Collaborative Writing in EFL Classroom: Comparison on Group, Pair, and Individual Writing Activities in Argumentative Tasks

This study focused on comparing the effects on 32 students’ argumentative writing qualities when they worked alone or collaborated in pairs and groups and explored the students’ opinions towards critical thinking across different writing activities. The 32 students were divided into groups of four (n=8), pairs (n=16) and individuals (n=32). Their papers were rated in terms of content, language use, and organization by three raters. The research employed argumentative writing rubrics, semi-structured interview, and observation. From the total of 15 points, the novice learners gained the highest scores when writing in groups (X ̅ = 11.22), followed by pairs (X ̅ = 10.19) and individuals (X ̅ = 8.98). The intermediate learners also gained the highest scores in group work (X ̅ = 11.50), followed by pairs (X ̅ = 10.32), and individual work (X ̅ = 9.04), respectively. Similar to the advanced level, they had the highest scores when working in groups (X ̅ = 11.95), followed by pairs (X ̅ = 10.45), and individuals (X ̅ = 9.45). The findings indicated that group work led to the highest scores in all proficiency levels and in groups, the students’ critical thinking improved regarding analyzing, evaluating and creating information when they brainstormed, shared and discussed all information. In pairs, the students also demonstrated that their critical thinking developed but only in analyzing from sharing information with a partner. In individuals, all proficiency levels reported that critical thinking was not developed as no interaction with peers.

Association between Dementia and Clinical Outcome after COVID-19: A Nationwide Cohort Study with Propensity Score Matched Control in South Korea

Objective Despite a high prevalence of dementia in older adults hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection (SARS-CoV-2), or so called COVID-19, research investigating association between preexisting diagnoses of dementia and prognosis of COVID-19 is scarce. We aimed to investigate treatment outcome of patients with dementia after COVID-19. Methods We explored a nationwide cohort with a total of 2,800 subjects older than 50 years who were diagnosed with COVID-19 between January and April 2020. Among them, 223 patients had underlying dementia (dementia group). We matched 1:1 for each dementia- non-dementia group pair yielding 223 patients without dementia (no dementia group) using propensity score matching. Results Mortality rate after COVID-19 was higher in dementia group than in no dementia group (33.6% vs. 20.2%, p=0.002). Dementia group had higher proportion of patients requiring invasive ventilatory support than no dementia group (34.1% vs. 22.0%, p=0.006). Multivariable analysis showed that dementia group had a higher risk of mortality than no dementia group (odds ratio=3.05, p<0.001). We also found that patients in dementia group had a higher risk of needing invasive ventilatory support than those in no dementia group. Conclusion Our results suggest that system including strengthen quarantines are required for patients with dementia during the COVID- 19 pandemic.

Association Between Dementia and Clinical Outcome After COVID-19: A Nationwide Cohort Study with Propensity Score Matched Control in South Korea

Despite a high prevalence of dementia in older adults hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection (COVID-19), research investigating association between preexisting diagnoses of dementia and prognosis of COVID-19 is scarce. We explored a nationwide cohort with a total of 2,800 subjects older than 50 years who were diagnosed with COVID-19 between January and April 2020. Among them, 223 patients had underlying dementia (dementia group). We matched 1:1 for each dementia-non-dementia group pair yielding 223 patients without dementia (no dementia group) using propensity score matching. The primary outcome measure was group difference in mortality after COVID-19. Mortality rate after COVID-19 were significantly higher in dementia group than in no dementia group (33.6% vs. 20.2%, p=0.002). In addition, dementia group had higher proportion of patients requiring invasive ventilatory support than no dementia group (34.1% vs. 22.0%, p=0.006). Multivariable analysis showed that dementia group had a higher risk of mortality than no dementia group (odds ratio=3.05, p<0.001). We also found that patients in dementia group had a higher risk of needing invasive ventilatory support than those in no dementia group. Our results suggest that system including strengthen quarantines are required for patients with dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Comparison of Solo and Pair Programming in Terms of Flow Experience, Coding Quality, and Coding Achievement

Cooperative learning manifests itself as pair programming in coding education. There is a limited number of studies experimentally demonstrating that pair programming is effective in the educational context. Therefore, in this study, solo and pair programming were compared in terms of flow experience, coding quality, and coding achievement. The method used in this study is a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. The study group consists of 42 volunteer senior university students (28 males, 14 females). While solo programming was performed in the control group, pair programming was performed in the experimental group. It was concluded that the flow experience of the experimental group was higher than that of the control group in four weeks of the six-week implementation, whereas the coding quality of the experimental group was higher in three weeks. No difference was found in the other weeks in terms of both flow experience and coding quality. Although the coding achievement of both the control and experimental groups increased in the study, the experimental group did not exhibit better performance in terms of coding achievement. In conclusion, since it was revealed in this study that pair programming is effective, it is recommended to use pair programming more frequently in educational settings.

Density matrix renormalization group pair-density functional theory (DMRG-PDFT): singlet–triplet gaps in polyacenes and polyacetylenes

The density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) is a powerful method to treat static correlation.