Taiwanese Undergraduates Research Articles

A Moderated Mediation Model of Negative Life Events, Dysfunctional Attitudes, the Cognitive Triad and Depressive Symptoms

This study examined the theoretical model derived from Beck’s cognitive theory of depression in two samples of Taiwanese undergraduates. This model hypothesized dysfunctional attitudes as a diathesis-stress component and the cognitive triad as a causal mediation component in the development of depressive symptoms. Moderated mediation analysis was employed to test the theoretical model with two independent samples from Taiwan. One was 248 undergraduates from lower prestige higher education institutes (HEIs); the other was 247 undergraduates from high prestige HEIs. Participants completed the List of Threatening Experiences, the 24-item Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, the Cognitive Triad Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory. All of the measures are Chinese versions. Statistical analyses indicated that the effect of interaction between negative life events and dysfunctional attitudes on depressive symptoms was not significant in the two samples. However, in the undergraduates of lower prestige HEIs, the interaction of negative life events and dysfunctional attitudes was related to depressive symptoms through the cognitive triad. The result supported that the cognitive triad is the proximal causal mediation component of depressive symptoms, while dysfunctional attitudes are the distal diathesis-stress component in the undergraduates of lower prestige HEIs. The practical implication for cognitive therapy in this population is discussed.

Cross-Cultural Contact: A Preliminary Study on the Cross-Cultural Communication between Taiwanese Undergraduates and International Students—A Case Study on the International College of Ming Chuan University

<p><em>Based on cross-cultural theory, </em><em>this study applies in-depth interviewing and focus group testing to examine the difficulties and challenges faced by Taiwanese undergraduates while communicating with international students in an English immersion instruction environment at the International College and analyze how the former should adapt themselves to the cross-cultural learning environment. This study indicates that language competence is the main factor affecting local students’ adaptation to the cross-cultural environment at the International College.</em><em> Low language proficiency, pertaining to either schoolwork or interpersonal communication, is the main cause of anxiety and nervousness among local students during the earlier stage of adaptation. According to the adaptation curve, the honeymoon stage experienced by local students following enrollment is extremely short and is usually accompanied by anxiety and uneasiness. Their adaptation stage comprises two aspects, schoolwork and life.</em><em> Regarding the schoolwork aspect, local students face a relatively long crisis stage because only after making certain improvement in English proficiency can they gradually adapt themselves to the cross-cultural learning environment. However, in terms of the life aspect, it takes a comparatively shorter time for local students to adapt themselves to cross-cultural conflicts, and they can rapidly enter the </em><em>recovery and biculturalism adaptation stages.</em><em></em></p>

Undergraduate students’ earth science learning: relationships among conceptions, approaches, and learning self-efficacy in Taiwan

ABSTRACTIn the area of science education research, studies have attempted to investigate conceptions of learning, approaches to learning, and self-efficacy, mainly focusing on science in general or on specific subjects such as biology, physics, and chemistry. However, few empirical studies have probed students’ earth science learning. This study aimed to explore the relationships among undergraduates’ conceptions of, approaches to, and self-efficacy for learning earth science by adopting the structural equation modeling technique. A total of 268 Taiwanese undergraduates (144 females) participated in this study. Three instruments were modified to assess the students’ conceptions of, approaches to, and self-efficacy for learning earth science. The results indicated that students’ conceptions of learning made a significant contribution to their approaches to learning, which were consequently correlated with their learning self-efficacy. More specifically, students with stronger agreement that learning earth science involves applying the knowledge and skills learned to unknown problems were prone to possess higher confidence in learning earth science. Moreover, students viewing earth science learning as understanding earth science knowledge were more likely to adopt meaningful strategies to learn earth science, and hence expressed a higher sense of self-efficacy. Based on the results, practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Focus on Australian English: a critical learning portfolio pedagogy

ABSTRACTDrawing on critical pedagogy, this study challenges the hegemony of Standard English (SE) to promote inclusive approaches which recognise and tolerate the variation of World Englishes to prepare students for intercultural encounters with interlocutors speaking different varieties of English. To enhance students’ ethno-sensitivity and receptive competence in the use of English as a lingua franca in response to the curriculum blueprint proposed by Matsuda and Friedrich [(2011). English as an international language: A curriculum blueprint. World Englishes, 30(3), 332–344], in this study I conducted a critical learning portfolio pedagogy in my ‘Introduction to English Linguistics' class at a national university located in central Taiwan with the focus on Australian English (AuE), in contrast with General American English (GAE) as a reference of point, which is the main variety of English taught as SE in Taiwan. In this class, 70 Taiwanese undergraduates first wrote down their impressions of Australia and AuE and then searched for relevant information to support, dispute, or modify their initial impressions. Next, they were given a total of eight hours of learning activities to explore AuE from the perspective of World Englishes. The findings show that their stereotypes, misconceptions, and generalisations were replaced with an increased sensitivity to English variation, cultural diversity, and linguistic differences between AuE and GAE.

