Abstract: Language Reforms and potential use of ICTs has been a focal area of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Efforts are being accelerated to incorporate fast expanding ICTs to bring qualitative improvement in language instruction in higher education. This paper explores how university teachers are benefitting from ICTs to make their English class effective and what type of problems they face in practicing ICTs during their lectures. An in-depth qualitative study was employed to understand why language teachers tend to use ICTs in their instruction and how they are practicing it. A sample of twenty teachers from five universities located in Islamabad, three from public sector and two from private sector, was selected on non-random (Snowball) sampling basis. An interview with 15 semi-structured items was used as research instruments to collect data. The findings reveal that business English teaching is facilitated and improved through the use of ICTs. The language teachers need special training regarding the practices and implementation of ICTs. It is recommended that initiatives might be taken to equip university language teachers with modern methodology incorporating ICTs as focal area and efforts might be made to remove barriers regarding the training of language teachers and proper usage of ICTs.
Abstract: Background, measuring an individual-s Health
Literacy is gaining attention, yet no appropriate instrument is available
in Taiwan. Measurement tools that were developed and used in
western countries may not be appropriate for use in Taiwan due to a
different language system. Purpose of this research was to develop a
Health Literacy measurement instrument specific for Taiwan adults.
Methods, several experts of clinic physicians; healthcare
administrators and scholars identified 125 common used health related
Chinese phrases from major medical knowledge sources that easy
accessible to the public. A five-point Likert scale is used to measure
the understanding level of the target population. Such measurement is
then used to compare with the correctness of their answers to a health
knowledge test for validation. Samples, samples under study were
purposefully taken from four groups of people in the northern
Pingtung, OPD patients, university students, community residents,
and casual visitors to the central park. A set of health knowledge index
with 10 questions is used to screen those false responses. A sample
size of 686 valid cases out of 776 was then included to construct this
scale. An independent t-test was used to examine each individual
phrase. The phrases with the highest significance are then identified
and retained to compose this scale. Result, a Taiwan Health Literacy
Scale (THLS) was finalized with 66 health-related phrases under nine
divisions. Cronbach-s alpha of each division is at a satisfactory level
of 89% and above. Conclusions, factors significantly differentiate the
levels of health literacy are education, female gender, age, family
members of stroke victims, experience with patient care, and
healthcare professionals in the initial application in this study..
Abstract: This paper reports on a survey of state-of-the-art
application scenarios for smart office environments. Based on an
analysis of ongoing research activities and industry projects,
functionalities and services of future office systems are extracted. In
a second step, these results are used to identify the key characteristics
of emerging products.
Abstract: The Taiwan Health Literacy Scale (THLS) was developed to cope with the need of measuring heath literacy of Chinese-speaking adults in Taiwan. Although the scale was proven having good reliability and validity, it was not popularly adopted by the practitioners due to the length, and the time required completing. Based on the THLS, this research further invited healthcare professionals to review the original scale for a possible shorten work. Under the logic of THLS, the research adopted an analytic hierarchy process technique to consolidate the healthcare experts- assessments to shorten the original scale. There are fifteen items out of the original 66 items were identified having higher loadings. Confirmed by the experts and passed a pilot test with 40 undergraduate students, a short form of THLS is then introduced. This research then used 839 samples from the major cities of the Hua-lien county in the eastern part of Taiwan to test the reliability and validity of this new scale. The reliability of the scale is high and acceptable. The current scale is also highly correlated with the original, of which provide evidence for the validity of the scale.
Abstract: The fast growing accessibility and capability of emerging technologies have fashioned enormous possibilities of designing, developing and implementing innovative teaching methods in the classroom. The global technological scenario has paved the way to new pedagogies in teaching-learning process focusing on technology based learning environment and its impact on student achievement. The present experimental study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of technology based learning environment on student achievement in English as a foreign language. The sample of the study was 90 students of 10th grade of a public school located in Islamabad. A pretest- posttest equivalent group design was used to compare the achievement of the two groups. A Pretest and A posttest containing 50 items each from English textbook were developed and administered. The collected data were statistically analyzed. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of Experimental group and the Control group. The performance of Experimental group was better on posttest scores that indicted that teaching through technology based learning environment enhanced the achievement level of the students. On the basis of the results, it was recommended that teaching and learning through information and communication technologies may be adopted to enhance the language learning capability of the students.
Abstract: Existing experiences indicate that one of the most
prominent reasons that some ERP implementations fail is related to
selecting an improper ERP package. Among those important factors
resulting in inappropriate ERP selections, one is to ignore preliminary
activities that should be done before the evaluation of ERP packages.
Another factor yielding these unsuitable selections is that usually
organizations employ prolonged and costly selection processes in
such extent that sometimes the process would never be finalized
or sometimes the evaluation team might perform many key final
activities in an incomplete or inaccurate way due to exhaustion, lack
of interest or out-of-date data. In this paper, a systematic approach
that recommends some activities to be done before and after the
main selection phase is introduced for choosing an ERP package. On
the other hand, the proposed approach has utilized some ideas that
accelerates the selection process at the same time that reduces the
probability of an erroneous final selection.
Abstract: The major purpose of this study is to use network and multimedia technologies to build a game-based learning system for junior high school students to apply in learning “World Geography" through the “role-playing" game approaches. This study first investigated the motivation and habits of junior high school students to use the Internet and online games, and then designed a game-based learning system according to situated and game-based learning theories. A teaching experiment was conducted to analyze the learning effectiveness of students on the game-based learning system and the major factors affecting their learning. A questionnaire survey was used to understand the students- attitudes towards game-based learning. The results showed that the game-based learning system can enhance students- learning, but the gender of students and their habits in using the Internet have no significant impact on learning. Game experience has a significant impact on students- learning, and the higher the experience value the better the effectiveness of their learning. The results of questionnaire survey also revealed that the system can increase students- motivation and interest in learning "World Geography".
Abstract: Hospitals in southern Hualien teamed with the
Hypertension Joint Care Network. Working with the network, the
team provided a special designed health education to the individual
who had been identified as a hypertension patient in the outpatient
department. Some metabolism improvements achieved. This is a
retrospective study by purposively taking 106 patients from a hospital
between 2008 and 2010. Records of before and after education
intervention of the objects was collected and analyzed to see the how
the intervention affected the patients- hypertension control via clinical
parameter monitoring. The results showed that the clinical indicators,
the LDL-C, the cholesterol and the systolic blood pressure were
significantly improved. The study provides evidence for the
effectiveness of the network in controlling hypertension.
Abstract: This study investigated the relationship between
exercise imagery use and level of physical activity within a wide
range of exercisers in Klang valley, Malaysia. One hundred and
twenty four respondents (Mage = 28.92, SD = 9.34) completed two
sets of questionnaires (Exercise Imagery Inventory and Leisure-Time
Exercise Questionnaire) that measure the use of imagery and exercise
frequency of participants. From the result obtained, exercise imagery
is found to be significantly correlated to level of physical activity.
Besides that, variables such as gender, age and ethnicity that may
affect the use of imagery and exercise frequency were also being
assessed in this study. Among all variables, only ethnicity showed
significant difference in level of physical activity (p < 0.05). Findings
in this study suggest that further investigation should be done on
other variables such as socioeconomic, educational level, and selfefficacy
that may affect the imagery use and frequency of physical
activity among exercisers.