Liberal Arts Students Research Articles

Relocating from EFL to EMI: a case study on L2 learning motivation of English major students in a transnational university in China

Drawing from (Dörnyei’s, The Psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition, 2005) L2 Motivational Self System, this case study delved into the L2 learning motivations of liberal arts and science English majors at a transnational university in China, where English Medium Instruction (EMI) is prevalent. The study aimed to uncover how the EMI educational setting, alongside disciplinary backgrounds, shapes students' motivational landscapes. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire was first administered to 182 students, followed by semi-structured interviews with six purposively selected participants to ensure a representation of diverse perspectives. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and an independent samples t-test to pinpoint motivational differences between the two groups, with Cohen’s d effect size test further elucidating the significance of these differences. Thematic analysis of qualitative data provided a deeper layer of insight, which, when cross-examined with quantitative results, revealed a nuanced understanding of motivational dynamics. Key findings highlighted that both student groups were driven by factors such as ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, international posture, and instrumentality. However, within the EMI context, liberal arts students exhibited heightened sensitivity to their ought-to L2 selves, language anxiety, and teacher influence compared to their science counterparts (p < 0.05, dCohen > 0.8). These distinctions underscore the EMI context's role in modulating motivational profiles, particularly accentuating certain motivational factors among liberal arts students. In light of these EMI-mediated motivational nuances, the study proposes several educational implications, including enhancing teachers’ professional development training, integrating English learning in EMI programmes with students’ aspirations, and fostering intercultural interactions to enrich students’ language and cultural experiences.

Students’ Perceived Learning Acquisition of the Enhanced Course for Digital Communication

The inevitable rapid transformation of technology has instantly defined the way of life people have today, particularly in the education sector, where academic experts are compelling to realign the curriculum and instructions with the existing technological trends. The study of the enhanced course for Digital Communication is presented in this undertaking to address the digital technology learning needs of Liberal Arts students in the new normal phenomena. Specifically, it examines the influence of students' perceived prior digital technology knowledge on their perceived cognitive learning and explores the differences in students' perceived learning acquisition. Data were generated from one hundred fifty-two (152) first-year Liberal Arts students of Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin. Cronbach's Alpha coefficient confirmed the high internal consistency of the personalized and partly adopted questionnaire. The finding reveals that students' perceived prior digital technology knowledge has significantly influenced their perceived cognitive learning acquisition. The diminished data variability strengthens the evidence that students' performance has dramatically improved in hybrid and blended learning. Correspondingly, the three groups of respondents highly favored affective learning acquisition over cognitive and psychomotor. It conveys that learners profoundly engage with others using digital technologies as they grasp the meaning of the subject matter. This paper, therefore, substantiates that the enhanced course for Digital Communication was designed ergonomically for effective learning.

A Study on the Relationship between Social Support and Subjective Well being of Vocational College Students

The objective of this research is to examine the correlation between social support and subjective well-being among vocational college students using empirical surveys. The intention is to provide a foundation for increasing their mental health and improving their subjective well-being. A total of 375 students from vocational colleges were chosen as participants, and their levels of social support and subjective well-being were assessed by the administration of a questionnaire. The findings indicated a substantial positive correlation between subjective well-being and objective support, subjective support, usage of support, and the overall social support score. (2) Female vocational college students exhibit a notably greater degree of assistance use compared to their male counterparts. There exists a notable disparity in survival rates between students pursuing liberal arts and those studying science in terms of subjective well-being, with science students exhibiting much greater levels of subjective well-being compared to liberal arts students. There are notable variations seen across different grades in terms of objective support, subjective support, usage of support, overall social support score, and subjective well-being. Following the LSD post-test analysis, it was determined that freshman students exhibited significantly lower levels of objective support, subjective support, total social support score, and subjective well-being score compared to students in other grades. On the other hand, sophomore students scored significantly higher than students in other grades in terms of utilization of support. (3) A multiple regression analysis revealed that objective support, subjective support, and usage of support positively predict subjective well-being. This research examines the correlation between social support and subjective well-being and offers empirical evidence and theoretical direction to enhance the subjective well-being of vocational college students via more focused coaching.

