Contextual Variation Research Articles

Exploring rural secondary students’ English language learning anxiety: A study on secondary students of Bauphal, Patuakhali, Bangladesh

For more than a decade second language researchers, psychologists and language practitioners have found out multifarious impact of anxiety on language learning process. Realizing its’ significance in the EFL context of Bangladesh, this study has explored the anxieties of rural secondary school students in learning English and offered some specific suggestions to reduce it. This mixed approach research collected quantitative data by administering Foreign Language Anxiety scale and gathered qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 20 students of 10 secondary schools of Bauphal upzilla, Pautakhali. Quantitative data was put in SPSS version 22 for statistical analysis and presented graphically and qualitative data was interpreted thematically. Results revealed that secondary students in this rural context experienced English language learning anxiety as about 68.44% of students were anxious about negative evaluation; 51.27% about classroom anxiety; 61.2% about test anxiety and 60.88% about communicating in English. Findings of this study have implications for the English language teachers of secondary and higher secondary levels particularly in the rural areas by drawing their attention to learners’ foreign language anxiety (FLA) as a major barrier to learning English and by suggesting them some possible ways to lessen it and for the academicians who aspire to come up with effective teaching methodologies considering the contextual variations to maximize foreign language learning outputs

The Relationship between Educational Attainment, Unemployment Rate, and Income Disparity in the United States

This review examines the relationship between educational attainment, unemployment rate, and income disparity in the United States. It analyzes existing literature, theoretical frameworks, and empirical evidence to elucidate the complex interplay among these variables. By exploring the impact of educational attainment on employment opportunities and income disparities, this paper informs policymakers and practitioners about the implications of educational policies and interventions. It begins with an introduction that highlights the topic's significance and outlines the paper's structure. The definitions and conceptual framework for educational attainment, unemployment rate, and income disparity provide a foundation for the subsequent analysis. Additionally, the paper analyzes factors influencing the relationship between education, unemployment, and income disparity. It discusses the impact of socioeconomic background and access to quality education, emphasizing gender and racial/ethnic disparities in educational attainment and labor market outcomes. It explores regional and contextual variations in the relationship and investigates the effects of technological advancements on the labor market. Overall, this review synthesizes key findings, providing a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between educational attainment, unemployment rate, and income disparity in the United States. It emphasizes the implications for policy and practice, stressing the importance of targeted interventions to address the complex dynamics between education, unemployment, and income disparity. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research to enhance our understanding of these critical issues.

Mindset × Context: Schools, Classrooms, and the Unequal Translation of Expectations into Math Achievement.

Mindset × Context: Schools, Classrooms, and the Unequal Translation of Expectations into Math Achievement.

Grounded Cognition Entails Linguistic Relativity: Response to Commentators.

In this paper, I respond to eight commentaries on my target article called "Grounded cognition entails linguistic relativity: A neglected implication of a major semantic theory." The commentaries span a broad range of disciplines and perspectives. I have organized my response around the following topics: (1) an introductory synopsis of my main argument; (2) grounded versus amodal theories of concepts; (3) language-specific versus language-independent concepts; (4) language, culture, and cognition; (5) language itself as a source of conceptual grounding; (6) abstract concepts, linguistic relativity, and contextual and individual variability; (7) word meanings as language-specific predictions; and (8) some final remarks about the importance of cross-linguistic diversity.

Representations of fricatives in subcortical model responses: Comparisons with human consonant perception.

Fricatives are obstruent sound contrasts made by airflow constrictions in the vocal tract that produce turbulence across the constriction or at a site downstream from the constriction. Fricatives exhibit significant intra/intersubject and contextual variability. Yet, fricatives are perceived with high accuracy. The current study investigated modeled neural responses to fricatives in the auditory nerve (AN) and inferior colliculus (IC) with the hypothesis that response profiles across populations of neurons provide robust correlates to consonant perception. Stimuli were 270 intervocalic fricatives (10 speakers × 9 fricatives × 3 utterances). Computational model response profiles had characteristic frequencies that were log-spaced from 125 Hz to 8 or 20 kHz to explore the impact of high-frequency responses. Confusion matrices generated by k-nearest-neighbor subspace classifiers were based on the profiles of average rates across characteristic frequencies as feature vectors. Model confusion matrices were compared with published behavioral data. The modeled AN and IC neural responses provided better predictions of behavioral accuracy than the stimulus spectra, and IC showed better accuracy than AN. Behavioral fricative accuracy was explained by modeled neural response profiles, whereas confusions were only partially explained. Extended frequencies improved accuracy based on the model IC, corroborating the importance of extended high frequencies in speech perception.

