Prevalence of Tobacco Use Among Junior High and Senior High School Students in Taiwan

Differences in stress levels between junior high school students and college students during online learning

A Longitudinal Study of Learning Engagement of Math and Science Gifted Students in Junior and Senior High School

Differences in classroom climate and science related attitudes were investigated among junior high school science classes and students in Taiwan. The sample consisted of 1,269 students enrolled in 40 science classes distributed equally among ten junior high schools, five metropolitan and five rural. Classes were further classified according to sex (21 boys and 19 girls classes) and ability (19 high and 21 low ability classes). Using the Learning Environment Inventory (Anderson, Walberg, & Fraser, 1982) to measure climate, science classes in metropolitan schools, more than rural, were found to be characterized by Speed, Friction, Favoritism, Difficulty, Cliqueness, and Competitiveness. No differences were found in the classroom climates of classes in which students were grouped according to sex or ability. Using the Test of Science‐Related Attitudes (Fraser, 1981), students in science classes in metropolitan schools, in contrast to rural, expressed more positive attitudes toward the Social Implications of Science, Adoption of Scientific Attitudes, and Attitude to Scientific Inquiry. Boys more than girls recorded high scores on Leisure Interest in Science and Career Interest in Science. High ability students were found to have higher scores on Attitude to Scientific Inquiry than did low ability students. When examining the relationship between the 15 subscale scores of the LEI and the seven subscale scores of the TOSRA for the 40 classes, only 9 out of 105 correlations proved to be significant. Most differences in climate, attitude, and their interactions were attributed to school location rather than to student characteristics.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of age, gender, and sex-role identity to role expectation in same-sex friends (SSF). Role expectation in SSF consisted of ten categories (Wada, 1993): Cooperation, information, similarity, self-enhancement, sensitivity, companionship, authenticity, self-disclosure, respect, and interdependence. Subjects were 129 (67 male and 62 female) junior high school, 243 (118 male and 125 female) senior high school, and 168 (88 male and 80 female) college students. Major findings were as follows: Senior high school and undergraduate students expected more self-enhancement from SSF than junior high students. Junior and senior high school students expected more companionship than undergraduates. Undergraduates expected more authenticity and less self-disclosure than junior high school students. And male students expected more companionship, information, and similarity, but less self-disclosure, self-enhancement, and respect from SSF than female. Clear results of the relationship between sex-role identity and role expectation in SSF weren't found.

This study examines the curriculum components in biology favoured by high school students in Taiwan. Our sample consisted of 155 senior high school students (51 boys and 104 girls) and 137 junior high school students (74 boys and 63 girls). The questionnaire was based on the idea of a repertory grid technique and was developed to investigate the relative status of the curriculum components as perceived by the students. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were then used to analyse the data. It was found that the students favoured the curriculum components in the following order: Manipulative skills, Scientific concepts, the Application of science, Social issues, Problem solving skills and the History of science. Further comparisons indicated that there were some differences between senior high school students and junior high school students as well as between boys and girls. These findings provide us with aspects that should be seriously considered when developing curricula.

Background: Despite the growing body of research on self-efficacy, previous studies have failed to clarify exactly how it is constructed. Meanwhile, the literature indicates that, in Taiwan, junior high school students tend to show lower self-efficacy in learning science compared with elementary and senior high school students.Purpose: This study aimed to develop a mediational model providing the factors accounting for Taiwanese junior high school adolescents’ science learning self-efficacy (SLSE), especially from the perspectives of both interpersonal and intrapersonal factors.Design: We therefore proposed a mediational model to delineate the relationships among students’ perceived responses to capitalization attempts – science learning (PRCA-SL), science learning hardiness (SLH) and SLSE by conducting structural equation modeling (SEM).Sample: A total of 1,170 junior high school students in Taiwan were invited to take part in the study.Results: The results confirmed our hypothesis that students’ PRCA-SL fostered their science learning hardiness, which in turn contributed to their science learning self-efficacy.Conclusions: The findings confirmed the mediational model wherein science learning hardiness completely mediated the relationship between PRCA-SL and science learning self-efficacy.

