scholarly journals Exploring Students’ Perspectives toward Clarity and Familiarity of Writing Scoring Rubrics: The Case of Saudi EFL Students

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Dukhayel M. Aldukhayel

The main aim of this research study is to investigate the clarity and familiarity of three scoring rubrics used in a Saudi university’s preparatory year program (PYP) for assessing students’ writing achievement in midterm and final exams. This exploration is important in providing some evidence for the quality of scoring rubrics. To achieve that purpose, a 13-item online questionnaire was used to collect Saudi EFL PYP students’ perspectives toward two quality criteria concerning rubrics; 1) clarity of the information included in the PYP rubrics, and (2) familiarity of the rubrics to students. The subjects were 281 Arabic-speaking male and female EFL Saudi students enrolled in three different academic levels in a Saudi university’s PYP. The results suggest that the quality of the PYP rubrics is insufficient and the criteria set for providing evidence for the rubric qualities were not met. The results show that students tend to have a mild agreement on the clarity of the PYP rubrics, whereas they show a clear disagreement on their familiarity with the rubrics and with why and how the rubrics are used. The study implicates that administrators and teachers need to carefully consider the clarity and familiarity of rubrics in order to justify the decisions made about students’ writing abilities. Rubrics that are unclear or unfamiliar can make students feel confused and frustrated, as they cannot get a clear sense of their writing scores, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Rasha Fawzi Kadi ◽  
Abeer Ahmed Madini

It can be argued that the ultimate goal of ESL\EFL pedagogy is to enable students to have communicative competence. To achieve this, EFL teachers implement various techniques and strategies that aim to produce communicatively competent students. Nevertheless, one of the major challenges teachers encounter is that students are often passive, unresponsive and unwilling to speak in the classroom. Accordingly, the current study seeks to investigate the causes of Saudi students' unwillingness to communicate in the EFL classroom. A total of 136 Saudi female preparatory year students at the English Language Institute (ELI) in King Abdulaziz University (KAU) participated in this study. To gain a deeper understanding of the causes of this phenomenon, a mixed methods approach was adopted. Two data collection instruments were utilized in this study: an online questionnaire with 126 participants and semi-structured interviews with 10 participants. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data obtained from the questionnaire, and the qualitative data obtained from the interviews were analyzed thematically using NVivo. The findings of the study revealed that the unwillingness to communicate is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that can stem from multiple causes. The main causes reported by the participants were fear of making mistakes, low language proficiency, fear of negative evaluation, shyness, lack of self-confidence, inefficient school education, and teacher\classmates related factors. The study concluded by briefly stating some of the limitations, offering recommendations for future research, and providing valuable suggestions for English language practitioners and policymakers to enhance this communication obstacle


2020 ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
M. A. Pokhaznikova ◽  
E. A. Andreeva ◽  
O. Yu. Kuznetsova

The article discusses the experience of teaching and conducting spirometry of general practitioners as part of the RESPECT study (RESearch on the PrEvalence and the diagnosis of COPD and its Tobacco-related aetiology). A total of 33 trained in spirometry general practitioners performed a study of 3119 patients. Quality criteria met 84.1% of spirometric studies. The analysis of the most common mistakes made by doctors during the forced expiratory maneuver is included. The most frequent errors were expiration exhalation of less than 6s (54%), non-maximal effort throughout the test and lack of reproducibility (11.3%). Independent predictors of poor spirogram quality were male gender, obstruction (FEV1 /FVC<0.7), and the center where the study was performed. The number of good-quality spirograms ranged from 96.1% (95% CI 83.2–110.4) to 59.8% (95% CI 49.6–71.4) depending on the center. Subsequently, an analysis of the reasons behind the poor quality of research in individual centers was conducted and the identified shortcomings were eliminated. The poor quality of the spirograms was associated either with the errors of the doctors who undertook the study or with the technical malfunctions of the spirometer.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 76-81
Author(s):  
Chu Cao Minh ◽  
Thang Vo Van ◽  
Dat Nguyen Tan ◽  
Hung Vo Thanh

