Effects Of Topic Familiarity Research Articles

The Effects of Topic Familiarity on Kurdish EFL Students’ Lexical Inference Skill

The Effects of Topic Familiarity on Kurdish EFL Students’ Lexical Inference Skill

Effects of topic familiarity on L2 writing processes and behaviors

AbstractThe present study aims to investigate how topic familiarity influences the writing processes and behaviors of 57 Chinese English as a foreign language learners. The quantitative keystroke logging data sketched out participants’ general writing processes and behaviors. Additionally, two focal writers from different writing tasks were interviewed using a post‐task stimulated recall method, and the qualitative data from their comments together with their writing process graphs supported by Inputlog8.0 were analyzed to complement the quantitative results. Results showed that writing on a less familiar topic resulted in longer planning time, shorter texts, slower writing pace, and less revision compared to writing on a more familiar topic. Data analysis confirmed the role of topic familiarity in determining the allocation of time among L2 writing sub‐processes and patterns of L2 writers’ writing behaviors.

The effect of topic familiarity and volatility of auditory scene on selective auditory attention

Selective auditory attention has been shown to modulate the cortical representation of speech. This effect has been well documented in acoustically more challenging environments. However, the influence of top-down factors, in particular topic familiarity, on this process remains unclear, despite evidence that semantic information can promote speech-in-noise perception. Apart from individual features forming a static listening condition, dynamic and irregular changes of auditory scenes—volatile listening environments—have been less studied. To address these gaps, we explored the influence of topic familiarity and volatile listening on the selective auditory attention process during dichotic listening using electroencephalography. When stories with unfamiliar topics were presented, participants’ comprehension was severely degraded. However, their cortical activity selectively tracked the speech of the target story well. This implies that topic familiarity hardly influences the speech tracking neural index, possibly when the bottom-up information is sufficient. However, when the listening environment was volatile and the listeners had to re-engage in new speech whenever auditory scenes altered, the neural correlates of the attended speech were degraded. In particular, the cortical response to the attended speech and the spatial asymmetry of the response to the left and right attention were significantly attenuated around 100–200 ms after the speech onset. These findings suggest that volatile listening environments could adversely affect the modulation effect of selective attention, possibly by hampering proper attention due to increased perceptual load.

The effects of topic familiarity on college students' learning search process

PurposeThis study aims to explore the influence of topic familiarity on the four stages of college students' learning search process.Design/methodology/approachThis study clarified the effects of topic familiarity on students' learning search process by conducting a simulation experiment based on query formulation, information item selection, information sources and learning output.FindingsThe results characterized users' interaction behaviors in increasing topic familiarity through their use of more task descriptions as queries, increased reformulation of queries, construction of more purposeful query formulation, reduced attention to a topic's basic concept content and increased exploration of academic platform contents.Originality/valueThis study proposed three innovative indicators which were proposed to evaluate the effects of topic familiarity on college students' learning search process, and the adopted metrics were useful for observing differences in college students' learning output as their topic familiarity increased. It contributes to the understanding of a user's search process and learning output to support the optimization function of learning-related information search systems and improve their effect on the user's search process for learning.

The Effects of Topic Familiarity on Text Quality, Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency: A Conceptual Replication

AbstractUnderstanding the effects of second language writers’ topic familiarity on their subsequent writing performance has been a subject of great interest to researchers in second language acquisition and TESOL. However, prior studies have tended to suffer from multiple methodological limitations (e.g., no interrater reliability, limited or no control over important variables), which may call into question their results. In this conceptual replication, we highlight some of these issues by revisiting an influential study by He and Shi (2012), which explored the effects of ESL students’ topic familiarity on their writing performance as assessed by measures of text quality and complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Apart from highlighting the differences in our studies’ designs (e.g., the CAF measures and statistical analyses used), we highlight the similarities and differences in our findings. Finally, we close with a call for increased replication research in this area.

The effects of topic familiarity on information completeness, fluency, and target language quality of student interpreters in Chinese–English consecutive interpreting

Abstract This study investigated the effects of topic familiarity on interpreting quality of eighteen Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) student interpreters in Chinese–English consecutive interpreting (CI) at a university in China. Data were collected from two interpreting tasks in a 2-hour interpreting course over a four-week period. The interpreting quality was assessed by using three analytic rating scales (i.e., information completeness, fluency of delivery, and target language quality) and a holistic rating. Semi-structured interviews with the students were conducted to gain some in-depth perceptions of the effects of topic familiarity on interpreting quality. The results showed that topic familiarity had significant effects on information completeness, fluency of delivery, target language quality, and holistic scores of the interpreting tasks. It was also found that topic familiarity strongly correlated with information completeness, fluency of delivery, target language quality, and holistic scores. The findings of the study indicate that topic familiarity should be included and highlighted in Chinese–English consecutive interpreting in classroom contexts. The study provides effective guidance for interpreting teaching, training, and research.

