“Why are College Foreign Language Students’ Self-efficacy, Attitude, and Motivation so Different?”

Simply taking foreign language courses and being exposed to the language does not guarantee successful and positive learning experiences. When examining factors that influence foreign language learning, motivation should be considered. To extend current foreign language literature, this study integrated self-efficacy and Gardners\u27 AMTB variables to the understanding of learner motivation and achievement. Participants were 249 undergraduate students learning Spanish, German, and French. Regression results suggested that self-efficacy, positive attitude, and anxiety were good predictors of language achievement. MANOVA results revealed that students\u27 motivation levels differed significantly based on the following student differences: 1) group status (successful or unsuccessful test results), 2) self-efficacy, and 3) heritage connection to the language they were taking. The study provides interpretations and implications of the findings. The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited

How college students explain their grades in a foreign language course: the interrelationship of attributions, self-efficacy, language learning beliefs, and achievement

textResearch on self-efficacy has been extremely prolific in the past two decades with many researchers investigating the relationship between students’ self-efficacy and achievement in a wide variety of domains. Similarly, there has been a wealth of research examining the relationship between attribution and achievement. Self-efficacy are the beliefs people have about whether or not they can successfully complete a task while attributions are the beliefs people have for why they have or have not been successful at a task they have just completed. These two areas of beliefs and their effects on students’ achievement have seldom been researched together though they have each independently contributed to our understanding of how critical students’ appraisals of themselves can be for their success in school. Although studies have reported on how students make attributions in general and research has looked at students’ self-efficacy in areas such as math, science and sports, one domain has been surprisingly neglected, language learning. This study examined the general question of the relationship between foreign language learners’ attribution, self-efficacy beliefs, general language learning beliefs, and their achievement in foreign language classes. Quantitative methods were used to examine Weiner’s attribution theory and Bandura’s self-efficacy theory in the foreign language field. Participants were 500 undergraduates enrolled in Spanish, German, and French classes who were asked to fill out self-report questionnaires about their language learning beliefs, attitudes and motivation towards foreign language learning, and to provide attribution and self-efficacy ratings upon receiving two mid-semester exam grades. Results indicated that self-efficacy correlated positively with internal, personal, and stable attributions, and negatively with external attributions. In addition, self-efficacy correlated positively with ability and effort attributions, and negatively with luck and teacher attributions. Results also indicated that students who made internal or stable attributions for success had higher self-efficacy beliefs than students who made external or unstable attributions. Students who made unstable or internal attributions for failure also had higher self-efficacy than those who made stable or external attributions. Finally, students making internal attributions received higher grades than students making external attributions, and the same was true for students making personal as opposed to non-personal attributions. Implications for research and practice are discussed.Educational Psycholog

Senior High School Students' Comprehension and Interest in Science Content: Example of Participating in First-Hand Experimental Activities

The purpose of this study is to investigate three questions: First, it examines whether students' understanding of science increases after exposure to scientific content with animations and the provision of experience with practical scientific activities. Second, according to the Kolb Scale, an effort is made to determine which type of learning characteristics lead to higher degrees of understanding of science after engaging in practical scientific activities. Third, the study is used to investigate whether student willingness to engage in science-related work in the future is correlated with their levels of understanding of science. A total of 154 students from six senior high schools were invited to be participants. The results showed that most of the students exhibited significant improvement in their understanding of science after they were involved in actual experimental processes with animated content. The students having accommodator-type learning characteristics had higher levels of understanding of science as well as greater willingness to pursue science-related work in the future. However, the results indicated that legitimate experimental processes may help enhance student comprehension in terms of scientific content. There is no indication that they affect arousal of scientific interest and willingness to follow a science-related path as a future career

A Laboratory study of ink splitting forces at different film thicknesses and an investigation of the stefan equation