Background: The criteria set of assessing hospital quality in Vietnam in 2016 was revied from the criteria set in 2013 by the Ministry of Health in order to help hospitals to self-assess towards improvinge quality of hospitals in the international integration context. The study aimed to assess the quality of public hospitals in Can Tho City according to the revised criteria set of the Ministry of Health in 2016 and compare the quality among three hospital ranks (including grade I, grade II, and grade III) via to 5 groups of quality criteria. Methods: A cross-sectional study, using secondary data analysis was applied to assess the service quality of 7 general public hospitals in Can Tho City. Results: The average total score of 7 hospitals is 245 and the average for the criteria of 7 hospitals is 2.99, which is just satisfactory. In the criterion of quality, criterion D and E had the lowest scores compared to the other three groups. There was no statistically significant difference (p = 0.076) among the mean scores for the three hospital categories. Conclusion: The quality of public hospitals in Can Tho city in 2016 only reached moderately good level (2.99). Interventions should be developed to improve the quality of hospitals, with particular emphasis on improving the quality of criteria groups D and E. Key words: Quality, hospital, medicine, health, public, Can Tho


2018 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 00025
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Szuster – Janiaczyk ◽  
Rafał Brodziak ◽  
Jędrzej Bylka

One of the processes that significantly determines the quality of water to consumers is the process of mixing water from different sources in the water mains. Put to the network two or more chemically and biologically stable waters may result in the formation of water that will be deprived of these features. This article presents the german guidelines for analysing water quality for mixing waters from different sources, in various proportions. Then performed an analysis of utility the mathematical models,including quality criteria, for use in network control. An IT tool has been developed to manage selected water quality processes using mathematical modeling. The basis for implementing the tool was a network model created in Epanet integrated with the Matlab.


Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 2279
Author(s):  
Federica Grant ◽  
Maria Luisa Scalvedi ◽  
Umberto Scognamiglio ◽  
Aida Turrini ◽  
Laura Rossi

To limit the spread of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, a nationwide lockdown started in Italy in March 2020. In this unpredictable situation, a cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire was carried out by the Observatory on Food Surplus, Recovery and Waste of CREA Food and Nutrition Centre. The aim of this work was to evaluate how Italian habits changed during this period, the determinants of changes, and the effect on food waste prevention. In a sample of 2678 respondents, 62% showed low Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (AMD). During lockdown many of participants improved the quality of their diet, increasing their consumption of fruit (24.4%), vegetables (28.5%), legumes (22.1%), nuts (12%), and fish or shellfish (14%). Unfavorable changes were observed with the excessive consumption of sweets or pastries (36.9%) and comfort foods (22.7%), and a lack of physical activity (37.2%). The main novelty of this study was the examination of dietary changes identified by a cluster analysis. Respondents with generally high AMD improved their eating habits, while the habits of the respondents with generally low AMD remained unchanged. In addition, nearly 80% of respondents were sensitive to food waste. The study provides a useful contribution to the debate on nutritional recommendations in case of further lockdown.


Author(s):  
Candace Necyk ◽  
Jeffrey A. Johnson ◽  
Ross T. Tsuyuki ◽  
Dean T. Eurich

Background: In 2012, the Government of Alberta introduced a funding program to remunerate pharmacists to develop a comprehensive annual care plan (CACP) for patients with complex needs. The objective of this study is to explore patients’ perceptions of the care they received through the pharmacist CACP program in Alberta. Methods: We invited 3442 patients who received a pharmacist-billed CACP within the previous 3 months and 6888 matched controls across Alberta to complete an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of the short version Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC-11), with 3 additional pharmacy-specific assessment questions added. Additional questions related to health status and demographics were also included. Results: Overall, most patients indicated a low level of chronic illness care by pharmacists, with few differences noted between CACP patients and non-CACP controls. Of note, controls reported higher quality of care for 5 domains within the adapted PACIC-like tool compared with CACP patients ( p < 0.05 for all). Interestingly, only 79 (44%) of CACP patients reported that they had received a CACP, whereas only 192 (66%) of control patients reported that they did not receive a care plan. In a sensitivity analysis including only these respondents, individuals who received a CACP perceived a significantly higher quality of chronic illness care across all PACIC domains. Conclusion: Overall, chronic illness care incentivized by the pharmacist CACP program in Alberta is perceived to be moderate to low. When limited to respondents who explicitly recognized receiving the service or not, the perceptions of quality of care were more positive. This suggests that better implementation of CACP by pharmacists may be associated with improved quality of care and that some redesign is needed to engage patients more. Can Pharm J (Ott) 2021;154:xx-xx.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107815522199844
Author(s):  
Abdullah M Alhammad ◽  
Nora Alkhudair ◽  
Rawan Alzaidi ◽  
Latifa S Almosabhi ◽  
Mohammad H Aljawadi

