاثة الأولى والمشرفين على كيفية تدريس اللغة العربية باستراتيجية مسرحة المناهج.Abstract: : The study aimed to investigate the impact of strategy of dramatizing the curricula in developing reading comprehension skills and oral language ability among third graders. The study followed a quasi-experimental approach, as an appropriate approach to achieve its objectives. The study sample was included (65) students, with (33) students in the experimental group and (32) students in the control group. Two instruments were used: a test in reading comprehension skills, and a test in oral linguistic ability, which have been corrected according to observation card with the standards of form and content. The results showed that there was a statistically significant effect of the strategy of dramatizing the curricula in developing reading comprehension skills and oral language ability. The study recommended the need to inform the teachers of third graders and the supervisors of Arabic language on how to teach this language with the dramatized method

The Impact of Small Group Instruction on Preschool Literacy Skills

This study focused on 17 preschool students in a northern Jordan city. Preschoolers were taught specific literacy skills in a small group instructional setting. The students’ skill level was assessed at the beginning and middle of the school year. The researcher’s goal was to determine if teaching literacy skills in a small group setting would improve the skill level of the preschool students. Results showed that using small groups was an effective way to increase preschool students’ literacy skill levels

Intrauterine Growth Restriction: Cytokine Profiles of Trophoblast Antigen-Stimulated Maternal Lymphocytes

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is an important perinatal syndrome that poses several serious short- and long-term effects. We studied cytokine production by maternal peripheral blood lymphocytes stimulated by trophoblast antigens. 36 women with a diagnosis of IUGR and 22 healthy women with normal fetal growth were inducted. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were stimulated with trophoblast antigens and levels of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-6, IL-8, IL-12, IL-23, IFNγ, and TNFα and the anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-4, IL-10, and IL-13 were measured in culture supernatants by ELISA. IL-8 was produced at higher levels by blood cells of the IUGR group than normal pregnant women, while IL-13 was produced at lower levels. IL-8, IFNγ, and TNFα were higher in IUGR with placental insufficiency than in normal pregnancy. IL-12 levels were higher and IL-10 levels were lower in IUGR with placental insufficiency than in IUGR without placental insufficiency. We suggest that a stronger pro-inflammatory bias exists in IUGR as compared to normal pregnancy and in IUGR with placental insufficiency when compared to IUGR without placental insufficiency. Several ratios of proinflammatory to anti-inflammatory cytokines also support the existence of an inflammatory bias in IUGR

Correlation of biomechanical properties and grayscale of articular cartilage using low-field magnetic resonance imaging

Osteoarthritis is a joint disease that caused by the progression of degenerative articular cartilage tissue. The degeneration of the articular cartilage resulted in alteration of the biomechanical properties. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become the most potential imaging technique to assess the condition of the articular cartilage. However, most of the previous studies of articular cartilage were performed using high-field MRI units. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the correlation between the biomechanical properties of articular cartilage and the image grayscale using low-field MRI. Cartilage specimens extracted from bovine femoral head were scanned using 0.2 T MRI to obtain the cartilage image. The MRI image was characterized based on the intensity of grayscale. Indentation test was then conducted on the specimen to characterize the cartilage biphasic properties of elastic modulus and permeability. The cartilage grayscale values were moderately correlated with cartilage biphasic elastic modulus and higher correlation was observed with the permeability. These could indicate the potential application of low-field MRI to evaluate the biomechanical properties of articular cartilage

Do it Right: Appropriate Ways for Teachers to Treat and React to Aggressive Children in Jordanian Kindergartens

This study explored the types and causes of aggression and the ways teachers treat and react to aggressive children in Jordanian kindergartens in the Irbid district. The sample consisted of the first 20 teachers who responded to the letter of participation sent to them.  Data on the causes and types of aggression and prevention strategies were collected by descriptive qualitative design, with semi-structured open-ended interviews, as well as observation of Jordanian kindergarten teachers. The results of the study revealed three themes: factors that shape aggression, sanctions rather than punishment and social learning and culture. Also, the results indicated that social learning through positive modelling was mostly needed to help aggressive and disruptive students and change their behaviour. In light of the results, further research utilizing quantitative and qualitative research methods to achieve broader understanding of aggression in pre-school settings is recommended