This study examines depression in students at public high schools in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to examine which student-level and teacher-level variables affect student depression due to teacher emotional overinvolvement and other factors. A survey instrument adapted and translated from existing surveys was distributed to 1,479 Taiwanese adolescents aged 13—15 years and 172 teachers from 10 public junior high schools in the city of Taipei. The hierarchical linear model (HLM) was used for a cross-level analysis of the data. The HLM shows that student-level measures account for most of the variance. Teacher emotional overinvolvement and core self-evaluations are the preponderant influences on student ratings. In terms of teacher-level variables, the effects of teacher involvement, teacher depression, and teacher educational background on student-level variables are strong and significant. The findings of this study recommend the development of a comprehensive counseling system for teachers and students.

<sec> <b> <b>What is already known about this topic?</b> </b> Using the framework of the global youth tobacco survey (GYTS), China CDC conducted the first round of a national tobacco survey among junior high school (JHS) students in 2014, indicating that 17.9% and 5.9% of respondents were experimental and current cigarette smokers, respectively. </sec><sec> <b> <b>What is added by this report?</b> </b> China CDC implemented a second round of the survey in 2019 and included senior high school (SHS) and vocational senior high school (VSHS) students. Experimental and current cigarette use was much higher among VSHS (30.3%, 14.7%) and SHS (21.6%, 5.6%) students than in JHS students (12.9%, 3.9%). Minors being able to buy cigarettes without refusal, tobacco advertisements and promotions on movies, TV, and at retail outlets, parents smoking, and teacher smoking in school were also widely prevalent. </sec><sec> <b> <b>What are the implications for public health practice?</b> </b> Despite positive changes from 2014 to 2019, the external factors compelling teenagers to smoke were extensive. The priority for tobacco control among secondary school students should be strengthening the implementation of existing laws and regulations and developing targeted policies and measures for VSHS. </sec>

Several studies have suggested health-related physical fitness (HRPF) as an important health marker and\nclosely associated with overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. However, the relationship among\nHRPF and exercise habits, weight status, and fitness attitude remains unclear. Thus, this study aimed to explore the\npossible factors, including knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy and weight status, and how these factors could affect\nHRPF among junior high school students in Taiwan. A total of 1,628 valid participants from 7th, 8th and 9th grades\nwere selected based on the stratified cluster random sampling throughout Taiwan. The fitness and Affecting Factors\nin Physical Fitness Survey data were collected in 2011. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression with\nbackward elimination were adopted to examine the significance of data. The result showed that roughly one third\n(35.6%) of Taiwanese junior high school students reached 4 standards of HRPF, all items are above 25th percentile.\nThe logistic regression model revealed that the strongest relationship with HRPF was weight status, and exercise\nhabits were significantly influenced HRPF tests among male and female students. Furthermore, knowledge and\nself-efficacy showed significant positive effects on HRPF among female students, while only attitude had positive\ninfluence on HRPF among male students. Results also demonstrated the urban-rural difference on HRPF. To be\nspecific, female students from North Taiwan showed better HRPF than female students from East, while male\nstudents from East obtained better HRPF than male students from North. In addition, male students in North also\nexhibited better HRPF compared to male students in South. Therefore, these findings suggest that government\nshould contemplate the urban-rural difference on HRPF, schools should enforce physical education curriculum\nand interventions should focus on strengthening of fitness knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy to develop regular\nexercise habit to decrease the obesity rate and to further improve HRPF among junior high school students in Taiwan.\nKeywords: children,