Reduced contextual variability facilitates learned attending towards task-relevant features and away from distracting information

Reduced contextual variability facilitates learned attending towards task-relevant features and away from distracting information

Turkish-German heritage speakers' predictive use of case: webcam-based vs. in-lab eye-tracking.

Recently, Özge et al. have argued that Turkish and German monolingual 4-year-old children can interpret case-marking predictively disregarding word order. Heritage speakers (HSs) acquire a heritage language at home and a majority societal language which usually becomes dominant after school enrollment. Our study directly compares two elicitation modes: in-lab and (remote) webcam-based eye-tracking data collection. We test the extent to which in-lab effects can be replicated in webcam-based eye-tracking using the exact same design. Previous research indicates that Turkish HSs vary more in the comprehension and production of case-marking compared to monolinguals. Data from 49 participants-22 Turkish monolinguals and 27 HSs-were analyzed using a binomial generalized linear mixed-effects regression model. In the Accusative condition, participants looked for the suitable Agent before it is appeared in speech. In the Nominative condition, participants looked for the suitable Patient before it is appeared in speech. HSs were able to use morphosyntactic cues on NP1 to predict the thematic role of NP2. This study supports views in which core grammatical features of languages, such as case, remain robust in HSs, in line with the Interface Hypothesis. We were able to replicate the effect of the predictive use of case in monolinguals using webcam-based eye-tracking, but the replication with heritage speakers was not successful due to variability in data collection contexts. A by-participant analysis of the results revealed individual variation in that there were some speakers who do not use case-marking predictively in the same way as most monolinguals and most HSs do. These findings suggest that the predictive use of case in heritage speakers is influenced by different factors, which may differ across individuals and affect their language abilities. We argue that HSs should be placed on a native-speaker continuum to explain variability in language outcomes.

Understanding medical professionalism using express team-based learning; a qualitative case-based study

ABSTRACT Medical Professionalism (MP) defined as values, behaviours and attitudes that promote professional relationships, public trust and patient safety is a vital competency in health profession education. MP has a distinctive uniqueness due to cultural, contextual, conceptual, and generational variations. There is no standard instructional strategy to probe the understanding of MP in a cohesive, structured, interactive manner. This study aimed to investigate undergraduate medical students’ understanding of MP using express team-based learning (e-TBL) at both campuses of Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI). Using the key principles of a sociocultural theoretical lens in adult learning theory, we designed e-TBL as a context-learning-based educational strategy. We conducted three e-TBL sessions on cross-cultural communication and health disparities, a reflective report on clinical encounters, and professionalism in practice. We collected, collated, and analyzed the student experiences qualitatively using data gathered from team-based case discussions during e-TBL sessions. A dedicated working group developed very short-answer questions for the individual readiness assurance test (IRAT) and MP-based case scenarios for team discussions. In this adapted 4-step e-TBL session, pre-class material was administered, IRAT was undertaken, and team-based discussions were facilitated, followed by facilitator feedback. A qualitative inductive thematic analysis was performed, which generated subthemes and themes illustrated in excerpts. Our thematic analysis of data from 172 students (101 from Bahrain and 71 from Dublin) yielded four unique themes: incoming professional attitudes, transformative experiences, sociological understanding of professionalism, and new professional identity formation. This qualitative study provides a deeper understanding of medical students’ perceptions of medical professionalism. The generated themes resonated with divergent and evolving elements of MP in an era of socioeconomic and cultural diversity, transformative experiences, and professional identity formation. The core elements of these themes can be integrated into the teaching of MP to prepare fit-to-practice future doctors.