The influence of university library environment on student interactions and college students’ learning engagement

Over the past decade, learning engagement has received increasing attention from researchers. As a critical factor in college students’ academic achievement, learning engagement is significant in students’ long-term future development and social creativity. Present studies show that the overall level of college students’ learning engagement is low, which is highly unfavourable to educational quality and long-term development. There is no doubt about the position of the university library in academic circles. However, the influence of the university library environment on college students’ learning engagement has not been fully explored. The data in this study came from a survey of 45 Chinese universities. This paper investigates the relationship between the university library environment, students’ interaction, and students’ learning engagement. The results showed differences in Chinese college students’ learning engagement in liberal arts and sciences majors. The learning engagement of liberal arts majors is much lower than that of science students. We found that the library environment has an important influence on college students’ learning engagement. And the library environment can affect college students’ learning engagement through the intermediary role of interactive participation among students. In addition, for liberal arts students, the direct effect of the library environment on their learning engagement is more significant. However, for science students, the influence of the library environment on their learning engagement is more strongly intermediated by the students’ interaction. Therefore, future construction and renovation of library environments should cater not only to the diverse needs of different academic disciplines, especially liberal arts students who need special attention but also guide more students to interact friendly through the spatial characteristics of the library so as to improve the overall learning engagement of college students.

Research on the Educational Path of College Students’ Career Planning Based on SWOT Analysis

Abstract Facing the current severe employment situation, colleges and universities need to strengthen the cultivation and management of talents to meet the social demand. Under the guidance of SWOT theory, this paper combs out the system model of college students’ career planning. And from the four aspects of advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and challenges, it constructs the evaluation index system of college students’ career planning based on SWOT. Combined with the principle of triangular fuzzy number, the evaluation model of college students’ career planning based on fuzzy network analysis is constructed. Based on this, college students in 8 colleges and universities are selected as research objects. After collecting relevant data, the weights of each index are calculated, and the career planning of college students in 8 colleges and universities is comprehensively evaluated and analyzed from the perspectives of different genders and majors. The results show that the indicators of the strengths level have the most significant influence on college students’ career planning, with a weight of 0.357. Only college 3 has a comprehensive score of college students’ career planning greater than 90, male college students (72.76) have a slightly higher complete score of career planning than female college students (71.81), and students of science (76.92) have a somewhat higher comprehensive score of career planning than students of liberal arts (74.68). Combined with the analysis of this paper, college students’ career planning education can be improved by guiding them to establish precise career planning, improving specialized guidance services, and increasing recruitment activities.

Research on Liberal Arts Education and Students’ Learning Style

Research on Liberal Arts Education and Students’ Learning Style

A Preliminary Report on Students’ Reflections about Their Learning in an Active Learning Classroom

In the past decades, College Algebra has become a big hurdle for students to graduate or further pursue STEM or related careers. For most of the student population, College Algebra is a terminal course and only a small portion of students take it for further mathematics courses. The traditional content of College Algebra does not serve either group of students well (Mathematical Association of America, 2004; Mathematical Association of America &amp; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2012). In recent years, at a large Hispanic-serving university, the course design for liberal arts students has been changed. An active-learning curriculum has been implemented, namely Quantitative Reasoning. This curriculum engages students with opportunities to learn math concepts from relevant everyday sources and even their own personally collected data. Students build their own understanding of mathematics by relevant data-based situations experienced through preview activities designed to prepare students for class, collaboration in class discussion and discovery through relevant problem situations, and practice activities extending learning after each lesson. The purpose of this study was to investigate student perceptions of their learning outcomes from an active-learning structured course. That is, what impact does a course design with pre-assignment tasks, authentic problem solving through collaboration in class, and practice assignments after lessons have on diverse student populations in a quantitative reasoning course?

Research on the Teaching Reform of Visualization in the course of Ancient Literary History under the background of "Digital Humanities"

In recent years, the "digital humanities" technology has developed vigorously, and the corresponding research results have emerged one after another. In this context, the scientific research of classical literature is developing in a more effective, accurate and comprehensive direction, both in terms of research methods and conclusions. Starting from the perspective of "visualization", this paper deeply discusses the teaching design issues related to the teaching reform of Ancient literature, mainly from the integration of the reality and academic nature of teaching content, the diversification of teaching methods with students as the main body, the integration of innovation and operability of the assessment mechanism, and tries to solve the problems of "obscure content", "time-space separation" and other problems in the course of Ancient literature, Explore a new path of teaching reform.The data comparison results showed that the new method can significantly improved the learning enthusiasm and performance of liberal arts students, and had certain application and practical value.

