Thai Participants Research Articles

Influence of List of Values on Customer Needs, Satisfaction, and Return Intention in Ethnic Restaurants

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate the relationship between list of values, customer needs, satisfaction, and return intention in ethnic restaurants. Using a questionnaire, data were collected from customers who had the experience of dining in Japanese restaurants in Thailand and Thai restaurants in Japan. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were utilized. The results revealed that Thai participants rated every value equally, while Japanese participants assigned higher scores to enjoyment-related values. The correlation showed that these values were linked to particular needs. Additionally, social and symbolic needs were found to be the determinants of satisfaction and return intention for Thai participants, whereas social and experiential needs were the influential factors for Japanese participants. The test of the mediating effect indicated that satisfaction served as a mediator in the needs–return intention relationship.

Consumer Attitudes and Preferences toward Cross-Cultural Ready-To-Eat (RTE) Food

ABSTRACTThis paper aims to investigate the consumer attitudes and preferences toward cross-cultural ready-to-eat (RTE) food between Thailand and Japan. Interview, descriptive statistics, t-test, and conjoint analysis were applied in this research. The results revealed that Thai and Japanese participants had negative attitudes toward taste and freshness of cross-cultural RTE food. Moreover, these two factors were the primarily concerned factors when they made a decision to purchase RTE food. The image of Thai/Japanese RTE food could be represented by the characteristic and the famous name of food. Besides, the results from conjoint analysis showed that Thai consumers preferred the adapted taste between Japanese and Thai flavors. The design of food packaging should be the clear container lid with the label so that consumers can see the food inside. On the contrary, Japanese consumers preferred an authentic Thai taste and the design should be the colorful picture on the food container lid.

Investigating Communication Styles in Text-based CMC Using a Classification of Intention - A Comparison of Same-Culture and Different-Cultures Context

We investigated how cultural differences influence communication style in text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) and compared the context of communications within the same culture (Thai-Thai pairs) and different cultures (Thai-Japanese pairs and Thai-Chinese pairs) by examining significant differences in the number of text chats in each classification pertaining to intentions. The significant finding of this study is the large number of text chats in the Interrogation category in the context of different cultures. Results showed a significant difference in the number of text chats between Thai and Japanese participants in the Description and Interrogation categories. Further, we found a significant difference in the Interrogation classification between Thai and Chinese participants. The understanding of cultural differences in this work can be used to improve intercultural competencies.

Assessment of Thai teachers’ performance in facilitating inquiry based instruction in Science on Filipino students: Inputs to Project Teacher Exchange for ASEAN Children (TEACH) program

The Project Teacher Exchange for ASEAN Children (TEACH) Program is an international training program that helps teachers from ASEAN countries in their English language proficiency and pedagogic skills. It allows its participants to explore the Filipino traditions through different culture immersion activities as described by Agustin, Montebon, and Rabina (2015). The present research reports the performance of the Thai teacher participants in facilitating inquiry based approach as their culminating activity for their pedagogic training in Project TEACH. The RTOP inquiry based evaluation tool developed by Isola and Wenning (2007) was accomplished by the Thai teacher participants, the students who participated in the demonstration program, and the critic teacher to determine the performance of Thai teacher participants in facilitating inquiry in the classroom. Open ended questions were also incorporated in the questionnaire and a focused group discussion was conducted to further investigate on the performance of the Thai teacher participants in their demonstration. It has been found out that the Thai teacher participants were successful in facilitating inquiry based approach through the 5E model of instruction. However, the Thai teacher participants struggled on asking questions of higher-order thinking. The said struggle has been related to their command of the English language. It is suggested that Project TEACH should provide more trainings to its Thai participants in the art of questioning. For future research, it is suggested that Thai teacher participants be visited and observed in their own classrooms in Thailand to determine if they have applied what they have learned in the Project TEACH program.