This study deals with the comparative analysis of interlanguage errors made by Junior High School and Senior High School. The objective of this research is to identify the types of interlanguage errors made by the Junior High School and Senior High School. The similarities and the differences of interlanguage error made by Junior High School and Senior High School, and the extend do the native language and the target language influence the student interlanguage system. The data are students’ errors in writing. The erroneous sentences are taken from 40 pieces of the junior high school students’ writing, and 40 pieces of the senior high school students’ writing. The data analyzed qualitatively, especially in using Error analysis Framework. The results indicate that the interlanguage errors made by Junior High School and Senior High School have the similarities and differences. The similarities of interlanguage errors that found by researcher are: wrong spelling of word, the use of Indonesian word, and omission of bond morpheme‘s/es’ as the plural marker. The researcher found ‘the wrong spelling of word, the use of Indonesian word, and omission of bond morpheme ‘s/es as the plural marker” in Junior High School, in Senior High School composition. The differences of interlanguage error made by Junior High School and Senior High School as follow: the use of V-ing for past event in Junior High school, it is not found in Senior high school composition. The errors that found in Senior High School, such as: False friend, Additional apostrophe (’s) is not appropriate, Additional‘s’ as Singular Marker, Omission of preposition, The use of singular noun for plural noun, The use of subjective pronouns for objective pronouns, and Omission of Article (a,an,the) , these errors are not found in Junior High School composition. There are two influences in students’ English namely influenced by first language and influenced by target language; the most dominant influence in students’ interlanguage in Junior high school and Senior high school is influenced by the target language. It can be seen from the percentages of it, 85, 71% in Junior High School and 85, 71% in Senior High School composition.&#x0D;

Objective In recent years, the long-term use of media (including the Internet, video games, and social networking services) at a young age has been regarded as a problem. It has been pointed out that prolonged media usage may have an undesirable effect on the growth of adolescents from the physical, mental, and social perspectives. Junior and senior high school students are in a particularly important period of self-management of the basic lifestyle habits acquired thus far. Additionally, they must cultivate the ability to interact appropriately with media used daily. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the time expended on media usage and lifestyle habits among junior and senior high school students.Methods A sample of 1,633 students was extracted from all junior and senior high schools in Fukushima City. Principals of the schools distributed a self-administered questionnaire to their students. In total, 1,589 responses were obtained; as surveys of 30 students were missing values for gender and grade, they were excluded from the analysis, and data from 1,559 respondents were ultimately analyzed. A binomial logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between an independent variable (media usage time) and dependent variables (subjective health, lifestyle habits, and drinking and smoking experience) while controlling for gender and grade.Results Among junior high students, media usage for more than three hours was significantly related to "no breakfast," "no exercise habits," "irregular sleep," "lack of rest," and "feeling stressed." Among high school students, media usage for three hours or more was significantly related to "poor subjective health status," "eating only one or two meals a day," "no breakfast," "low food diversity," "obesity," "no exercise habits," "irregular sleep," "late bedtime," "waking up late," "drinking," and "smoking."Conclusion Our findings indicate that three or more hours of daily media usage is related to unhealthy lifestyles in terms of sleeping, eating, physical activity, drinking, and smoking. Junior and senior high school students who responded to the survey indicated that prolonged usage was also adversely related to their subjective health. Because the overuse of media is associated with students' lifestyles and health, it is important to develop an educational system that helps junior and senior high school students use media properly.

The purpose of this study was to examine the outcomes of school sexuality education in Taiwan. This project on sexuality education was commissioned by the Ministry of Education in 2008. Data used in the analysis were obtained from a cross-sectional survey on the outcomes of sexuality education in the elementary, junior high and senior high schools in Taiwan. By using a stratified cluster sampling method, 2,449 graduates of elementary schools, 2,627 of junior high schools, and 2,258 3(superscript rd) year students of senior high and vocational schools were the subjects. The major findings of this study were as follows: 1. The teaching of sexuality education in the classroom in junior and senior high schools stressed more on traditional disease prevention than the students' needs for sex, love, mate selection and marriage. And the teacher-student interaction was not frequent. In general, sexuality education during junior high school has received the lowest satisfaction. 2. The students' sex knowledge learned in school was not good enough. In terms of sex attitude, the students' acceptance of issues on AIDS and homosexuals as well as that of premarital sexual behavior increase among higher graders. However, the confidence to carry out skills, ”refusal and self-control” and ”self-protection and seeking for help” decreases among higher graders.. 3. More than 24% of elementary graduates had had love experience, and more than half of the 3(superscript rd) year senior and vocational students did, too. In addition, 5% of junior high graduates and 10% senior high and vocational students respectively had premarital sexual behavior, and about 20% of the students at both levels had established romantic relationship on the internet. 4. The more detailed sexuality education was taught in school, better teaching skills the teachers possess, and higher satisfaction with sexuality education the students had, the better sex knowledge, more positive sexual attitude and better performance of related life skills the students will have. Some concrete suggestions on carrying out the current school sexuality education were given in this study according to the above findings.