Analysis of Taiwanese undergraduates' learning and development of TPCK in English instruction

This study analyses 30 Taiwanese undergraduates' construction and development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) in English instruction in a language teacher education program in a northwestern university in Taiwan. Data included class projects, surveys, and interviews. This study has these findings. First, the participants became aware of different types of multimedia tools through the instructor's demonstration and modelling and their own hands-on experiences and manipulation. Their TPCK was developed and constructed through the evaluation of multimedia tools, lesson plans and activity designs, group and class discussions, and personal reflections. Suggestions regarding course design on developing undergraduates' TPCK are provided.

Is the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale Applicable to Ethnic Chinese Students? Psychometric Properties and Cultural Considerations

The Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale has been applied widely. However, there is no complete report on the reliability and validity of its Chinese version (ATSPPHS-C). A total of 353 Taiwanese undergraduates completed the ATSPPHS-C, Help-Seeking Willingness Scale, Symptom Check List–90R, and Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. The ATSPPHS-C had satisfactory psychometric properties, and the different functions of each subscale could be applied differently to assess the help-seeking characteristics of these ethnic Chinese (i.e., Taiwanese) individuals. To lessen stigmas hindering Taiwanese people from comfortably expressing their problems, mental health professionals can explore subjective concerns from the perspective of somatic symptoms and then move on to the underlying psychological distress.

Toward a Model of Strategies and Summary Writing Performance

This study explores the construct of a summarization test task by means of single-group and multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM). It examines the interrelationships between strategy use and performance, drawing on data from 298 Taiwanese undergraduates’ summary essays and their self-reported strategy use. Single-group SEM analyses indicated that the task required multiple constructive strategies of comprehension and composition, including planning, evaluating, discourse synthesis, and source use strategies. The planning and evaluating strategies provided administrative control over other strategies used at varying degrees to improve summarization performance. Multigroup SEM analyses showed that the effects of the planning and evaluating strategies on the discourse synthesis and source use strategies appeared to be invariant across the high (n = 127) and low (n = 122) groups. However, the effects of the discourse synthesis and source use strategies on summarization performance varied across groups. The findings offer insight into the nature of summarization tasks and provide useful validity information for the test task. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to second language writing assessment and pedagogy.

The effect of social comparison with peers on self-evaluation.

Social comparison refers to self-evaluation against other people. When people are outperformed by peers in a domain relevant (irrelevant) to them, it negatively (positively) affects how they evaluate themselves, compared to an irrelevant (relevant) domain. Whether a domain is self-relevant or self-irrelevant, the comparison direction and closeness should interact on how people evaluate themselves. Taiwanese undergraduates (N = 276) ages 19 to 22 years (M = 20.5, SD = 1.8), participated to assess whether the results from Western samples would be similar to those in an Asian sample, which were expected to be more collectivist.

Identifying Taiwanese University Students’ Physics Learning Profiles and Their Role in Physics Learning Self-Efficacy

The main purposes of this study were to identify Taiwanese university students’ physics learning profiles in terms of their critical conceptions of learning physics and to compare their physics learning self-efficacy with the different learning profiles. A total of 250 Taiwanese undergraduates who were majoring in physics participated in this study and were invited to complete two instruments, physics learning profile and physics learning self-efficacy (PLSE). The main results indicated that, first, the two instruments developed in this study had satisfactory validity and reliability. Second, three fundamental physics learning profiles, the reproductive, transitional, and constructive profiles, were characterized based on the cluster analysis. It is also evident that the three learning profiles demonstrated different levels of self-efficacy for the five PLSE dimensions. The students with a reproductive profile tended to possess the lowest PLSE across the five dimensions. The students with a transitional profile may possess higher confidence in higher-order cognitive skills and laboratory activities than those with a reproductive profile. However, only those with a constructive profile, highlighting a comprehensive understanding of physics knowledge/concepts as well as de-emphasizing physics learning as preparing for tests and calculating and practising tutorial problems, possessed stronger PLSE in applying what they learned to real-world contexts as well as in scientifically communicating with others.

Diversity beliefs and postformal thinking in late adolescence: a cognitive basis of multicultural literacy

The present study investigated the developmental relationship between cognitive thinking and diversity beliefs among late adolescents from a postPiagetian perspective. The participants were 762 Taiwanese undergraduates aging from 19 to 25 years. The Social Paradigm Belief Scale was used to assess three modes of cognitive development of late adolescents: formal, relativistic, and dialectical thinking. Regarding diversity beliefs, participants were administrated the adapted scale of multiculturalism and the adapted scale of color blindness. Results indicated that postformal thinkers scored higher than formal thinkers in multiculturalism and color blindness. Multiple discriminant analysis showed that the linear combination of multiculturalism and color blindness could discriminate between formal and postformal thinkers, which supported the prediction about the parallel relationship between development of postformal thinking and maturity of multiculturalism. This article provides an alternative approach of multicultural pedagogy in which fostering postformal thinking may promote the appreciation of diversity and thereby cultivate the growth of multicultural literacy.

DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF A CHINESE VERSION OF THE SHORT ATTITUDES TOWARD MATHEMATICS INVENTORY

Student attitudes toward mathematics play an important role in the teaching and learning processes of mathematics as positive attitudes correlate with higher student achievement. This paper aims to develop and explore the validity of a Chinese version of the short attitudes toward mathematics inventory (short ATMI) for Taiwanese undergraduates, and further to examine the measurement invariance across gender. The results suggest that, based on the Taiwanese sample, the model with some items excluded has better fit indices than the original model. The generalization of the four-factor construct was also confirmed. The Cronbach’s alpha for total and subscales of the modified short ATMI were satisfactory, and moreover, convergent and discriminant validity were shown. Finally, measurement invariance of the inventory across gender was also demonstrated. This study suggests that the Chinese version of the short ATMI is a reliable, valid, and compact instrument that quickly and efficiently measures student attitudes toward mathematics.

Discourse resources in discussions of student writing: Another look at the speaking–writing connection

The social interactions surrounding the act of composing have often been theorized as microcosms of teaching, as sites where the effects of talk are intensified, and where dialogic discourse, or internal speech made explicit, promotes learning. Although the importance of the voice and agency are recognized, and their influence often implicitly acknowledged, research on the speaking–writing connection has yet to incorporate a translingual approach that gives attention to agency and voice. This study attempts to address voice and agency in a two‐part discussion between a bilingual teacher and her Taiwanese undergraduate during a writing lab in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class. Discursive strategies for asserting agency and giving it voice are employed to create a shared dialogic context for reviewing, evaluating, and revising a written draft. A translingual approach to understanding the problem of dialogic context for supporting literacy practices creates both obstacles and supports for realizing the potential of dialogic interaction.

Taiwanese Undergraduates’ Digital Story Quests for Art Treasures in Second Life

To promote cultural understanding, the authors attempted to discover how Taiwanese students develop digital stories, personal narratives told through words and images in response to quests to find artwork within the virtual world of Second Life [SL]. The undergraduate one-semester course occurred in Chiayi, Taiwan, in “real life,” or life as we usually experience it, face-to-face. Through participant observation, the authors planned, taught, documented, analyzed, and interpreted results of the digital storytelling project. Participant observation in the virtual context included gathering data to identify themes that students used frequently within the stories, interpreting the stories, and determining implications. In the beginning, the undergraduate stories were mostly travelogues and some animal transformations. Frequent themes in Taiwanese undergraduates’ digital stories were identified, including such descriptors as “lonely,” “funny,” and “dream.” These psychological transformative themes revealed students’ real-life concerns of finding a purpose in life, alleviating loneliness, overcoming fear of the unknown, raising awareness of social enterprises, and struggling to survive in a competitive environment. Implications call for collaboration and social action in negotiating multiple perspectives, respecting and embracing diverse or contrary opinions, creating double entendre examples, and delving deeper into the historical roots of cultural practices.

Interpersonal Mechanisms in the Relationships between Dependency/Self-Criticism and Depressive Symptoms in Taiwanese Undergraduates: A Prospective Study

972 © 2012 Guilford Publications, Inc. This study was partly supported by the national Science Council in Taiwan (nSC 98-2410-H-030-015). We would also like to thank Dr. yihwei Li for comments and assistance on an earlier version of this manuscript. Address correspondence to Emily Tung-Hsueh Liu, Department of Clinical Psychology, no. 510, Chung Cheng Rd., Hsin Chuang, Taipei County, 24205, Taiwan; E-mail: emilythliu@gmail.com Interpersonal Mechanisms LIU ET AL.

Analysis of motivation, travel risk, and travel satisfaction of Taiwan undergraduates on work and travel overseas programmes: Developing measurement scales

Travel is an increasingly important aspiration for young people around the world. In order to explore other places and their culture, and to relax, have fun, and save money to travel, combining overseas work and travel is now a popular young students' activity. Such student travel has a history of 30years and in 2011 7 countries have permitted a work and travel visa to be issued to Taiwanese students. Every year almost over 3000 Taiwanese young people travel overseas, especially to the United States of America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, to both work and travel in those countries. There they can improve their language skills, expand their international viewpoints and experience different cultures. This study looks at the relationships between work and travel overseas motivations, perceived travel risk and satisfaction for young people, and uses a sample of 151 Taiwanese undergraduates working and traveling in the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand during 2008 to 2010. Three hypothesized relationships are examined with reference to perceived risk, motivation and satisfaction and measurement scales are proposed.