English

With the aim of attempting to attain particular communicative goals, Communication Mobility (CM) can be viewed as one of the key elements in the complex construct of professional communicative competence in terms of oral English proficiency. CM has been proposed as an ability to employ a set of specific communicative strategies to facilitate professional communication, particularly among non-native English speakers. This preliminary study aims to identify perceived CM levels among Thai and Russian professionals working in international companies; to investigate possible correlation between personal factors (i.e. age, work experience, their perceived level of oral English proficiency, frequency of their attendance at meetings conducted in English, and frequency of English usage in their workplace) and CM; to compare these factors and the conditions in which CM may be developed among these two groups; and to predict the possibility of the development of CM. A quantitative method was employed and responses to the specifically designed questionnaire were obtained from 60 participants. The findings revealed that Russian participants were rated as very good users of CM, while Thai participants were only rated as fair CM users. In general terms, for both groups, only the frequency of English language use in the workplace was found to correlate with the perceived CM. The frequency of English language use in their workplaces was the only factor for the Thai participants to predict the development of CM. Such findings help in designing ESP courses which attempt to simulate workplace communicative situations, often seen as problematic and uncertain. Keywords: communication strategies; communication mobility; workplace communication; Business English as a Lingua Franca; personal factors DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2202-12

Initiation of Antiretroviral Therapy During Acute HIV-1 Infection Leads to a High Rate of Nonreactive HIV Serology.

Third- and fourth-generation immunoassays (IAs) are widely used in the diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) during acute HIV infection (AHI) may impact HIV-specific antibodies, with failure to develop antibody or seroreversion. We report on the ability of diagnostic tests to detect HIV-specific antibodies in Thai participants initiating ART during AHI. Participants with detectable plasma HIV RNA but nonreactive HIV-specific immunoglobulin G, enrolled in an AHI study, were offered immediate initiation of ART. Participants were tested at initiation and at 12 and 24 weeks following treatment using standard second-, third-, and fourth-generation IAs and Western blot (WB). Participants (N = 234) initiating ART at a median of 19 days (range, 1-62 days) from HIV exposure demonstrated different frequencies of reactivity prior to and following 24 weeks of ART depending on the IA. Third-generation IA nonreactivity prior to ART was 48%, which decreased to 4% following ART (P < .001). Fourth-generation IA nonreactivity was 18% prior to ART and 17% following ART (P = .720). Negative WB results were observed in 89% and 12% of participants prior to and following 24 weeks of ART, respectively (P < .001). Seroreversion to nonreactivity during ART was observed to at least one of the tests in 20% of participants, with fourth-generation IA demonstrating the highest frequency (11%) of seroreversion. HIV-specific antibodies may fail to develop and, when detected, may decline when ART is initiated during AHI. Although fourth-generation IA was the most sensitive at detecting AHI prior to ART, third-generation IA was the most sensitive during treatment. NCT00796146 and NCT00796263.

Decision-making and the framing effect in a foreign and native language

ABSTRACTRecent research using scenarios such as the Asian disease problem has demonstrated a “foreign-language effect”, whereby the framing effect (tendency to be risk-averse in a gain frame and risk seeking in a loss frame) is not (or not as) apparent in the foreign language as the native language. The aim of the current study was to further investigate decision-making and the framing effect in a native language, Thai and a foreign language, English, using the Asian disease/Financial crisis problem (Study 1) and a novel financial decision-making task (Study 2). Results from Study 1 confirmed previous findings as a foreign-language effect emerged. In contrast, in Study 2, a framing effect emerged in both the native and foreign languages of the Thai participants. These contradictory results point to language factors as well as emotional and cognitive demands of the task contributing to the occurrence of the foreign-language effect.