The critical component that allow the students with disabilities to be effectively included into the general education setting are of concern.Objectives: This research explored the factors relating to the effective inclusion of junior high school students with moderate intellectual disability (ID).Methods: The study was based on a survey of 74 junior high school students in Taiwan, who were diagnosed with moderate ID and who studied in an inclusive educational setting. The data were collected by surveying the parents and teachers of these 74 students. Critical components for effective inclusion in a general educational setting were screened from 198 possible factors in the survey.Results: (1) Expressive language skills were correlated with the degree of inclusion; and (2) Receiving intervention before three years of age allowed students with moderate ID to achieve better expressive language skills and a higher degree of inclusion in junior high schools.Conclusion: Expressive language skills and early intervention timing were critical components for effective inclusion in general junior high school. Based on these findings, implications for improving the degree of inclusion of students with moderate ID are proposed.

ObjectivesPrioritizing adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) prevention over treatment is crucial, especially in countries like China where students are heavily focused on academics. Little research combines the educational characteristics of junior and senior high school students in China to explore factors contributing to AIS. Our aim was to investigate the correlation between performance indicators and potential AIS determine differences between junior and senior high school students.MethodWe conducted a general investigation of potential AIS-related indicators in students attending a comprehensive school in the Yunnan Province. In total, 264 junior high school students and 501 senior high school students were surveyed. Both subjective and objective performance indicators as well as additional factors, such as extracurricular activities and schoolbag-related factors, were considered. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were assessed, and all items pertaining to performance and other relevant factors were analyzed.ResultsThe proportion of senior high school students with a trunk rotation angle > 7° was higher than that of junior high school students (5.59% vs. 2.27%). Junior high school students were more affected by the weight of their schoolbags than senior high school students (35.98% vs. 27.74%). In contrast, senior high school students had more abnormal postures than junior high school students (28.03% vs. 38.32%). The frequency of extracurricular activities was significantly lower in senior high school students than in junior high school students, particularly among students with a trunk rotation angle of > 5° or > 7°. The questionnaire results indicated that the survey model was suitable. Significant correlations were found between schoolbag-related issues, growth-related concerns, abnormal posture, and abnormal lifestyle. Abnormal lifestyle was found to have a potential impact on abnormal sensations, whereas abnormal pain was influenced by abnormal posture, lifestyle, and sensation.ConclusionsOur questionnaire captured the distinct attributes of junior and senior high school students in a Chinese province regarding potential Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS). Junior high school students are more affected by schoolbag weight, while senior high school students exhibit more abnormal postures. The frequency of extracurricular activities shows an inverse relationship with both heavy schoolbag weight and abnormal postures. Increasing the frequency of extracurricular activities and addressing abnormal habits may help prevent the onset of AIS in students experiencing high levels of academic stress.

This study addressed the issue of school alienation (SA) among high school students in Taiwan; SA is believed to contribute to dropout, violence, gangs, and deviant behavior. To measure SA, we propose a four-construct model in this study, comprising powerlessness, normlessness, meaninglessness, and social isolation. Using two studies, an SA scale (SAS) was developed and validated. Study 1 developed and preliminarily validated the four constructs of SA using item and exploratory factor analyses with 227 junior high school students as participants. Study 2 validated the theoretical structure of SA using second-order confirmatory factor analysis with a sample of 708 junior high school students. The cross-validation of Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that the proposed SAS is robust, valid, and effective for measuring the degree of SA among students.