Ink tack is a term used by printers to describe the force required to split an ink film. Such film splitting is influenced by rheological and adhesive properties as well as the internal cohesion of ink. Furthermore, the concept of ink tack in printing is associated with the forces or energy developed in the splitting of ink film at the exit of a printing nip. Stefan studied the forces required to split a thin film. He found that the force required to split a thin film is inversely proportional to the cube of the thickness of that film. This association between the film thickness and film splitting force has been questioned in the literature and by this study. In printing, the practical condition related to ink film splitting forces might be revealed by measurement on the Inkometer ( Inkometer response), paper picking, and ink trapping. This study used these responses. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship (not mathematical) between ink film thickness (0.6 to 5.4 pm) that should include the film thicknesses found on presses. Experiment one was accomplished on the Inkometer with the two black vegetable-oil-based inks to obtain the Inkometer response under the proposed three way factorial experimental design ( inks, ink film thicknesses, and time.) Experiment two made use of the IGT Printability Tester with the same inks, the IGT oil, and one of the paper samples to find the critical picking velocity under the proposed two way factorial experimental design ( fluids, ink film thicknesses.) Experiment three was accomplished with the IGT Printability Tester, the same inks, and two substrates including a second paper sample and a plastic film. The response is gravimetric trapping under the proposed three way factorial experimental design ( inks, substrates, and ink film thicknesses.) Inkometer response, picking velocity, and gravimetric trapping are not direct measurements of film splitting force. They are related to film splitting force. The greater the Inkometer response, the more tacky the ink. The higher the picking velocity the lower the splitting force. With increased gravimetric trapping of the second-down inks, the more tacky the first-down inks. The data was analyzed by ANOVA at a level of significance equal to 0.05 ( two-sided ) to test the null hypotheses. The null hypotheses are the following: Hq^: There is no significant effect due to vegetable-oil-based ink film thickness on ink tack as measured by an Inkometer. Hq2: There is no significant effect due to film thickness of vegetable-oilbased fluid on picking velocity under the proposed experimental design on the IGT Printability Tester. H.Q3: There is no significant effect due to the first down vegetable-oil-based ink film thickness on ink trapping capability under the proposed experimental design on the IGT Printability Tester. An overview of the results show that the ink film thickness could affect the Inkometer response and gravimetric trapping, and the oil-based fluids\u27 film thicknesses could affect the picking velocity within the film thicknesses range of 0.6 to 5.4 pm. The graph of data, regression analysis, and R2 are prepared for predicting and evaluating the specific tendency of the measurements ( Inkometer response, picking velocity, and gravimetric trapping ) when ink film thicknesses change. They also show the tendency of change of the splitting forces at the different film thicknesses. The other general results on the basis of the graphs, regression analysis, and Rz show that the Inkometer response increases when ink film thicknesses increased from 0.6 to 5.4 pm with both of the inks and at each time interval. Picking velocity decreased when the ink film thicknesses increased up to about 3.0 pm and then increases with increased ink film thickness from around 3.0 pm to 5.4 pm at each the ink level. The gravimetric trapping on both the paper and plastic substrates and with both inks decrease with the ink film thickness increased from 0.6 to 5.4 pm. There is no consistent agreement with the equation proposed by Stefan

ONLINE USER INTENTION TO SELECT A SHARED ACCOUNT OPTION ON MULTI-SERVICE PLATFORMS

Online users are free to register an account on a website for the purpose of enjoying various online services. More and more multi-service platforms are being developed. Users have the option to either create a new account or simply share their original account information, e.g., Facebook, to complete registration. However, when using the original account information on a new platform, online users are possibly at risk disclosing their personal information to platform vendors. Therefore, this study\u27s purpose is to explore online user intention toward using shared accounts on another new multi-service platform. Individual aspects of perceived risk and perceived benefits for using shared accounts are examined through an online survey which was validated by MIS experts and passed a pilot test. The preliminary results of this study show that registration efficiency and perceived platform trust level have significant positive impacts on user intention, which further impacts their actual behavior related to using a shared account while user privacy concerns and the perceived security level of the platform have a significant negative impact on their use intention. Discussion is provided along with other data sources arguing the non-significant effects of perceived enjoyment and perceived usefulness on online user intention

Exploring Attractive Experiential Strategies for Website Design – A Website Design Project for a Department Store

Website design features are considered to be factors affecting customer selection, use, patronage, and purchasing decisions. Experiential strategies on website design can have significant impacts on customers’ perceptions and emotions. However, it is uncertain which one or more experiential strategies applied in website design are more attractive to customers and which create impressive experiences when they view a website. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore experiential strategies by adopting a survey approach followed by an eye-tracking experiment in a website design project for a department store. As a result, it is found that customers show more enthusiasm for viewing a website with experiential strategies involving smell, taste and think features. Specifically, the think features attracted the most customer eye attention in the experiment. These features result in longer fixation duration and more fixation counts than other content and visual design features