Preferred Topics Research Articles

Sowing Success: The Impact of Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Professional Development on the Turnover Intentions of SBAE Teachers

This study aimed to describe school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers' perceived Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), individualized professional development needs, and turnover intentions by certification type. Moreover, this study aimed to explain the relationship between these variables and the turnover intentions of SBAE teachers. A series of survey questions were used to describe the sample of SBAE teachers, their PCK, professional development needs, and turnover intentions. Notably, regardless of certification type, participants displayed comparable levels of PCK, and there was a considerable overlap in their preferences for professional development topics. Despite the certification differences, both groups of teachers exhibited moderately low turnover intentions. Furthermore, the statistical analysis addressing the impact of PCK on turnover yielded insignificant results, suggesting that a myriad of factors play a role in influencing the turnover intentions of SBAE teachers.

Evaluation of the attitudes, actions, and preferences of pharmacists about ongoing education

Background: Pharmaceutical care is a dynamic field that requires continuous education (CE) to ensure pharmacists remain proficient in addressing advancements in healthcare. Understanding pharmacists' attitudes, actions, and preferences toward CE is crucial for designing effective programs that align with their needs and overcome barriers to participation. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 500 licensed pharmacists using a structured, self-administered questionnaire. Participants were recruited from various practice settings, including community pharmacies, hospitals, academia, and medical representatives. The survey assessed demographic characteristics, attitudes toward CE, participation frequency, preferred learning methods, and barriers to engagement. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including multivariate logistic regression to identify predictors of positive attitudes and high CE participation. Results: Of the participants, 78% strongly agreed or agreed that CE is essential for professional development. Common barriers to participation included time constraints (62%), lack of access to quality programs (45%), and financial limitations (30%). Preferred CE formats were online courses (65%) and workshops (50%), with high interest in clinical practice topics (82%), drug safety (58%), and pharmacy management (40%). A significant association was observed between professional roles and preferences for CE formats and topics (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Pharmacists strongly value CE for professional growth, favoring flexible and workplace-relevant learning formats. Addressing barriers such as time, cost, and access to quality programs is critical to enhancing participation. Future CE initiatives should include routine needs assessments and offer diverse, cost-effective, and practical learning opportunities tailored to pharmacists’ professional roles and preferences.

Utilization, Satisfaction, and Clinical Outcomes of People of Color and White Adults Using an Employer-Sponsored Digital Mental Health Platform.

Evaluating digital mental health services across racial and ethnic identities is crucial to ensuring health equity. We examined how People of Color (POC) and White adults were using and benefiting from an employer-sponsored digital mental health platform. A sample of 947 adults (42% POC) consented to an observational study and completed surveys on their identities and mental health outcomes at baseline and three-month follow-up. We examined care preferences, utilization, therapeutic alliance with mental health providers, and changes in outcomes among POC and White adults. At baseline, there were no race or ethnicity differences in preferred topics of focus (p = 0.36), rates of depression, anxiety, or loneliness (ps > 0.35), or self-reported well-being or stress (ps > 0.07). POC adults were more likely to prefer one-on-one care than White adults (p = 0.02). After 3 months of care utilization, there were no differences in therapeutic alliance (p = 0.52), use of therapy, coaching, or self-guided digital resources (ps > 0.47), or in the likelihood of improving, recovering, or maintaining clinical symptoms or psychosocial factors (ps > 0.07). Utilization, satisfaction, and clinical effectiveness were similar between POC and White adults, indicating the platform may offer comparable experiences. Evaluating utilization and outcomes among POC communities is necessary to inform consumers and help developers assess if innovations are fostering health equity.

Language Codes, Topic Preferences and Identity Construction: The Case of Gendered Language on Social Media

This study on exploring the use of gendered language on social media is a qualitative-quantitative analysis of the male and female differences in the language codes, topic preferences, and identity construction. In-depth understanding of the gendered use of language in Facebook was investigated with a purposive sampling of 90 status updates taken from the posts of respondents who are enrolled in one of the premier public high schools in Cagayan Valley. Anchored on Thematic Analysis by Braun and Clarke (2006), the language codes, topic preferences and gender-based identity construction were explored. Findings reveal that both male and female who are active users of Facebook are multilingual whenever they go online. The discussion on the variety of topics speaks of the diversity of the interest of those involved in the communication platform. The interactivity that Facebook provides makes it a medium through which people define themselves by sharing what is going on in their lives or how they are feeling. This makes Facebook a forum where extension of a person’s real-life identity radiates. Moreover, the use of language by male and female are influenced by their social network in Facebook. Through Facebook status updates, male and female do not only express their emotions but also share details about their daily life activities as to what they were doing or what was going on in their lives at that moment. Thus, trainings and seminars among students and teachers on upholding preservation of culture and language must be part of the curriculum to promote youth empowerment, gender fair language and awareness of cyber-bullying, are hereby recommended to develop communicative competence leading to deeper understanding of one another.