The effects of topic familiarity on emotionality and linguistic complexity in EAP writing

Focusing on the relationship between linguistic, cognitive, socioemotional factors in writing English for academic purposes (EAP), this study investigated whether topic familiarity as an important cognitive factor of task complexity influences different levels of emotionality and linguistic complexity in EAP writing and whether there are relationships between emotionality and linguistic complexity. To do so, 64 international graduate learners enrolled in EAP writing courses participated in the present study. Each wrote on familiar and unfamiliar topics determined via a questionnaire at the onset of the study. Their writings were then measured for textual emotionality and linguistic complexity using automatic assessment tools. Results showed that EAP writings differed systematically in terms of both emotionality and linguistic complexity due to the influence of topic familiarity. Unfamiliar topics led to writing performance with a significantly higher level of emotional negativity and significantly lower linguistic complexity levels as compared to familiar topics. A follow-up correlation analysis also revealed significant relationships between emotionality and linguistic complexity measures, indicating complex interactions between linguistic and socioemotional factors. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to deploying writing topics with varied levels of cognitive complexity for encouraging classroom engagement and improving L2 learners’ writing performance by effective task sequencing.

Functions of oral monologic tasks: Effects of topic familiarity on L2 speaking performance:

Tasks with different design factors may dissimilarly affect oral production, and thus can be adopted for different pedagogical purposes. However, the functions of task types are not fully explored....

Functions of oral monologic tasks: Effects of topic familiarity on L2 speaking performance

Tasks with different design factors may dissimilarly affect oral production, and thus can be adopted for different pedagogical purposes. However, the functions of task types are not fully explored. To address this gap, this study investigates the influence of content familiarity and task repetition on sixty English as a foreign language learners’ speaking performance, in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Participants twice performed four monologic tasks, and received stimulated recall interviews. The findings indicate that participants produced structurally more complex speech under familiar conditions, and increased their CAF in task repetition. Furthermore, content familiarity and task repetition may facilitate conceptualization. Task repetition may also direct participants’ attention towards lexical choices and grammatical encoding. Moreover, repeating unfamiliar topics effectively increased CAF. The findings suggest content familiarity and task repetition are two dimensions of topic familiarity, and that teachers might consider implementing task repetition when presenting unfamiliar topics to learners.

The effect of topic familiarity on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of second language writing

Abstract The purpose of the current study is to examine the role of topic familiarity in the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of second language (L2) writing. Topic familiarity was operationalized as whether writers are writing about a common, everyday subject matter in relation to themselves (+ familiar) or to a group they are not familiar with (–familiar), and a learner survey was used to test the validity of the construct. A total of 123 Chinese EFL college students participated in the study, with 61 writing on a familiar topic and 62 writing on a less familiar topic. Their writing performance was analyzed for lexical complexity, syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Data analyses revealed that the students produced essays with significantly lower lexical complexity for the less familiar topic than for the familiar topic, while the performance areas of accuracy, fluency, and syntactic complexity were not affected by the degree of familiarity. The study findings are discussed in terms of their implications for task selection and sequencing for L2 teaching and assessment purposes.

Intelligent topic selection for low-cost information retrieval evaluation: A New perspective on deep vs. shallow judging

While test collections provide the cornerstone for Cranfield-based evaluation of information retrieval (IR) systems, it has become practically infeasible to rely on traditional pooling techniques to construct test collections at the scale of today’s massive document collections (e.g., ClueWeb12’s 700M+ Webpages). This has motivated a flurry of studies proposing more cost-effective yet reliable IR evaluation methods. In this paper, we propose a new intelligent topic selection method which reduces the number of search topics (and thereby costly human relevance judgments) needed for reliable IR evaluation. To rigorously assess our method, we integrate previously disparate lines of research on intelligent topic selection and deep vs. shallow judging (i.e., whether it is more cost-effective to collect many relevance judgments for a few topics or a few judgments for many topics). While prior work on intelligent topic selection has never been evaluated against shallow judging baselines, prior work on deep vs. shallow judging has largely argued for shallowed judging, but assuming random topic selection. We argue that for evaluating any topic selection method, ultimately one must ask whether it is actually useful to select topics, or should one simply perform shallow judging over many topics? In seeking a rigorous answer to this over-arching question, we conduct a comprehensive investigation over a set of relevant factors never previously studied together: 1) method of topic selection; 2) the effect of topic familiarity on human judging speed; and 3) how different topic generation processes (requiring varying human effort) impact (i) budget utilization and (ii) the resultant quality of judgments. Experiments on NIST TREC Robust 2003 and Robust 2004 test collections show that not only can we reliably evaluate IR systems with fewer topics, but also that: 1) when topics are intelligently selected, deep judging is often more cost-effective than shallow judging in evaluation reliability; and 2) topic familiarity and topic generation costs greatly impact the evaluation cost vs. reliability trade-off. Our findings challenge conventional wisdom in showing that deep judging is often preferable to shallow judging when topics are selected intelligently.