English and Thai Speakers’ Perception of Mandarin Tones

&lt;p&gt;Language learners’ language experience is predicted to display a significant effect on their accurate perception of foreign language sounds (Flege, 1995). At the superasegmental level, there is still a debate regarding whether tone language speakers are better able to perceive foreign lexical tones than non-tone language speakers (i.e Lee et al., 1996; Burnham &amp;amp; Brooker, 2002). The current study aimed to shed some light on this issue. Specifically, 24 adult Thai and 21 adult English speakers, who had no knowledge on Mandarin prior to participation in the study, were recruited. The participants’ accuracy in the perception of 4 Mandarin tones (T1, T2, T3, T4) was individually examined using an identification test. 288 stimuli of /ti/, /ta/, /tu/, /tʂhi/, /tʂha/, and /tʂhu/ produced in 4 Mandarin tones were prepared. The stimuli were embedded in a carrier sentence, and were produced by a female and a male native Mandarin speaker. According to the results, (1) none of the participants achieved 100% accuracy in any of the perception tests; (2) in the perception of Mandarin T1 and T4, the Thai speakers significantly outperformed the English speakers; (3) the Thai speakers and the English speakers displayed very similar degrees of difficulty in the perception of Mandarin T2 and T3; (4) the Thai participants’ most serious confusion was in the discrimination of T2-T3, whereas the English participants showed significant confusion in the identification of T1-T2 and T2-T3. The findings suggest that tone language speakers may benefit more from their L1 in the perception of foreign lexical tones than did the non-tone language speakers. However, the degree of the beneficial effect identified was limited.&lt;/p&gt;

Opportunistic Risk Screening for Type 2 Diabetes: Exploring of Application of Diabetes Risk Assessment Tool in Community Pharmacy in Australia and Thailand

ObjectiveTo evaluate the feasibility of providing diabetes risk assessment at community pharmacy level in Australia and Thailand from organizational aspects. MethodsThe intervention study was conducted in eight community pharmacies in New South Wales, Australia, and six community pharmacies in Central Thailand. Diabetes risk assessment tools were applied to determine the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. An open-ended question was asked to solicit the willingness-to-pay value for the service. A semistructured interview was conducted with participating pharmacists to solicit the perceived facilitators and barriers in providing the service. ResultsThere were a total of 132 and 185 participants, with the ratio of participants in the three risk categories of low, intermediate, and high being 1:4:11 and 2:1:1.5 for Australia and Thailand, respectively. More Thai participants were willing to pay for the service (72.4% vs. 18.9%; P = 0.0001). Pharmacists from both countries agreed that providing risk assessment would increase health awareness and assist in dampening the burden of disease. A major barrier is time and staff shortage. Support from the government and collaboration among health care providers were major facilitators from Thai pharmacists’ perspective, whereas remuneration was a major facilitator from Australian pharmacists’ perspective. ConclusionsPharmacists in both countries agreed that this intervention would contribute to produce positive health benefits. Differences in advantages and barriers as well as in the proportion of consumers willing to pay for the service demonstrated that it is essential for pharmacists (particularly in developing countries) to be aware of the pitfalls of copying practice initiatives in developed countries without any consideration of the local health care environment.

Reliability and validity of the Thai version of the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (Thai SPADI).

BackgroundThe Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) is a good clinical tool to evaluate patients with shoulder pain, but has not been adapted to Thai version. The objectives of this study were to translate the English version and culturally adapt the SPADI to Thai version and to evaluate the internal consistency and construct validity of the Thai SPADI among Thai participants having shoulder pain.MethodsFollowing the cross-cultural adaptation guidelines stated by the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) Outcome Committee, the SPADI was translated to Thai version (Thai SPASI). Thai participants with shoulder pain completed the three questionnaires, i.e., the Thai SPADI, bodily pain subscale of the Thai Short Form 36 second version (Thai SF-36 V2) and the Thai version of disabilities of the arm, shoulder, and hand (Thai DASH). Internal consistency of the Thai SPADI was measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Convergent and divergent validity was used to measure construct validity of the Thai SPADI by assessing the correlation of the Thai SPADI with the Thai DASH and bodily pain subscale of the Thai SF-36 V2.ResultsOf 44 participants, the majority of participants were female (68.2 %) and had Bachelor’s degree or higher education level (59.1 %) with a mean age of 50.4 years (SD 14.3). Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the Thai SPADI in pain subscale, disability subscale and total scale was 0.92, 0.94 and 0.95, respectively. The correlation of the Thai SPADI with the Thai DASH and bodily pain subscale of the Thai SF-36 V was 0.79 (p < 0.001) and -0.49 (p = 001), respectively.ConclusionsThe Thai SPADI has excellent internal consistency and moderate to high construct validity to assess shoulder disability among Thais.

