Experiences of international students from the new southbound policy countries in Taiwan : their motivations and negotiations of cultural differences

This study investigated international students from countries involved in the New Southbound Policy. We explored the motivations for why they chose to come to Taiwan and their strategies in adapting to a new culture. We recruited 23 students using purposive and snowball sampling. Data were collected using the qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews. Academic and economic considerations were the largest pull factors. Specifically, academic considerations constituted a large pull factor among students from developing countries in South and Southeast Asia. However, for students from developed countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, the academic environment in Taiwanese institutions of higher education was not the most attractive factor. Compared with students from other regions, social factors and the influence of alumni networks had a larger influence on students from Southeast Asian countries (especially Malaysian students, but not Singaporean students). The influence of cultural factors varied widely depending on whether the student was a degree-seeking student or was of Chinese ethnicity. For degree-seeking students, too many cultural and language differences may have a negative influence on their decision to study in Taiwan. For non-degree-seeking students, such differences engender a perception of Taiwan as exotic and represent a learning opportunity, thus constituting a pull factor. Moreover, because overseas Chinese students are, on average, more conversant in Chinese, cultural similarity is a pull factor. For non-Chinese students, their Chinese language proficiency is a major consideration. With regard to adapting to life in Taiwan, most students reported adapting well. However, differences in culture, dietary habits, and language were challenges for some students. This study also discovered that students establish individualized adaptation strategies for dealing with challenges during study in Taiwan. These strategies facilitate cultural exchange by blurring cultural boundaries, thereby enhancing their learning competence and acceptance of cultural differences

Teachers' recognition of school bullying according to background variables and type of bullying

How teachers identify and judge school bullying may affect their willingness to intervene in bullying situations and influence their strategies for doing so. This study aimed to investigate whether there were significant differences in teachers' identification of bullying incidents according to background variables (gender, teaching experience, and education level). The participants of this study were 150 primary school and middle school teachers in Taiwan, A 24-item Recognition of Bullying incidents Questionnaire (RBIQ) was used in this study to explore whether teachers can identify physical, verbal, and relational scenarios as bullying or non-bullying incidents. A mixed-model two way ANOVA was used to analyze this data. Results revealed that teachers' teaching experiences significantly interacted with behavioral types, and teachers' education levels also sigm candy interacted with behavioral types. In addition, no gender differences in the identification of bullying were observed. Overall, teachers were more likely to identifi physical bullying incidents than relational ones. The results of this study suggest that teachers should participate in training to help them identify bullying incidents, particularly when these involve relational bullying

Deepen the understanding for school bully-victims : the reasons for bully-victims' role formations, role transitions, and role terminations

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Who are school bully-victims and how can I help them : practical perspectives from school teachers

Introduction: Bully/victims mean someone who is both being bullied and is bullying others simultaneously. They have more problems in life adaption, interpersonal relationship, academic performances, and mental disorder than bullies or victims (Copeland, Wolke, Angold, & Costello, 2013; Khamis, 2015; Zych et al., 2017). Therefore, they require greater attention and assistance from school teachers. However, compared to bullies or victims, until now, there still lacks studies for exploring how can teachers handle their bullying and victimizing situation. Moreover, according to the idea of social information processing (SIP) model, teachers’ handling strategies may be influenced by their views to bully-victims. However, notably, there also lacks relevant studies to explore teachers’ views to bully-victims. In sum, this study aims to explore school teachers’ views regarding bully-victims, and their handling strategies for bully-victims. Methods: A total of 10 school teachers from Taiwan were invited to participate in interviews (3 males and 7 females; an average of 8.9 years of teaching experience). This study collected data by semi-structured interviews. The qualitative data analysis method (Wolcott, 2008) was adopted to analyze these data. In order to increase the trustworthiness of this study, the calculation of Intercoder reliability and Case analysis meeting are employed in this study (Merriam, 2002). Results: Most of the teachers believed that the bully-victims initially are victims due to their improper characteristics and behaviors. For instance, they have poor emotional control; they easily provoke others; they cannot read others’ expressions well. These will lead to situations that they often have conflicts with others and then gradually are bullied. However, with the accumulations of negative impacts caused by their continual victimization such as accumulations of negative emotions and low self-esteem, this will cause them to attack more vulnerable targets to enhance their self-esteem, vent their emotions, transfer victimized targets, and prove their capabilities. Therefore, they eventually become bully-victims. Most of the teachers initially recognized bully-victims as victims. However, when they have more and more interactions with bully-victims, and realize more and more perspectives from bully-victims’ peers, they will begin to adjust their views to bully-victims. Notably, these views to bully-victims will influence teachers’ handling strategies to them. Because the bully-victims’ situations are complicated and school bullying is a school level incident, most of the teachers adopt handling strategies based on the idea of ecological system theory to solve bully-victims’ situation. Notably, because of bully-victims not only bully others but also are bullied, teachers prefer to employ both assistance and punishment in parallel for solving bully-victims’ needs and problems. Implications: 1. Teachers should pay more attention to the causes of bully-victims so that they can prevent initial victims from becoming bully-victims. 2. Teachers should comprehensively collect information from the bully-victims’ entire system for understanding the causes of bully-victims’ bullying or victimizing situation so that organize appropriate handling strategies to intervene them. 3. Cooperating with the entire system of bully-victims and combining discipline and assistance strategies for helping bully-victims is really important