Family background and the choice of Hispanic Philology among liberal arts students in China

This article focuses on how family backgrounds affect the choice to study Hispanic Philology in China. Specifically, our aim is to study the mediating effects of the motivation of choice, and the conditional indirect effect of parental values. The sample comprised 9,60 students at sixteen Liberal Arts Majors departments in twenty-one universities. To reach our goal, we combined four analytical methods, including: Principal Components analysis, Binary Logistic regression, Mediating Effects, and Moderation Effects. The results revealed that student choice was influenced by family backgrounds. Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation play a partially mediating role, while parental values affect the strength and direction of that relationship as the moderating variable.

WITHDRAWN: The effect of intrinsic value, self-management learning, and mobile-assisted language learning on Chinese students' learning adaptability: A distal mediation model

The study aims to explore the interrelationships between intrinsic value as a kind of motivational belief, self-management learning, mobile-assisted language learning, and students' adaptability to the learning environment at the higher education level in China. We administered a questionnaire to 415 undergraduates (211 males and 204 females). SPSS 26 and AMOS 24 were utilized to assess the data. Results showed that: (a) a significantly positive relationship exists between intrinsic value, self-management learning, mobile-assisted language learning, and learning adaptability; (b) intrinsic value had both direct and indirect effects on learning adaptability with self-management learning and mobile-assisted language learning partially mediate the positive relationship; (c) intrinsic value, self-management learning, mobile-assisted language learning, and learning adaptability had gender, grade, or discipline differences although all the effect sizes are small. Female university students have higher intrinsic value and perform better than male students in self-management learning, mobile-assisted language learning, and learning adaptability; freshmen perform better than sophomores in self-management learning, mobile-assisted language learning, and learning adaptability; students of liberal arts possess higher intrinsic value than science and engineering students. Implications for EFL teachers and researchers are discussed.

Digital Twin for Math Education: A Study on the Utilization of Games and Gamification for University Mathematics Education

Gamification has emerged as a promising strategy for engaging students and enhancing learning outcomes across various disciplines, including education. It involves incorporating game-like elements into non-game contexts to motivate and engage users. Extensive research has demonstrated the positive impact of gamification on student engagement, motivation, and learning outcomes in diverse subjects, including mathematics. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research on the effectiveness of gamification in mathematics education. To bridge this gap, we investigated the effects of gamification in college mathematics education, with a specific emphasis on students from liberal arts backgrounds who may lack foundational mathematical knowledge. In this work, we designed and implemented a gamified mathematics course tailored for liberal arts students in a Korean university. Leveraging digital twin technology for game and gamification, we created an immersive learning environment that allows students to visualize mathematical concepts through games, pair gamification factors on physical and virtual worlds, and engage in interactive problem-solving activities. The effectiveness of this gamified course in improving students’ engagement, motivation, and learning outcomes was thoroughly evaluated. Digital twin technology, in conjunction with gamification, holds immense potential to revolutionize the way mathematics is taught and learned, making it more accessible, interactive, and engaging for students from diverse educational backgrounds.

Redefining liberal arts education in the twenty-first century

Redefining liberal arts education in the twenty-first century

Employability development in undergraduate programmes: how different is liberal arts education?

ABSTRACT This paper examines how students’ employability develops during undergraduate studies at a Dutch liberal arts college compared to a conventional bachelor’s programme in law at the same university. Drawing on the graduate capital model, the study focuses on six skills that enhance employability: creativity, lifelong learning, career decidedness, self-efficacy, resilience, and personal initiative. To measure employability growth, a cross-sectional pseudo-cohort research design is adopted, comparing first-, second-, and third-year student cohorts. The results show that liberal arts students make significant progress in five out of the six examined employability-related skills. Compared to the conventional programme, the gains in creativity and personal initiative particularly stand out, reflecting the differences between interdisciplinary and monodisciplinary learning, and self-tailored and fixed curriculum structures. This refutes the stereotype that a liberal arts degree does not prepare students for the labour market and points to the relevance of programme-specific features for employability development in higher education.