Introduction Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting is a serious complication of cancer treatment that compromises patients’ quality of life and treatment adherence, which necessitates regular assessment. Therefore, there is a need to assess patient-reported nausea and vomiting using a validated scale among Arabic speaking cancer patient population. The objective of this study was to translate and validate the Functional Living Index-Emesis (FLIE) instrument in Arabic, a patient-reported outcome measure designed to assess the influence of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting on patients’ quality of life. Methods Linguistic validation of an Arabic-language version was performed. The instrument was administered to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in a tertiary hospital's cancer center in Saudi Arabia. Results One-hundred cancer patients who received chemotherapy were enrolled. The participants’ mean age was 53.3 ± 14.9 years, and 50% were female. Half of the participants had a history of nausea and vomiting with previous chemotherapy. The Cronbach coefficient alpha for the FLIE was 0.9606 and 0.9736 for nausea and vomiting domains, respectively, which indicated an excellent reliability for the Arabic FLIE. The mean FLIE score was 110.9 ± 23.5, indicating no or minimal impact on daily life (NIDL). Conclusions The Arabic FLIE is a valid and reliable tool among the Arabic-speaking cancer population. Thus, the Arabic version of the FLIE will be a useful tool to assess the quality of life among Arabic speaking patients receiving chemotherapy. Additionally, the translated instrument will be a useful tool for future research studies to explore new antiemetic treatments among cancer patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2945
Author(s):  
Isabel del Arco ◽  
Òscar Flores ◽  
Anabel Ramos-Pla

A quantitative study was conducted in order to know, from the perspective of university students, the relationship between the quality perceived (QP) during the period of confinement derived from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with the variables teaching plan (PL), material resources (MR), interaction processes (IN), and the affective–emotional component (EM). An online questionnaire was designed, directed to students from 20 universities in Spain, with a total participation of 893 individuals. The results indicate that the perception of the students on the quality of online teaching is directly associated with the material resources provided by the professors and the professor–student interactions. However, this perception does not have any direct effect on the planning or the emotional state or affectation created by the unprecedented situation of confinement. Among the conclusions, we highlight the need for the universities to apply models of support and tutoring, especially for students in their first years at university, to develop competences such as autonomy, digital competence, and self-regulation, and the need for a change of approach of the students and the professors based on the new normality we are currently experiencing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 672
Author(s):  
Alessandra Buja ◽  
Guendalina Graffigna ◽  
Simona F. Mafrici ◽  
Tatjana Baldovin ◽  
Carlo Pinato ◽  
...  

Ensuring multiple sclerosis (MS) patients’ adherence to therapy is often challenging, but it is crucial to their survival and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The aim of the present study was to outline connections between adherence, physical and mental HRQoL, levels of psychological readiness to engage in a treatment, levels of social support, anthropometric, socio-demographic and clinical factors in patients suffering from MS. This cross-sectional study involved a sample of 237 Italian MS patients. A survey was conducted with a structured self-administered online questionnaire using validated measures of quality of life, adherence to therapy and anthropometric, socio-demographic, psychological and clinical variables. A path analysis was used to test the overall structure of the associations between the variables. The pathway indicates a positive association between mental health index and a stronger degree of engagement and being or having been in a long-term relationship. Physical health index was positively associated with age, having an occupation, and having a specific form of MS. Having had relapses in the previous year raised the odds of better adherence to therapy, while an increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) reduced them. Our findings could help in the management of MS patients, promoting behavioral interventions that take the psychological and socio-demographic peculiarities of each patient into account with a view to improving their adherence to therapy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
T Krieger

Abstract From the literature and experience, we know that the quality of patient information material (PIM) has a direct impact on its utilization and therefore also on the acceptance and success of an intervention. In this brief introduction session (10 minutes), the innovative “integrated, cross-sectional psycho-oncology” (isPO) programme and the context of its implementation will be sketched. In the programmés development phase, isPO specific-PIM was developed and utilized in its early implementation phase. This will be presented to the audience. Next, an overview regarding the general PIM quality criteria: correctness of content, legibility, comprehensibility and usability in detail will be given. Finally, common guidelines, checklists and quality assessment instruments will be presented, and the role of the target group (participation degree) in the development or examination process will be critically worked out.


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