P14.24 Multicultural survey – asian female sex worker demographics, migration and sexual health in sydney

Theme Social policy, behavioural change, psychosocial or psychosexual issues related to sexual health. Background Sydney Sexual Health Centre (SSHC) provides dedicated clinics, outreach services and bilingual health education staff to Chinese and Thai sex workers. We aimed to assess characteristics of these sex workers. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted between August 2014–March 2015 using a structured questionnaire in Thai and Chinese, offered to female sex workers attending SSHC and within parlours visited by outreach staff. Results 338 participants were recruited: 106(32%) Chinese and 232(68%) Thai. Overall median age was 31 years. More than half (56%) did not attend high school, with Chinese participants less likely to have attended high school than Thai (67% vs 50%; p = 0.003). Compared with those attending the clinic, women seen on outreach were older (42% >35 vs 20% from clinic; p = 0.00) and less likely to have done sex work previously (90% vs 71% from clinic; p = 0.00). Compared to Thai, Chinese participants were more likely to report “poor” English skills in speaking (61% vs 27% Thai), reading (70% vs 31% Thai) and writing (78% vs 39% Thai) (p While the majority of participants were not on a sex work contract (92%), those who were contracted were more likely to be Thai (10% vs 3% Chinese; p = 0.017). Significantly more Thai participants worked in massage (n = 84,36%) compared with Chinese (n = 16,15%) (p Chinese participants were more likely to check clients for signs of STIs (n = 75,70% vs Thai n = 115,50%; p Conclusion There were significant differences in the characteristics and behaviours of Thai and Chinese sex workers surveyed. Essential education within culturally appropriate health promotion programs should include douching, checking clients for STIs and using condoms for oral sex. Disclosure of interest statement No conflict of interest.

The Detection and Primed Production of Novel Constructions

Situated within second language (L2) research about the acquisition of morphosyntax, this study investigated English L2 speakers’ detection and primed production of a novel construction with morphological and structural features. We report on two experiments with Thai (n = 69) and Farsi (n = 70) English L2 speakers, respectively, carried out an aural construction learning task that provided low type‐frequency input with the transitive construction in Esperanto—which is marked by accusative case marking (–n) and flexible word order (subject‐verb‐object and object‐verb‐subject)—followed by aural comprehension tests and a priming activity (20 primes and 20 prompts). Results of the aural comprehension tests showed that 23% of the Thai participants (16/69) and 50% of the Farsi participants (35/70) detected the target construction in the input. Results of the primed production task revealed that only those participants who detected the target construction were able to be primed. The findings are discussed in relation to the role of speakers’ previously learned languages in the detection and primed production of novel constructions.

Prevalence of plasma small dense LDL is increased in obesity in a Thai population.

BackgroundPlasma low density lipoprotein (LDL) particles vary in size, density, electrical charge and chemical composition. An increased presence of small dense LDL (sdLDL), along with raised triglyceride concentrations and decreased high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol concentrations is commonly known as the atherogenic triad and has been observed in some cases of obesity, principally in Europe and America. This study examines the prevalence of sdLDL in the plasma of an obese (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2) Thai population.MethodsPlasma from fasted obese (n = 48) and non-obese (n = 16) Thai participants was subjected to density gradient ultracentrifugation in iodixanol to separate lipoproteins. Gradients were unloaded top-to-bottom into 20 fractions which were assayed for cholesterol, triglyceride, apo B and apo A-1 to identify lipoprotein types and subtypes.ResultsLDL cholesterol was subfractionated into LDL I + II (fractions 3–6, ρ = 1.021-1.033 g/ml) which was considered to represent large buoyant LDL (lbLDL), LDL III (fractions 7–9, ρ = 1.036-1.039 g/ml) which was considered to represent sdLDL, and, LDL IV (fractions 10–12, ρ = 1.044-1.051 g/ml) which was considered to represent very sdLDL. Concentrations of LDL III and IV were increased by 15-20% in obese participants whilst that of LDL I + II was concomitantly decreased by 10%. This was accompanied by a 50% increase in plasma triglyceride concentrations and 15% decrease in HDL cholesterol concentrations. Only 3/16 (19%) non-obese participants had a pattern B LDL cholesterol profile (peak density of >1.033 g/ml), whilst 28/48 (58%) obese participants were pattern B. When expressed as a fraction of the LDL concentration, total sdLDL (i.e. LDL III + IV) showed highly significant correlations to plasma triglyceride concentrations and the triglyceride/HDL cholesterol ratio.ConclusionsThe prevalence of sdLDL is increased in obesity in a Thai population such that they demonstrate a similar atherogenic triad to that previously observed in European and American populations.