Proposal for effective Operation of Liberal Science Education in University－Focusing on case studies of 〈University Basic Physics〉 and 〈Introduction to Natural Science〉

With the development of modern science in the era of the 4th industrial revolution, the necessity of science education is in more demanded than even for cultivating convergent human resources to meet the needs of the times and for understanding science at the liberal arts level. Liberal science education is essential for all college students in order for them to achieve any level of prosperity in a society that so steeped in science and technology, as is our current, modern society. However, It is an important issue for us to consider whether or not the liberal arts enhances science and scientific literacy. In this study, the necessity of liberal science education in the era of the 4th industrial revolution was examined, and the case studies of basic science and integrated science education were studied for a more effective educational experience of university liberal arts students. The course content and class operation method of &lt;the basic physics&gt;and &lt;introduction to natural science&gt; were reviewed. Also, the distribution of the grades of students majoring in science and engineering, as wlee as those of non-science majors, were analyzed, along with the contents of questionnaires and course evaluation results. Through the operation results of the two subjects, the operation methods of classes are checked to examine the problems and to come up with some improvements for liberal sciences education. For more effective liberal sciences education in university, it is suggested that liberal sciences classes should be operated by dividing students into science and engineering departments and non-science departments according to their majors.

US healthcare facility management workforce trends: a comparison with demographics, compensation and tenure of facility management professionals in nonhealthcare industries

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to better understand the state of the healthcare facility management (FM) workforce and trends and how it compares to the nonhealthcare industries.Design/methodology/approachA survey was developed, based on relevant literature, regarding respondents’ gender, race, age, educational attainment and job tenure. The survey was sent electronically via Qualtrics® system in February 2021 to members of the International Facility Management Association membership; 3,557 individuals completed the survey by April 2021, for a 29% response rate. Only data from 1,407 US respondents working in facility operations were included in this study. Of the 1,407 respondents included in this study, 89 worked in the healthcare industry. The majority of respondents not working in healthcare industry (1,318) were employed in government, education or banking and investment.FindingsThe demographics of facility managers in the healthcare industry are similar to the demographics of facility managers in other industries: the majority of the FM workforce is male, middle-aged, white, college educated and employed in-house. While healthcare and nonhealthcare facility managers have similar responsibilities across job levels, compensation for entry-level FM roles in the healthcare industry is significantly lower than for entry-level FM roles in other industries. This low pay in healthcare FM, compared to other industries, may exacerbate ongoing challenges related to talent recruitment and retention and justify pay banding increases to improve attraction of top talent into healthcare FM. Both healthcare and nonhealthcare industries hire new college graduates for entry-level FM jobs, but the healthcare industry is more likely to hire individuals who majored in liberal arts compared to other industries more likely to hire individuals who majored in subjects related to the built environment such as FM and engineering. To compensate for low entry-level pay, healthcare organizations may be focusing recruitment efforts on liberal arts students who have little to no training in the built environment because they have lower pay expectations. Older healthcare facility professionals also have shorter job tenures with their current employers than do older facility professionals in other industries; this trend appears to be recent and not be related to pay or the COVID-19 pandemic. A surge of senior-level FM retirements may be creating advancement opportunities for older entry- and mid-level FM personnel in healthcare; if this situation is a factor, research should be conducted to understand its implications for recruiting and developing healthcare FM talent.Research limitations/implicationsOnly data from US respondents who were working in healthcare facility operations at the time of the study were included in the data analysis.Originality/valueHealthcare organizations can use the study’s findings to help address FM workforce challenges unique to their industry staff recruitment, retention and succession planning.

Do college entrance examination admission characteristics influence students' college satisfaction? Evidence from China.