Teaching Topic Preferences in the Nature–Human–Society Subject: How Trainee Teachers Justify Their Likes and Dislikes

This study focuses on the description and explanation of trainee teachers’ attitudes in specific educational situations. More precisely, it demonstrates the reasons why they prefer to teach certain Nature–Human–Society topics over others and, conversely, why they do not like teaching some of those topics—particularly science topics relating to physics and technology. The description of these arguments is relevant because trainee teachers’ attitudes can have an impact on later teacher behavior, especially in a multidisciplinary subject such as Nature—Human–Society, where different topics can be given different amounts of time and importance in class. The results of this study are based on a survey of a student cohort in teacher training in Switzerland. The arguments for liking or disliking a total of twelve teaching topics in the subject Nature–Human–Society were elicited through open-ended questions and theoretically assigned to three attitude dimensions—cognitive beliefs, affective access, and perceived control—following qualitative content analysis. Differences in the reasons for liking and disliking certain teaching topics are shown, as well as the general finding that liking teaching topics is primarily based on cognitive beliefs, while disliking teaching topics is primarily attributed to lacking perceived control or lacking affective access to trainee teachers.

Age Group Differences in Social Media Language Use: Identity Representation via Emojis and Abbreviations

This paper aims to analyse how age groups impact the use of social media language (SL) in online textual conversations, focusing on the type, polarity, and subjectivity of SL to explore identity representation across different age groups. During data collection in 2023, there were 4.76 billion social media users worldwide; hence, understanding the use of SL is essential for analysing how individuals express their emotions and identities online. SL consists of emoticons/emojis, abbreviations, and mixed language in textual conversations. For this study, a qualitative approach was used, with 46 participants from three age groups: 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54 engaging in mock group conversations for one hour using WhatsApp. The participants were separated into six group conversations. The findings show that the older age groups (35-44 and 45-54) prefer to discuss technical or professional topics, whereas the younger age groups (25-34) are more interested in games, food, entertainment, and fun. Furthermore, for the age group 25-34 there is a high usage of emoticons/emojis, whereas the age group 45-54 uses them the least. These findings indicate that age groups have a significant influence on the use of SL and topic preferences in textual conversations, providing insights that will be used to develop a Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool for online identity classification. This study enhances human-computer interaction by investigating how different age groups use SL in digital environments.

“If two people say you are drunk, you better go to bed”: Interview with Gyula Gyulyás

This article explores bio documentary cinema, an often overlooked biographic genre that, unlike its “big brother,” the biopic focusing on the lives, achievements, and legacy of people from the past, prefers to investigate living people through interviews and other forms of interaction. In order to understand the challenges, methods and human dynamic shaping talking heads documentaries, the article prioritizes the first-hand experience of the filmmaker, more specifically, that of Gyula Gulyás, a Hungarian director of documentaries for over five decades. After a general introduction to his career path, preferred topics and shared interests with local and regional documentary filmmakers, the interview covers areas relevant to the biographic documentary such as generic labels, professional standards and the usefulness of cinematic portraits for academic research, choice of subject, methods of interviewing and structuring recorded material, moral responsibility and intimacy as a well as general and specific questions about financing and distributing biographic documentaries, their reception, and the struggle with political and non-political censorship.

Appraising the philosophical influences on modern public administration research

As an interdisciplinary field, public administration (PA) has evolved by borrowing and integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines, including philosophy. Consequently, the means by which these disciplines’ influence diffuses to PA may significantly influence PA research quality and direction. This study is a first step to quantitatively appraise the effect of philosophy on PA research alongside other disciplines. Using a dataset of 58,333 PA journal articles, their 2,224,146 references, and 563,237 philosophy articles extracted from the Web of Science database, this study explores the evolution of knowledge sources, temporal-geographical distribution, and thematic topics of PA journal articles under direct philosophical influences. Empirical evidence reveals that citing philosophy in PA research continues to grow, despite continuing to make up a lesser share of citations than political science, economics, management and law. Articles published in top PA journals tend to cite the most impactful philosophical journals. There is no significant difference in authorship structures between PA journal articles citing or not citing philosophy articles, but those that do have greater research impacts and demonstrate different topical preferences.