Improving preservice Teachers’ Bullying Identification: A Comparison of a Training Program, Written Definition, and Definition with a Bullying Checklist (提升職前教師校園霸凌辨識能力的訓練介入成效)

This study aimed to investigate whether different types of interventions could enhance preservice teachers’ ability to identify bullying incidents. Participants included 427 preservice teachers in Taiwan who were assigned to four groups: 1.5-hour training on bullying identification (Group X), a definition including the features of bullying in written form (Group Y), a written definition accompanied by a checklist of three bullying characteristics for each scenario (Group Z), and no definition of bullying (Control Group; Group C). A 24-item Recognition of Bullying Incidents Questionnaire was employed in this study. Of these items, 12 were used in the pre-test, and 12 were used in the post-test. The results of the mixed-model two-way ANOVA analysis indicated that the preservice teachers in Group X had significantly higher correct identification scores than those in Group Y (d = .88), Group Z (d = .82), and Group C (d = .91). Moreover, those in Group X had significantly lower incorrect identification scores than those in Group Y (d = -.95), Group Z (d = -.59), and Group C (d = -.90). There was no significant difference among the correct and incorrect identification scores of Group Y, Group Z, and Group C. To enhance preservice teachers’ bullying identification, this study suggests that administrators and policymakers should provide bullying identification training for them, rather than merely offering the definition and characteristics of school bullying

A feeder-free culture using autogeneic conditioned medium for undifferentiated growth of human embryonic stem cells: Comparative expression profiles of mRNAs, microRNAs and proteins among different feeders and conditioned media

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human embryonic stem (hES) cell lines were derived from the inner cell mass of human blastocysts, and were cultured on mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeder to maintain undifferentiated growth, extensive renewal capacity, and pluripotency. The hES-T3 cell line with normal female karyotype was previously used to differentiate into autogeneic fibroblast-like cells (T3HDF) as feeder to support the undifferentiated growth of hES-T3 cells (T3/HDF) for 14 passages.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A feeder-free culture on Matrigel in hES medium conditioned by the autogeneic feeder cells (T3HDF) was established to maintain the undifferentiated growth of hES-T3 cells (T3/CMHDF) for 8 passages in this investigation. The gene expression profiles of mRNAs, microRNAs and proteins between the undifferentiated T3/HDF and T3/CMHDF cells were shown to be very similar, and their expression profiles were also found to be similar to those of T3/MEF and T3/CMMEF cells grown on MEF feeder and feeder-free Matrigel in MEF-conditioned medium, respectively. The undifferentiated state of T3/HDF and T3/CMHDF as well as T3/MEF andT3/CMMEF cells was evidenced by the very high expression levels of "stemness" genes and low expression levels of differentiation markers of ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm in addition to the strong staining of OCT4 and NANOG.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The T3HDF feeder and T3HDF-conditioned medium were able to support the undifferentiated growth of hES cells, and they would be useful for drug development and toxicity testing in addition to the reduced risks of xenogeneic pathogens when used for medical applications such as cell therapies.</p