A qualitative examination of the motivations behind vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore diets in an Australian population.

There is a growing shift towards meat reducing diets, especially in Western nations, in the last decade. Whilst research has examined the potential motivations in adopting meat reducing diets, there are a limited number of studies which directly compare diet-related motivations across dietary groups, especially comparing meat reducing diet groups to omnivores. As such, it is unclear whether these dietary groups have distinctly different motivations for adopting their diets. This study aimed to examine the motivations that underlie people’s dietary choices, and to compare these across three dietary groups; vegan, vegetarian, omnivore. A sample of 701 participants participated in the study (Mage = 30.09, SDage = 10.91). Participants were asked to self-describe the diet they follow and provide a written response as to why they choose to follow this diet. A content analysis indicated that the participants' motivations were similar across the three dietary groups. Similar reasons included health and environment, with the health reason common across all three groups. For vegan and vegetarians the most common was animal welfare. However, taste and enjoyment for diet was most common for omnivores. The overlap in responses across the dietary groups suggests that dietary motivations are similar across these three groups. Therefore, rather than simply employing motivations to encourage reduced meat diets, it may be better to develop more personalised interventions to achieve this.

KERANCUAN BAHASA DALAM KARANGAN MURID SEKOLAH MENENGAH DI DAERAH TUARAN, SABAH

Kajian ini dijalankan untuk mengkaji kepekaan murid sekolah menengah luar bandar di daerah Tuaran, Sabah menggunakan bahasa Melayu yang standard dalam karangan mereka. Sebanyak 70 hasil karangan murid tingkatan empat dari tiga buah sekolah menengah dianalisis satu persatu menggunakan kaedah kualitatif analisis kandungan. Respons bertulis juga diperoleh daripada semua murid untuk mengetahui sebab mereka mencampuradukkan bahasa dalam karangan bahasa Melayu. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahawa 55 hasil karangan mengandungi percampuran bahasa. Berdasarkan jumlah tersebut, 14 hasil karangan mengandungi percampuran bahasa dalaman sahaja. 41 hasil karangan yang lain pula mengandungi percampuran bahasa Inggeris. Kemudian, daripada jumlah tersebut, 28 buah karangan mengandungi kedua-dua jenis percampuran bahasa iaitu bahasa dalaman dan bahasa Inggeris. Berdasarkan respons bertulis dan temu bual dengan murid tentang sebab adanya perkataan bahasa Inggeris dalam karangan mereka, percampuran bahasa berlaku kerana keterbiasaan dan tidak mengetahui padanan yang betul dalam bahasa Melayu. Dapatan ini menunjukkan bahawa adanya kelemahan murid menggunakan bahasa Melayu standard dalam komunikasi bertulis untuk menyampaikan sesuatu mesej. Kajian yang dijalankan bermanfaat untuk memberikan maklumat berkenaan tahap penguasaan bahasa Melayu murid sekolah menengah. Guru-guru juga boleh menggunakan maklumat yang diperoleh untuk mencari cara yang sesuai bagi membantu murid meningkatkan kemahiran berbahasa Melayu yang standard khususnya dalam penulisan karangan. This research was conducted to study the awareness among rural secondary students in Tuaran District, Sabah in using standard Malay in their essays. 70 essays of Form Four sudents from three secondary schools were analysed individually using qualitative content analysis. Written response from all students were also obtained to identify the reasons forlanguage mixing in their Malay language essays. Findings of this study showed that 55 essays contained language mixes. From this total, 14 essays were found to contain native language mixing. The other 41 essays had mixes with the English language with 28 containing both types of language mixing i.e. native language and English language. Based on the students’ written response and interview feedback on the reasons for the presence of English words in their essays, the language mixing was attributed to habit and being unsure of the correct form of expression in Malay. These findingspointed to a weakness among students in using standard Malay language in their written communication to convey certain messages. This study is beneficial in terms of providing information on the level of Malay language mastery among secondary school students. Teachers could also utilise the information provided to identify appropriate methods to help students improve their standard Malay language skills particularly in essay writing.