Students' college satisfaction is an important part of measuring the quality of college teaching. The admission of college entrance exam is the first step for college students to enter colleges and corresponding majors. Whether they affect students' college satisfaction after enrollment is related to the formulation and adjustment of college admission strategies and training methods. This paper is based on data from students in colleges in Beijing enrolled in the fall of 2006 and 2008 and adopts propensity score matching to analyze the influence of the admitted characteristics of college entrance exams, such as whether they were accepted by their first choice. We also further explored the heterogeneity. The empirical results show that whether the student was admitted to the first-choice college has a significant positive impact on overall satisfaction and academic and nonacademic satisfaction, while whether the student was admitted to the first-choice major has no significant impact on nonacademic satisfaction. In addition, making an independent major choice has a positive effect on the improvement of overall satisfaction and academic satisfaction, and the impact on overall satisfaction is even greater than that of being admitted to the first-choice major. The impact of the admission characteristics of college entrance examinations on the satisfaction of students in liberal arts and science and students of different types of colleges and universities presents different characteristics.

Improving Success and Retention of Liberal Arts Students in a Large Math Class

The Mathematics for Liberal Arts course is designed for students outside of STEM fields who need to take a mathematics course for the general education requirement. Typically, students in this class are not math enthusiasts. In this study, I analyzed performance data of Liberal Arts students in the Fall 2017 and Spring 2018 at University of Central Florida. Based on data reports and analytics, the course content was revised, and activity learning strategies were implemented in the Fall 2018. Furthermore, early alerts and encouragements were sent during or just after topics identified as difficult were taught. Class activities were tailored to improve students’ understanding. Homework, quizzes, and test scores were analyzed and compared with the two previous semesters. The results showed that the pedagogical methods implemented contributed to increase the overall passing rate and retention of students.

Application of Challenging Learning Based on Human-Computer Interaction under Machine Vision in Vocational Undergraduate Colleges.

Science and technology have progressed in recent years, the deepening of talent education, a challenging learning method of human-computer interaction has gradually emerged. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI for short) is the communication and interaction between humans and machines. This essay aims to apply the challenging learning combined with HCI to vocational undergraduate colleges. The GMM (that is Gaussian mixture model algorithm, commonly used in image recognition or speech recognition, etc.) algorithm is proposed in this essay to recognize students' actions. The effect of HCI is achieved by feeding back the recognized actions to the system. This essay selects 200 students from a vocational undergraduate college for challenging learning (that is, a comprehensive teaching method aiming at students' autonomous learning by stimulating students' interest in learning). The challenging learning designed in this essay is divided into 15 weeks, the task chain contains a total of 196 tasks, and the learning time is 138 h. This essay analyzes the application effects of liberal arts, male and female students, and different grades. The results show that the overall average completion rates of learning tasks for freshman, sophomore, and junior students are about 70%, 75%, and 85%, respectively, and the overall average scores for challenging learning are about 70, 78, and 83. The overall completion rate of weekly tasks for boys and girls is about 68% and 70%, and the overall average score is about 70 points and 75 points. The weekly task completion rate of liberal arts students is generally above 75%, and the overall average score is about 70 points. The overall completion rate of science students is less than 75%, and most of the learning scores are higher than 75 points. In addition, the average accuracy of the GMM algorithm for face and gesture recognition is 90% and 87%. The average frequency of students using HCI is about 320 times a day; the average score of students' experience effect of HCI is about 80 points. It may be stated that the HCI demanding learning strategy proposed in this study worked well and has achieved satisfactory learning results in the application of vocational undergraduate colleges.

Extracurricular Reading of Business English Majors in South China University of Technology: A Survey-Based Comparative Analysis