From Feeds to Inboxes: A Comparative Study of Polarization in Facebook and Email News Sharing

This study explores the polarization of news content shared on Facebook compared with email using data from the New York Times’ Most Emailed and Most Shared lists over 2.5 years. Employing latent Dirichlet allocation and large language models (LLMs), we find that highly polarized articles are more likely to be shared on Facebook (versus email), even after accounting for factors like topics, emotion, and article age. Additionally, distinct topic preferences emerge, with social issues dominating Facebook shares and lifestyle topics prevalent in emails. Contrary to expectations, political polarization of articles shared on Facebook did not escalate post-2020 election. We introduce a novel approach to measuring polarization of text content that leverages generative artificial intelligence models, like ChatGPT, and it is both scalable and cost effective. This research contributes to the evolving intersection of LLMs, social media, and polarization studies, shedding light on descriptive patterns of content dissemination across different digital channels. This paper was accepted by Duncan Simester, marketing. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.04134 .

University Students’ Engagement with Ulamas’ Political Messages on Social Media

Ulama involvement in educating the young generation about political issues is seen as crucial. However, their involvement's significance potentially diminishes with the increased accessibility of political information through digital media. This qualitative study utilises the Uses and Gratifications Theory as a valuable lens in exploring the engagement of university students in Sulawesi, Indonesia, with ulamas’ political lectures on social media. Thematic analysis of 101 eligible participant’s responses resulted in four key themes: da’wah preferences, content, styles, and impacts. Politics was not the primary or secondary topic preference for the young adults when engaging with Islamic lectures on social media. Instead, topics such as Islamic rituals and the life of the Prophet took precedence. Participants emphasised that ulamas maintained the balance between entertaining audiences and keeping online da’wah educating and relevant to the audience. Ulamas’ arguments in da’wah should be grounded in Islamic texts and prevent divisiveness in society. Students confirmed that their knowledge and attitudes towards important national or local issues were improved due to ulamas’ da’wah. Although students expressed a sense of powerlessness to address political issues highlighted in da’wah, some reported that da’wah motivated them to take action. This study underscores the importance of ulamas adjusting their da’wah approach to suit young audiences. Further research needs to explore strategies to enhance youth engagement with political content on social media. Keywords: Opinion leaders, ulama, political messages, da’wah, social media.

The educational resources and needs of mothers of preschool children from two socioeconomic levels

AbstractObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the educational resources and needs of mothers of children aged 60 to 72 months and the differences between those of high and low socioeconomic status (SES).BackgroundParents have a crucial impact on their children's development in the preschool years. Mothers are especially challenged by the variety of information sources available and struggle with parenting decisions.MethodThirty‐three structured interviews with mothers were carried out in one private and one public school, representing high and low SES, respectively.FindingsBetween the two SES groups, both similarities and differences were observed in terms of their educational resources and needs. The following themes emerged in the study: general sources of parenting information, challenges, the first source to consult when problems occur, topics preferred in a parent education program, and the phase of maternity in which they preferred to receive training. The two SES groups were similar in terms of their main challenges, the topics preferred in a parent education program, and the phase of maternity in which they preferred to receive education. Differences were observed in terms of the sources of parenting information, the first source to consult when problems occur, and some of the preferred topics of a parent education program.ImplicationsThese findings may be useful in revisiting existing parent education programs, or in creating new ones, for the caregivers of preschool children.

Cultural variation in New Zealand English stories about place

AbstractThis study is set in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand and investigates the influence of cultural knowledge on the type of topics that speakers of New Zealand Englishes (NZEs) associate to in their narrations. A storytelling task based on picture prompts of New Zealand landscapes shows a major difference between the cultural associations of Māori and Pākehā (New Zealand European) participants. The difference can be captured in two cultural frames that underlie the preferred topics chosen by the two groups. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for defining NZEs, and they also bear ramifications for theory development in Cultural Linguistics, highlighting the nested and flexibly construable nature of cultural conceptualisations. For research on world Englishes, the study is an example of how cultural‐linguistic analyses can be extended towards larger cultural framings to explain cultural variation among speakers of Englishes.

Learning Experiences of Students on the Least Preferred Topics in Mathematics

Learning Experiences of Students on the Least Preferred Topics in Mathematics

The Need Analysis of Online Placement Test for Teaching Indonesian to Speakers of Other Languages (BIPA)

This research aimed to investigate the need for online placement tests for Teaching Indonesian to Speakers of Other Languages (BIPA) at Bengkulu University. This research used a descriptive qualitative approach and the method was a semi-structured interview. Three international students from Cambodia were interviewed in different Zoom video call sessions during this research. The data collected were then analyzed by using the content analysis technique. There are some findings in this research. First, there was no placement test for BIPA students at Bengkulu University. Second, according to the existing condition of the students, they had different reasons, exposures, experiences, and frequencies in learning or using Indonesian language. Third, the students could not do written tests or paper-based tests (PBT) that required them to come to the test venue in Bengkulu University during the pandemic situation, so an online placement test was used as an alternative. Moreover, the students had some topic preferences to be learned and discussed in Indonesian language. These findings revealed that an online placement test is needed to find out the students’ abilities and to place the students into appropriate levels before conducting BIPA course at Bengkulu University. In the end, the result of this research can later be used to compile placement test materials in accordance with the needs of BIPA students.