Knowledge and Beliefs About Cervical Cancer and Human Papillomavirus Among Taiwanese Undergraduate Women

To assess knowledge and attitudes regarding cervical cancer and human papillomavirus (HPV) among undergraduate women in Taiwan. A descriptive cross-sectional design. Five universities in southern Taiwan. 953 undergraduate women aged 17-36 years. The self-administered HPV Belief questionnaire was used to collect data on knowledge and beliefs regarding cervical cancer, Pap testing, and HPV. Knowledge, beliefs, cervical cancer, Pap testing, HPV, likelihood of cervical cancer, and HPV infection. Seventy percent of participants agreed that cervical cancer could be prevented and was a severe disease, and 80% knew the purpose of Pap testing. Forty-nine percent were aware of HPV. Undergraduate women with an awareness of HPV were more likely to be older, studying a health-related major, have a higher class standing, have a personal history of gynecologic visits, and have had a Pap test. Neither family history of gynecologic cancer nor sexual experience predicted HPV awareness, although sexual experience had a significant association with the knowledge and beliefs of cervical cancer. Most of the undergraduate women believed themselves unlikely to acquire cervical cancer or HPV infection. Undergraduate women in Taiwan have limited knowledge of cervical cancer and HPV. Awareness of the likelihood of HPV infection is low among undergraduate women, even those who are sexually active. Educational campaigns focusing on cervical cancer screening and HPV infection are needed, particularly for sexually active undergraduate women.

Aging Anxiety and Personality Traits Among Taiwanese Undergraduates

In this study the relationship between anxiety about aging and personality traits in a Taiwanese population was examined. One hundred and seventy-six college students completed the Anxiety About Aging Scale (Lasher & Faulkender, 1993) and the Big Five Inventory, Taiwan version (Chen, 2004). Results showed that personality traits (neuroticism, urgency, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) significantly correlated with overall aging anxiety. The 4 dimensions of anxiety about aging were related differentially to various personality traits.

Intention to Obtain Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Among Taiwanese Undergraduate Women

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine provides an effective strategy against HPV infection, genital warts, and cervical cancer. While the HPV vaccine is available worldwide, acceptance outside of Western countries is unknown. The purpose of the study was to examine health beliefs and intention to obtain the HPV vaccination among undergraduate women in Taiwan. A predictive model of HPV vaccination intention was investigated. A convenience sample of 845 female undergraduate students (mean age = 20 years, aged: 17-36 years) recruited from 5 universities located in South Taiwan, provided data. A self-administered questionnaire requested demographic information, gynecologic history, awareness of HPV and the vaccine, health beliefs, and intention to obtain the HPV vaccine. Over 50% of the undergraduate women were aware of HPV and the HPV vaccine. Sixty-three percent of the students reported a high intention to obtain the HPV vaccine. Demographic factors predicting HPV vaccination included: age, family history of gynecologic cancer, personal history of gynecological visit, sexual experience, and awareness of HPV and the HPV vaccine. Health belief factors predicting HPV vaccination included: personal susceptibility of disease, perception of disease severity, attributes of HPV, cost and availability of vaccine, attributes of HPV, and recommendations from others. Improving undergraduate women's HPV vaccination rate will require educational campaigns, specifically focused on the efficacy, safety, and benefits of the HPV vaccine and the attributes of HPV infection. Targeting incoming students who are not yet sexually active could achieve successful outcomes.

Job Demand, Emotional Awareness, and Job Satisfaction in Internships: The Moderating Effect of Social Support

This study was aimed at determining how job demand and emotional awareness affect the job satisfaction of students. Internships are vital for hospitality students because they allow them to experience real job situations while they are in school, thus providing them with realistic expectations about their careers. Participants were 632 Taiwanese undergraduates of hospitality internships who were recruited using a mailed questionnaire survey. The model and hypotheses were tested using a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. Results indicated that emotional job demand and emotional awareness were positively associated with emotional display rules, and emotional display rules were positively associated with job satisfaction, with social support playing a moderating role.

Psychometric Analysis of the Orientations to Happiness Questionnaire in Taiwanese Undergraduate Students

The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Orientations to Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ; Peterson et al. in J Happiness Stud 6(1):25–41, 2005) in Taiwanese students. The participants were 578 undergraduate students (Mage = 18.64, SD = 1.02) and completed the OHQ, satisfaction with life scale (Diener et al. in J Personality Assess 49:71–75, 1985), and subjective happiness. Confirmation factor analysis indicated that a three-factor model with 17 items was the better fit model. Cross-validation also supported the modified Chinese version of the OHQ. Besides, the OHQ significantly predicted life satisfaction and subjective happiness with an exception of life of pleasure. Overall, it was concluded that the Chinese version of the OHQ would be useful for assessing individual’s orientations to happiness.