The extracurricular reading situation of Chinese college students has always been unsatisfactory. However, extracurricular reading is one of the important ways to improve the quality of talent cultivation, especially conducive to the implementation of "whole-person" education in Chinese colleges and universities. Therefore, extracurricular reading situation of college students deserves attention. However, no relevant research has been carried out in the past two years, and up to now, there is not yet any research on the extracurricular reading status of business English majors. Through offline questionnaire survey and interview, one third (i.e.72) of students majoring in business English in South China University of Technology were surveyed, and 20 students were interviewed. At the same time, 836 undergraduates of all majors in South China University of Technology were surveyed and 120 were interviewed. By comparing the status of extracurricular reading of business English majors and all majors in South China University of Technology, it is found that business English majors and all majors in the university face the same problem and thus with similar characteristics in extracurricular reading, that is, they both bear heavy academic burdens, most of their extracurricular time is taken up by their professional study, and much of their remaining spare time is also used to surf internet for news or for entertainment. As a result, although they have extracurricular reading enthusiasm and ability, they have less extracurricular reading time, small amount of reading, and fragmented reading. Most students are dissatisfied with their extracurricular reading, but are unable to change. This reveals that for students in South China University of Technology, whether they are liberal arts students such as business English majors or students of other majors, same measures should be taken to improve extracurricular reading of all undergraduate students of the university. This research is the first study conducted by Chinese scholar on the extracurricular reading of business English majors, and it is also the first time to compare the extracurricular reading of business English majors and all majors in the university. The findings may have implications for other science and technology research universities in China in improving extracurricular reading of business English majors and all other majors.

STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF PSYCHODRAMA THERAPY ON THE EMOTIONAL REGULATION OF COLLEGE TEACHERS DURING THE EPIDEMIC OF COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS DISEASE

BackgroundCoronavirus disease has appeared at home and abroad since December 2019. In order to effectively control the epidemic and save lives, the government has taken a series of isolation and family work measures. The sudden outbreak of the epidemic has disturbed normal life and had a great impact on the teaching of colleges and universities in China. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mental health status and emotional regulation ability of college teachers during the coronavirus epidemic in 2019.Research Objects and MethodsCluster sampling method was used to select 400 school groups from a university in Hunan Province. 363 valid data were collected, with an effective rate of 90.75%. There are 187 boys and 176 girls; 104 liberal arts students, 95 science students and 164 engineering students; 205 only children and 158 non only children; The age range was 17-22 years old, with an average age of 19.26 ± 0.93 years.ResultsParticipating in Psychodrama can effectively reduce the psychological pressure of college teachers and prevent depression. The data showed that the comprehensive score of DASS-21 of teachers who did not participate in Psychodrama was 1.7 times that of teachers who participated in psychodrama. In contrast, college teachers who do not participate in Psychodrama are more likely to show depression, anxiety and stress, and tend to be passive in simple coping styles. Participating in psychological drama can effectively alleviate the psychological pressure of college teachers and improve their ability to actively deal with the pressure during the epidemic. Because the path coefficient of emotional regulation self-efficacy to express positive emotional self-efficacy is small (γ= 0.15), therefore, the mediating role of the three components of emotion regulation self-efficacy is specifically analyzed. Correlation analysis found that only the self-efficacy of managing depression / pain and anger / anger were significantly correlated with social anxiety, aggression and depression (Ps < 0.01). According to the mediation effect test procedure [22], calculate the mediation effect and explain the total effect as β a ×β b/ β c. It can be seen from table 2 that social anxiety is the independent variable and aggression and depression are the dependent variables respectively. When the self-efficacy of managing depression / pain is the intermediary variable, the total effect of intermediary effect interpretation is 40.61% and 34.06% respectively; When the self-efficacy of managing anger / anger was the mediating variable, the total mediating effect was 55.77% and 31.81% respectively.ConclusionMost teachers have excessive psychological pressure and anxiety, and a few teachers have serious problems. Dass scored 21. At the same time, the comparative experimental study shows that participating in Psychodrama can alleviate the working pressure of teachers to a certain extent, effectively reduce the psychological pressure of college teachers during the epidemic and prevent depression. The data showed that during the epidemic period, the DASS-21 mental health score of teachers who did not participate in Psychodrama was 1.7 times that of teachers who participated in psychodrama. College teachers who did not participate in Psychodrama were more likely to show depression, anxiety and stress, and tended to be passive in simple coping styles.AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the Medical Research Key Project of Chongqing Health and Family Planning Commission, 2016ZDXM003 and the Exploring self injury suicidal behavior and prevention strategies of depressed adolescents based on family factors, key project of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission, 19SKGH018; The effect of socialdrama group psychological counseling on the improvement of psychological elasticity and the prevention of job burnout of front-line medical workers in the fight against epidemic diseases, school level project of Chongqing Medical University, CQMUNCP0307.