Task‐Oriented Learning With Multiple Documents: Effects of Topic Familiarity, Author Expertise, and Content Relevance on Document Selection, Processing, and Use

AbstractThis study investigated the effects of author expertise and content relevance on Norwegian secondary school students’ (n = 190) selection, processing, and use of multiple documents. Participants were presented with documents that pertained to more or less familiar topics, and received brief instructions that highlighted the importance of source credibility or content relevance, whereas those in a control group just received a general task instruction (to write a letter to the editor about their assigned topic). Results showed that content relevance had strong and nearly identical effects on students’ selection, processing, and use of documents independently of whether the topic was more or less familiar, whereas they valued author expertise to a greater extent when the topic was less familiar. Moreover, content relevance had a strong effect on students’ selection, processing, and use of documents independently of instructional condition, whereas brief instructions to focus on source credibility increased the value placed on author expertise when students selected, processed, and used documents for the less familiar topic. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Effects of relevance criteria and subjective factors on web image searching behaviour

Searching for images is an everyday activity. Nevertheless, even a highly skilled searcher often struggles to find what they are looking for. This article studies the factors that affect users’ online web image search behaviour, investigating (1) the use of criteria in making image relevance judgements and (2) the effect of familiarity, difficulty and satisfaction. The study includes 48 users who performed four online image search tasks using Google Images. Simulated work scenarios, questionnaires and screen capture recordings were used to collect data of their image search behaviour. The results show in judging image relevance, users may apply similar criterion, however, the importance of these criteria depends on the type of image search. Similarly, ratings of users’ perception on subjective aspects of performing image search shows they were task dependent. Users’ perception on subjective aspects of performing image search did not always correspond with their actual search behaviour. Correlation analysis shows that subjective factors cannot be definitively measured by using only one component of search behaviour. Future work includes further analysis on the effects of topic familiarity and satisfaction.

The effects of topic familiarity, author expertise, and content relevance on Norwegian students’ document selection: A mixed methods study.

This mixed methods study investigated the extent to which author expertise and content relevance were salient to secondary Norwegian students (N = 153) when they selected documents that pertained to more familiar and less familiar topics. Quantitative results indicated that author expertise was more salient for the less familiar topic (nuclear power) than for the more familiar topic (climate change), whereas content relevance was equally salient between the topics. Qualitative findings revealed 3 themes to explain this difference: (a) participants perceived that scientists had a greater ability to make correct scientific assertions than journalists; (b) when an assertion was more familiar, participants perceived less need to rely on author expertise; and (c) when an assertion was less familiar, participants perceived more need to rely on author expertise. The data sets were complementary and indicated that topic familiarity affected the salience of author expertise but not content relevance. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Effects of Topic Familiarity on Analogical Transfer in Problem-Solving: A Think-Aloud Study of Two Singular Cases

We conducted a qualitative research of case studies based on think-aloud protocols. The aim was to carry out in-depth analyse secondary students’ cognitive difficulties appearing in early stages of transfer processes in problem-solving. The task was to relate several source problems to a target problem, in order to solve it effectively. Source and target problems had different Surface and/or Structural similarities. In this paper, the solvers’ high or low Familiarity with the problem stories on transfer processes was also focused on. Two emergent instructional phenomena are described, both associated to specific students’ cognitive obstacles to achieve success in solving the target problem: the ‘Screen effect’ and the ‘Sisyphus effect’. The obstacles were harder for low Familiarity problems.

The Effect of Topic Familiarity on L2 Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in Reading—An Experimental Study Based on Path Analysis

The Effect of Topic Familiarity on L2 Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in Reading—An Experimental Study Based on Path Analysis

Effects of topic familiarity and search skills on query reformulation behavior

AbstractThis study examined the effects of two factors, topic familiarity and search skills, on users' query reformulation behavior in health information searching. Four hypotheses were tested. Forty five graduate students participated in our study and searched for health‐related topics on our experimental retrieval system. Their search actions were recorded by a server‐side log system and their demographic information were collected, including their familiarity with the topics and their major. Our results suggest that topic familiarity and search skills do not have statistically significant impact on users' selection of query reformulation types. However, participants with a higher topic familiarity tend to make less spelling errors and prefer to use specific terms or search from different aspects. Participants with better searching skills are more likely to generalize and specify their queries and make less errors. In addition, significantly fewer reformulations were observed from the participants with higher topic familiarity. This indicates participants with higher topic familiarity can complete their task with less reformulation effort. There is no significant difference on the time spent on different types of query reformulations. The findings from this study yield practical implications for designing health information retrieval systems that support query reformulation for users with different knowledge and skills.

Abstracts: Reading & writing

Abstracts: Reading & writing