Exploring the racial achievement gap on US history written-response state assessment items

PurposeMany states are restructuring their US history state assessments to include written-response assessment items that evaluate students' literacy skills in high-stakes environments. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the addition of an extended-response item to a US history state assessment was associated with an increase in the racial achievement gap.Design/methodology/approachThe theoretical framework included linguistic complexity of standardized assessment items and academic language demand and utilized a difference-in-difference research design.FindingsThe findings indicate that the achievement gap between students of color and White students increased when an extended-response assessment item was added to an exclusively multiple-choice item exam and that this increase in the achievement gap may be contributed to a literacy gap.Research limitations/implicationsThe continued investigation of how students of color perform on different types of extended-response standardized assessment items. And, the continued investigation of evidenced-based instructional practices that focus on developing students' literacy skills in US history as well as culturally responsive instructional practices.Practical implicationsThe knowledge and implementation of literacy instruction and culturally responsive instruction in US history classrooms as well as in preservice teacher education programs and in-service professional development programs.Originality/valueThe current study is one of the first large-scale investigations into the racial achievement gap on US history written-response standardized assessment items and in identifying a literacy gap between students of color and White students on US history written-response state assessment items.

Bridging memories and transformative narratives: A visual and written response to Art-making with refugees and survivors by Sally Adnams Jones / Rapprochements entre souvenirs et récits transformateurs : réponse visuelle et écrite à Art-making with refugees and survivors par Sally Adnams Jones

Book Response: Art-making with refugees and survivors: Creative and transformative responses to trauma after natural disasters, war, and other crises, edited by Sally Adnams Jones. London, England: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018, 336 pp., ISBN: 1785922386Keywords: Community Arts; Refugees and Survivors; International Arts; Expressive and Creative Arts Therapies; Art Education; Transformative. Réaction livresque: Art-making with refugees and survivors: Creative and transformative responses to trauma after natural disasters, war, and other crises, edited by Sally Adnams Jones. London, England: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018, 336 pp., ISBN: 1785922386Mots-clés : arts communautaires ; réfugiés et survivants ; arts internationaux ; thérapies par des activités créatives et d’expression ; éducation artistique ; transformateur.

Alerters in Sudanese Arabic and English Requests

This study aimed at investigating the alerters produced by 200 Sudanese university students in their written response to two Arabic and English Discourse Completion Tasks. The study attempted to classify the different types of alerters collected using the two tasks based on their nature. Then, it compared and contrasted the precursors used by the subjects in the two languages. The study also examined the different functions of alerters produced by the participants. Moreover, it explored the impact of social distance, power relation, and degree of request imposition on the participants’ choice of precursors. The study showed that Arabic utilizes precursors more often and with wider variety than English. Arabic displayed a total of sixteen types of alerters while English used eleven only. It was also found that the precursors were used to perform a variety of religious, social, and pragmatic functions. Moreover, it showed that different contextual factors influenced the subjects’ choice of alerters.

EFL students' response to the teacher's written feedback

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Providing written response to students' writing has been the most widely used method for English teachers to communicate with students of English in EFL/ESL contexts. However, how the EFL students perceive, prefer, and understand the teachers� written response is by no means conclusive. Researchers, educators, teachers are also puzzled by the extent to which teachers' written response influences the students' writing progress. The current study reports the findings from a mixed methods case study with 20 undergraduate Vietnamese students from an intact advanced English writing class at an urban college in Vietnam. Various types of data were collected and examined, including 24 semi-structured interviews with eight selected participants, 80 argumentative papers written within a period of ten weeks, observations, a survey questionnaire including selected-response and open-ended items, and supplementary materials. The study was designed under the theoretical framework of Second Language Acquisition, Sociocultural Perspectives, and Composition Theories on response and error. The study's aim were twofold: (1) to demystify the EFL students' perceptions of and preferences in regard to teachers' written response, and their strategies for understanding and using the response; and (2) to explore the influence of teachers� written response on the students' writing progress. The findings both echoed and contradicted the understandings found in current L2 response literature as to how the students perceive and prefer the focuses, the forms, and the types of teachers� written response, and how the teachers� written response affects the students� writing progress. The findings also indicate important implications for improvement of the L2 writing curricula and the practice of proving instructional responses in the EFL/ESL contexts.