Is student internship still beneficial today? The views of multi-parties in Ghana

PurposeThere is evidence of country-level contextual variations regarding the benefits of practical experience acquired by students during higher education. This paper, therefore, analyses the benefits of student internships in the Ghanaian context.Design/methodology/approachIn Study 1, two structured but distinct surveys were distributed to senior members and students of six specialised technical education institutions (TIs). Study 2 involved in-depth interviews with the heads of organisations in the tertiary education sector, including trade groups, industries and government agencies.FindingsInternship provides soft skills, confidence, career development, sense of responsibility, employability, income, knowledge sharing and networking for students/interns. For TIs, it contributes to the professional development of faculty supervisors and helps them to update the content they teach. For employers, it unveils talented and promising students who can be employed immediately after graduation at a relatively cheaper cost.Research limitations/implicationsThere is still the need for additional research in different contexts: both developed and developing economies to clear doubts on the controversies surrounding the relevance of internship in the 21st century.Practical implicationsTIs should continue to champion student internship programmes. This study highlights the need for employers to place internship students in areas that relate to their fields of study. It also underscores the need for students to embrace internship since it is the cornerstone to their employability in the labour market.Social implicationsUndeniably, student internships provide a critical platform for career beginners.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to knowledge by offering contextual literature in Ghana on the benefits of student internship programme for interns/students, TIs and employers, all together.

Особливості формування дієслівної лексики у дошкільників з загальним недорозвитком мовлення шляхом розвитку умінь дієслівної предикації

The article highlights the methodological aspects of speech therapy work on the formation of verb vocabulary in preschoolers with generalized underdevelopment of speech. A structured methodology aimed at developing verb compatibility skills is substantiated, methodological techniques are defined, their content and methodological support are developed. Attention is focused on the importance of predicative relations for the development of syntactic structures and the role of verbal predication is taken into account. According to the authors, when forming verbal vocabulary in preschoolers with speech underdevelopment, it is necessary to activate the ability to use predicative units variably, to be guided by their lexical-semantic and contextual-semantic features. The use of associative relations between lexemes is proposed and their types are taken into account. It is taken into account that the acquisition of lexical semantics occurs through a number of mental operations: determination of semantic features of a speech and language situation, establishment of structural relations; coordination of a semantic element with linguistic means; comparison of features of objects of reality; generalization of different meanings of a word and establishment of a system of relations between words. The author's methodology of forming verb vocabulary is based on modern research in the fields of speech therapy, psycholinguistics, linguodidactics and includes actualization and accumulation of verbal vocabulary at the denotative, categorical, and contextual levels; formation of verbal variability of different types (with visual and auditory reinforcement, based on mnemonic processes; contextual and semantic variability; intuitive and practical variability); formation of verbal compatibility and verbal valence; stimulation of associative relations mediated by verbal vocabulary.

TrEP: Transformer-Based Evidential Prediction for Pedestrian Intention with Uncertainty

With rapid development in hardware (sensors and processors) and AI algorithms, automated driving techniques have entered the public’s daily life and achieved great success in supporting human driving performance. However, due to the high contextual variations and temporal dynamics in pedestrian behaviors, the interaction between autonomous-driving cars and pedestrians remains challenging, impeding the development of fully autonomous driving systems. This paper focuses on predicting pedestrian intention with a novel transformer-based evidential prediction (TrEP) algorithm. We develop a transformer module towards the temporal correlations among the input features within pedestrian video sequences and a deep evidential learning model to capture the AI uncertainty under scene complexities. Experimental results on three popular pedestrian intent benchmarks have verified the effectiveness of our proposed model over the state-of-the-art. The algorithm performance can be further boosted by controlling the uncertainty level. We systematically compare human disagreements with AI uncertainty to further evaluate AI performance in confusing scenes. The code is released at https://github.com/zzmonlyyou/TrEP.git.

Challenges of Translating Slang Expressions in American Song Lyrics of the 21st Century into the Arabic Language

Slangs are phrases that have strong roots in the culture of a given social and cultural stratum; translating them is challenging. Slang is a kind of daily socio-linguistic manifestation that emerges from a particular socio-cultural or socio-economic group's efforts to codify its members' ideology or mental projections. Slang refers to a language or set of words that are widely used but seldom defined. This study is an Arabic translation of slang used in 21st-century American songs. The research also examines how the slang was translated and the attributes that made them practical communication tools. Arabic speakers learning American English will benefit most from this concentration on slang and its context. The analysis is carried out through the thematic analysis method based on an apparent qualitative study. Twenty (20) slang terms borrowed from 21st-century American pop songs were adapted to be translated into Arabic. The study's data consists of slang expressions in the song lyrics of two American hip-hop/rap singers, Eminem and Wiz Khalifa. Marshal Mathers II by Eminem (2013) and Khalifa by Wiz Khalifa (2016) were picked as the only albums by each artist. To communicate with native Arabic speakers, the researcher modified the English-Arabic Translator used for superficial translation. Functional equivalents, social equivalents, modulations, substitution, and paraphrases are the main translation strategies adopted in translating the selected slang into formal Arabic. Based on the thematic evaluation, it was discovered that paraphrasing is the most effective strategy for translating American slang into Arabic. Consequently, the research shows that the meanings of slang terms are affected by context and situational variability. The conclusion is that slang plays a significant part in a conversation. To utilize it fully, learners must be familiar with their contexts and interpretations.