The Last and Next Decades of the Asian Core Program on Cutting‐Edge Organic Chemistry in Asia

The Last and Next Decades of the Asian Core Program on Cutting‐Edge Organic Chemistry in Asia

Cyberlove in Thai Cyberculture

Cyberculture is a new domain in the comparative study of societies and cultural practices, and it’s a challenge in the field of behavioral science. This study explores the understanding about the beliefs and love lives of the 460 Thai participants who have used the internet for pursuing love. It aims to investigate to what extent these 460 Thai participants believe in a soulmate, why they believe they can find their cyberlove, how their cyberlove begins, and why it sometimes ends. The results of this study reveal 91.3 percent of the participants are familiar with the concept of a soulmate and 83 percent believe in this notion. Soulmate beliefs, significantly shaped by Thai Buddhism and the unique characteristic of internet dating are main reasons for their belief in finding cyberlove. There are three versions of falling in cyberlove: love at first sight, chemistry development, and the principle of similarity or like attracts like between couples. Furthermore, deception and being thwarted by obstacles and behavioral change as time passes are the most frequently mentioned reasons for the breakup of online romantic relationships. Cyberlove thus has become part of the normative structure in Thai cyberculture. People fall in love, fall out of love and are in love online. Future research would benefit from further exploring this line of research in other social networking sites and expanding the research scope into a comparative study. Keywords: soulmate beliefs, cyberlove, online dating, thai cyberculture

Testing the flexibility of the modified receptive field (MRF) theory: Evidence from an unspaced orthography (Thai)

In the current study, we tested the generality of the modified receptive field (MRF) theory (Tydgat & Grainger, 2009) with English native speakers (Experiment 1) and Thai native speakers (Experiment 2). Thai has a distinctive alphabetic orthography with visually complex letters (ฝ ฟ or ผ พ) and nonlinear characteristics and lacks interword spaces. We used a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) procedure to measure identification accuracy for all positions in a string of five characters, which consisted of Roman script letters, Thai letters, or symbols. For the English speakers, we found a similar pattern of results as in previous studies (i.e., a dissociation between letters and symbols). In contrast, for the Thai participants, we found that the pattern for Thai letters, Roman letters and symbols displayed a remarkably similar linear trend. Thus, while we observed qualified support for the MRF theory, in that we found an advantage for initial position, this effect also applied to symbols (i.e., our data revealed a language-specific effect). We propose that this pattern for letters and symbols in Thai has developed as a specialized adaptive mechanism for reading in this visually complex and crowded nonlinear script without interword spaces.

HOW CAN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ATTRACT USERS FROM DEVELOPED COUNTRIES? A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THAILAND AND JAPAN

A comparative study of Thailand and Japan investigated how electronic commerce (EC) in developing countries can be used to attract customers from developed countries. Thai and Japanese participants were shown language-appropriate versions of a hotel booking website in Thailand. Perceptions of and trust in the website were assessed, as was the willingness to book a room in the hotel using the website. The Thai participants tended to evaluate the quality of the website more highly and to trust it more than did the Japanese participants. Furthermore, the Thai participants tended to think that the hotel was more responsible for their hotel reservations than was the EC service, and that the content of the website was developed by the hotel rather than by the EC service. Thai participants were more likely to express willingness to reserve a room if they thought that the hotel had developed the website content, whereas the Japanese participants’ willingness to book a room were greater when they thought that the EC service had developed the content. Based on these results, customization strategies for EC in developing countries to attract customers from developed countries are discussed. To cite this document: Tetsuro Kobayashi, Hitoshi Okada, Nagul Cooharojananone, Vanessa Bracamonte, and Takahisa Suzuki, How can electronic commerce in developing countries attract users from developed countries? A comparative study of Thailand and Japan, International Journal of Electronic Commerce Studies, Vol.4, No.2, pp. 159-184, 2013. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/ijecs.1105