Do Daily Podcasts in Public Broadcasting in Israel Help Increase Resilience in Crisis Situations?

ABSTRACT In times of crisis, the importance of the media to help convey messages that support resilience stands out. The present study examined the possible contribution of 21 daily podcasts that were broadcast on three public channels during a military conflict in Israel (May 2021). The research question concerned the possible contribution of the podcasts to resilience. The research findings show that podcast producers preferred topics from their areas of expertise, including critical journalism. The potential of the podcast to transmit messages boosting resilience, which may empower the listeners in facing the crisis, was not on their agenda.

Role Reversals and Permeable Bodies in the Modern Robinsonade: From Postcolonialism to Ecocriticism

This essay argues that the particular lens of Bakhtinian body theory as developed for the Robinsonade by Rebecca Weaver-Hightower will help to shed light on a process observable over the past fifty years, in which colonial and postcolonial authors first embraced and then quickly abandoned the technique of role reversal in drafting their castaway stories. Enamoured of its comedic potential, Adrian Mitchell wrote Man Friday (1973). Derek Walcott was somewhat more circumspect in his Pantomime (1978), based on the realisation that role reversal demands the ascription of univocal roles and identities, something he did not see in evidence in the creolised world of the Caribbean. Later colonial and postcolonial writers such as J. M. Coetzee and Patrick Chamoiseau were then at pains to avoid questions of identity altogether, making epistemology and discourse their preferred topics. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the clichéd identities formerly applied to Indigenous peoples (physical strength, close connection to nature) could be brought to bear on the idea of nature itself, thus making animal Robinsonades such as Life of Pi (2001) and The Red Turtle (2016) tremendous successes that could forgo the messiness of human affairs and simply champion the everlasting superiority of nature over civilisation as an expression of contemporary environmental preoccupations.

Türk Yükseköğretiminde Coğrafya Eğitiminin Öğretim Üyesi Görüşlerine Göre Akademik Durumunun İncelenmesi

The aim of this study is to determine the views of faculty members who have studies in the field of geography education on research orientations in the field. Criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used to determine the sample of this research, which was carried out in the case study design within the qualitative research tradition. Accordingly, 33 faculty members who completed their doctorate in the field of geography or geography education and have studies on geography education constituted the participants of the study. A semi-structured interview form was used to determine the faculty members' views on research orientations in the field. Content analysis was used to analyze the data obtained. According to the findings of the study, 96 code expressions were generated from the opinions of the faculty members about the orientations in the field of geography education. These codes were then organized around three main themes: orientations, problems and expectations. The main theme of orientations consisted of the sub-themes of study topics, reasons for topic preferences, research orientations and influential events and phenomena; the main theme of problems consisted of the sub-themes of problems, rich literature and limited literature; and the main theme of expectations consisted of the sub-themes of future of the field and researcher profile.

Trans vocabularies: topics, clashes, and affordances in YouTube streaming wars

ABSTRACT After decades of invisibility in the media, trans content creators have established popular 6 channels on YouTube and other streaming platforms. This article investigates channels from Western and non-Western locations to understand their priorities and interests from a comparative perspective. Applying a word cloud analysis and an LDA topic analysis, this study identified creators’ preferred topics and occasional conflicts while allowing many insights into an emerging and diversifying trans sphere online. As creators have demonstrated varying levels of engagement in a context of mainstream media backlash and radical ideologies, the ability to generate common vocabularies within the trans community worldwide demonstrates an emerging and complex communicative power present on multiple fronts.

Federated Learning-Inspired User Personality Prediction Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Preference

Federated Learning-Inspired User Personality Prediction Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Preference

Why cartoons make (some of) us smile

Abstract Pocket cartoons are a regular feature of most contemporary newspapers and magazines. As such, they represent a way of conveying complex social and political commentary in a simple visual form. How well we enjoy verbal (oral) jokes depends on the number of mindstates in the joke, and here we ask whether this is also true of visual cartoons. We use survey data from a sample of 3,380 participants attending a public exhibition of published print media cartoons by well-known cartoonists to determine the extent to which viewers’ ratings of cartoons are determined by the mentalizing content of cartoons, the participants’ gender and age, and the publication date of the cartoon. We show that the number of mindstates involved in the cartoon affects its appreciation, just as in verbal jokes. In addition, we show that preferred topics vary by age and gender. While both genders strongly prefer cartoons that explore the complexities of romantic relationships, men rate visual jokes more highly than women do, whereas women prefer jokes that involve political commentary or the dynamics of close relationships. These differences seem to reflect differences in the way the social worlds of the two genders are organized.