P39 A qualitative study investigating the views of nurses and doctors on the management of urinary tract infections in long-term care facilities

Abstract Background The most commonly reported infections in older persons’ long-term care facilities (LTCFs) are urinary tract infections (UTIs). UTIs contribute to high rates of antimicrobial prescribing, for the treatment and prophylaxis of UTI. Antimicrobials are often inappropriately prescribed and can increase the risk of antimicrobial resistance and other negative outcomes in LTCF populations.1 Objectives To explore the views and experiences of nurses and doctors working in LTCF on the management of UTIs. Methods Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nurses and GPs who work in or provide medical service in LTCFs in November 2022. Interviews were conducted online or by telephone, and recordings transcribed. Thematic analysis was conducted, and the themes were mapped to the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF)1.2 Results Seven nurses and eight GPs were interviewed. Key domains such as knowledge, memory, attention and decision making and beliefs about consequences had an influential role on UTI management as reported by participants. Contextual factors such as the time taken to obtain urine culture results, and social factors such as the key role of the LTCF nurse, were reported as key issues. Variability in practice and inconsistent knowledge of urine dipstick and UTI management guidelines were acknowledged in the management of UTIs and urine dipstick practices between participants. Conclusions This study identified social factors, contextual LTCF factors and variability in the management of UTI and urine dipstick practices across the participants. LTCFs require improved access to urine culture results, improved communication between all healthcare professionals involved and increased implementation of dipstick and UTI management guidelines.

Context Variation in U.S. High Schoolers’ Mathematics Orientations

Educators increasingly recognize the importance of students’ learning orientations, but relatively little is known about how these mindsets vary across and potentially shape educational settings. We use nationally representative data to document contextual variation in mathematics orientations in U.S. high schools. We find systematic variation in orientations between differentiated course levels within school, suggesting orientations are more a feature of proximate instructional contexts than general school climate. Between-course variation in orientations is comparable to analogous sorting on demographic characteristics and not primarily explained by prior achievement. Measures of individual learning orientations at scale hold promise for understanding collective educational contexts.

Exploring public perceptions and expectations of the salmon aquaculture industry in Norway: A social license to operate?

The aquaculture industry depends on the support of society to maintain and extend its activities. In Norway and elsewhere, such support cannot be taken for granted. The public has diverse expectations of the industry, and attitudes toward the industry are shaped by experiences with industry production, how the benefits and disadvantages of aquaculture production are distributed in society, and the kind and degree of information about industry issues that is available. This paper investigates public attitudes toward the Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry through a nationwide survey (N = 1183). The results reveal that the public is generally positive toward the industry; they tolerate and even accept it. However, respondents had more negative perceptions regarding the environmental consequences of aquaculture production and the fairness of the distribution of economic gains. Although the industry was seen as acceptable, respondents were more reluctant in terms of welcoming production growth, which points to a need for improvement if production increase is to be realized and the industry is to be able to meet society's expectations. Our results reveal differences in attitudes between respondents living in areas with and without aquaculture, which suggest that proximity to industry is, in general, positively related to industry perceptions. However, these differences vary in size, and it can be assumed that there are substantial contextual variances within the group of respondents living in aquaculture municipalities. One potentially important influence on attitudes is related to how industry is perceived to be financially significant in a particular local community. Further research could supply these data to offer a more detailed understanding of contextual variations and thus expand on the present results that explore public perceptions and expectations of the salmon aquaculture industry.