Understanding the effect of culture on food representations using word associations: The case of “rice” and “good rice”

Consumers’ perception toward rice was studied using a word association task in Korea, Japan, Thailand and France. A total of 195 participants from four countries were asked to indicate all the words that came to their minds when the stimulus words, “rice” and “good rice” were verbally presented. Frequencies of elicited words were counted and these words were grouped in different categories by triangulation. Some similarities and differences were observed among countries. French participants tended to associate “rice” more frequently with concepts such as foreign countries, culture, travel and exoticism. Participants in Asian countries tended to associate it more frequently with concepts such as agricultural products, necessary goods, and emotions. Framed into the triadic approach of consumption, these results indicate that symbolic motivation is more important for French participants and utilitarian and experiential motivations are more important for Asian participants in rice consumption. For good rice, all participants elicited terms linked to taste, health and process. However the relative importance of these categories of terms differed between countries. Health was more considered by Korean and Thai participants and cooking process was more considered by French and Japanese participants. Agricultural process was frequently cited by Korean and Japanese participants. Results showed that there are clear cultural differences in terms of utilitarian and symbolic motivations to consume rice as well as on the relative importance of the main quality criteria associated with rice.

Consumers’ attitude towards rice cooking processes in Korea, Japan, Thailand and France

Concerns and attitudes towards nutrition, health, safety, commodity, and sensory appeal are the factors determining cooking processes in one’s everyday life. A picture-word matching task was conducted in order to compare consumer’s opinion on seven common rice-cooking processes (rinsing, soaking, adding other kinds of rice, cereals, and beans, brown rice germination, rapid-boiling, pressure-cooking, and steaming) in Korea, Japan, Thailand, and France. The results showed that, in each country, the more familiar a cooking process is, the more it is associated with sensory quality. Pressure-cooking, soaking and rapid-boiling were positively matched with sensory aspects in Korea, Japan, and France, respectively. Although Thai participants had positive beliefs on sensory aspects toward rapid-boiling and steaming process, they haven’t been using these two methods frequently because of negative opinion and attitude toward its commodity. Health and nutritional aspects of germination of brown rice and adding other types of rice, cereals, and beans processes were perceived positively among Korean and Japanese participants, and to a lesser extent among Thai participants. The results of this study provided information for better understanding the effect of culture on the representations linked to rice-cooking processes.

Diagnostic Utility of a Clonality Test for Lymphoproliferative Diseases in Koreans Using the BIOMED-2 PCR Assay

BackgroundA clonality test for immunoglobulin (IG) and T cell receptor (TCR) is a useful adjunctive method for the diagnosis of lymphoproliferative diseases (LPDs). Recently, the BIOMED-2 multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay has been established as a standard method for assessing the clonality of LPDs. We tested clonality in LPDs in Koreans using the BIOMED-2 multiplex PCR and compared the results with those obtained in European, Taiwanese, and Thai participants. We also evaluated the usefulness of the test as an ancillary method for diagnosing LPDs.MethodsTwo hundred and nineteen specimens embedded in paraffin, including 78 B cell lymphomas, 80 T cell lymphomas and 61 cases of reactive lymphadenitis, were used for the clonality test.ResultsMature B cell malignancies showed 95.7% clonality for IG, 2.9% co-existing clonality, and 4.3% polyclonality. Mature T cell malignancies exhibited 83.8% clonality for TCR, 8.1% co-existing clonality, and 16.2% polyclonality. Reactive lymphadenitis showed 93.4% polyclonality for IG and TCR. The majority of our results were similar to those obtained in Europeans. However, the clonality for IGK of B cell malignancies and TCRG of T cell malignancies was lower in Koreans than Europeans.ConclusionsThe BIOMED-2 multiplex PCR assay was a useful adjunctive method for diagnosing LPDs.