Exploring color metaphor with Behavioral Profiles: A usage-based analysis on the metaphorical meanings of the Chinese color term bái “white”

This paper conducts a usage-based, cognitive-semantic study on semantic relations between the twelve metaphorical meanings of the Chinese color term, bái 白 “white”, with the Behavioral Profiles approach. The contextual variations of the twelve metaphorical meanings of bái are captured by 51 contextual features, including collocational patterns, morphosyntactic and semantic properties, and discourse information. With a dataset consisting of 1200 instances, two statistical methods are adopted to explore the semantic relations of these meanings, namely Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. The results show that the twelve metaphorical senses of bái fall into four clusters, and their semantic relations can be empirically distinguished based on the proposed contextual features. Furthermore, we found that the identified semantic relations can be explained by mutually related conceptual metaphors based on the perceptual experiences of the white color regarding its three perceptual properties – absence of hue, highest brightness, and zero colorfulness. The present study ultimately demonstrates how the semantic relations among the twelve metaphorical meanings of bái can be empirically distinguished based on their linguistic encodings and explained by cognitive principles in line with the Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Contextual processing and its alterations in patients with addictive disorders

Contextual processing is implicated in the pathophysiology of addictive disorders, but the nature of putative deficiencies remains unclear. We assessed some aspects of contextual processing across multimodal experimental procedures with detoxified subjects who were dependent on opioids (n = 18), alcohol- (n = 20), both opioids and alcohol (n = 22) and healthy controls (n = 24) using a) facial- and b) emotionally laden images; c) gambling task and d) sucrose solutions. Healthy subjects displayed consistent response pattern throughout all categories of the presented stimuli. As a group, dependent subjects rated (i.e., valuated) attractive and average faces respectively more and less attractive in comparison to controls. Dependent subjects' motivational effort, measured in the units of computer keypress to determine the attractive faces' viewing time, accorded the valuational context but was diminished relatively to the average faces’ valuation. Dependent subjects’ motivational effort for pleasant and aversive images respectively mirrored the attractive and average faces; their neutral images’ motivational effort was incongruent with the valuational context framed by the intermixed images. Also, dependent subjects’ emotional responses to counterfactual comparisons of gambling outcomes were unmatched by the riskiness context. Moreover, dependent subjects failed to show greater liking of sweet solutions that normally accompanies low sweetness perceptual context indicative of higher sucrose concentration needed for maximal hedonic experience. Consistent differences among the dependent groups (opioid vs. alcohol vs. comorbid) on the above procedures were not observed. The present findings suggest that opioid and/or alcohol dependence may be associated with amplified hedonic and motivational valuation of pleasant stimuli and with a disrupted link between behavioral/emotional responsivity and contextual variations. Further research is warranted to unravel the distinctive features of contextual processing in opioid- vis-à-vis alcohol addiction and how these features may interrelate in comorbid conditions.

Inclusivity in transitioning to medical school.

Inclusivity in transitioning to medical school.

It Depends! Contextual Variability in Feminist Identity Disclosure Among Binary and Nonbinary Individuals

It Depends! Contextual Variability in Feminist Identity Disclosure Among Binary and Nonbinary Individuals

Goal commitment and goal confidence mediate the path between desire to get drunk and binge drinking among young adults receiving text message goal-related feedback.

This study sought to determine whether drinking limit goal commitment and goal confidence mediate the association between desire to get drunk and binge drinking (4+ drinks for a woman and 5+ drinks for a man on a given occasion) among young adults exposed to text message goal-related feedback. Participants were 297 young adults with hazardous drinking randomized to one of two text-message interventions incorporating drinking limit goal-related assessments and feedback who also completed at least two days of assessments over 12 weeks of intervention exposure. On the two days per week they typically drank alcohol, participants were asked to report plans to drink (yes/no). If a drinking plan was endorsed, participants reported desire to get drunk (0 [not at all] to 8 [completely]), willingness to commit to a drinking limit goal (yes/no), and (contingent on goal commitment) goal confidence (0 [not at all] to 8 [completely]). The next day, participants reported drinking quantity, coded as a binge drinking day (yes/no). Mediation was tested using path models of simultaneous between- and within-person effects using Maximum Likelihood. At both within- and between-person levels, we found significant indirect path effects of goal commitment and goal confidence between desire to get drunk and binge drinking. Greater than usual desire to get drunk was associated with lower drinking limit goal commitment and confidence, whereas greater than usual goal commitment and confidence were associated with lower likelihood of same day binge drinking. Findings support a mechanistic model where contextual variations in same day drinking limit goal commitment and confidence mitigate the path between desire to get drunk and binge drinking among young adults. Employing just-in-time strategies to reinforce drinking limit goal commitment and goal confidence could reduce hazardous drinking and related harms.