Weighting Assessment of the Effect of Chinese State-Changing Words on Emotions.

Past studies of sentiment analysis have mainly applied algorithms based on vocabulary categories and emotional characteristics to detect the emotionality of text. However, the collocation of state-changing words and emotional vocabulary affects emotions. For example, adverbs of degree strengthen emotions, and negative adverbs reverse emotions. This study investigated the weighted effect of state-changing words on emotion. The research material comprised 73 state-changing words that were collocated with four emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. A total of 84 participants participated in the vocabulary assessment. The results revealed that state-changing words could be classified into four types: intensifying, weakening, neutralizing, and reversing. In a comparison of the weighting factors among emotions, the weighting effect of the same state-changing word in the positive emotion category was particularly evident. The results could serve as a reference for follow-up studies on detecting emotions in text.

Relative Roles of Grammar Knowledge and Vocabulary in the Reading Comprehension of EFL Elementary-School Learners: Direct, Mediating, and Form/Meaning-Distinct Effects.

Despite the recognized importance of grammar knowledge to the reading comprehension of EFL learners, research findings on the relationships among grammar knowledge, vocabulary, and reading comprehension are inconclusive. Attention needs to be paid to issues such as the distinct roles of the two grammar knowledge components of form and meaning, and the direct and mediating roles of vocabulary in EFL reading comprehension. This study recruited 1,149 sixth graders as research participants to evaluate these issues. The measurement tools were standardized EFL competence tests for vocabulary size, grammar forms and meanings, and reading comprehension. Structural equation modeling (SEM) regression models indicated that vocabulary played a more-significant role in reading comprehension than grammar knowledge; moreover, the effects of grammar knowledge were reduced but still significant when grammar meanings were excluded. The SEM mediating model of this study also indicated that grammar knowledge not only exerted a direct effect on reading comprehension but also indirectly influenced reading comprehension via vocabulary.

CLAD: A corpus-derived Chinese Lexical Association Database.

The application of word associations has become increasingly widespread. However, the association norms produced by traditional free association tests tend not to exceed 10,000 stimulus words, making the number of associated words too small to be representative of the overall language. In this study we used text corpora totaling over 400 million Chinese words, along with a multitude of association measures, to automatically construct a Chinese Lexical Association Database (CLAD) comprising the lexical association of over 80,000 words. Comparison of the CLAD with a database of traditional Chinese word association norms shows that word associations extracted from large text corpora are similar in strength to those elicited from free association tests but contain a much greater number of associative word pairs. Additionally, the relatively small numbers of participants involved in the creation of traditional norms result in relatively coarse scales of association measurement, whereas the differentiation of association strengths is greatly enhanced in the CLAD. The CLAD provides researchers with a great supplement to traditional word association norms. A query website at www.chinesereadability.net/LexicalAssociation/CLAD/ affords access to the database.

The subject-dependent, cumulative, and recency association of aerobic fitness with academic performance in Taiwanese junior high school students.

BACKGROUND: The objective of the current study was to examine whether the relation between aerobic fitness and academic achievement during adolescence is subject-dependent, and to investigate cumulative and recency effects. METHODS: This study made use of two nationwide datasets. The first was the aerobic fitness profile of junior high school students collected by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. The second contained the scores on the Basic Competence Test for Junior High School Students (BCTJH). The sample consisted of 382,259 students who completed the BCTJH in the 5 years between 2009 and 2013. Data on each student's aerobic fitness during their three years of junior high school were matched with their exam results at the end of this period. RESULTS: The results revealed that students classified as highly-fit during at least one of the three years had higher BCTJH scores than those who never achieved this level, with the size of effect increasing with the length of time that fitness was maintained. Additionally, aerobic fitness in the final year was more closely linked to BCTJH scores than that in the earlier two years. Fitness was also more strongly associated with exam performance in math, science and social science, relative to language-related subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that while aerobic fitness is positively related to academic achievement in Taiwanese junior high school students, the relationship depends on academic subject, as well as the length and time of being aerobically fit.

The Relations between 3-year Changes in Physical Fitness and Academic Performance in Nationally Representative Sample of Junior High School Students.

The objective of the current study was to examine the relationship between different components of physical fitness across 3 years of junior high school with academic performance assessed at the end of the period. Two nationwide representative datasets were used. The first was the physical fitness profile assessed at the beginning of each of the three school years. The second contained the scores on a standardized test administered at the end of the third year. All data were standardized by calculating percentile rank (PR). Students were classified as "High-fit" if their fitness scores ≧ top 25% PR on the age- and sex-adjusted norms. All other students were classified as "not high-fit". The relationships between fitness and exam performance were tested adjusting for sex, body mass index, and level of urbanization. Students who were in the high-fit group in both years 1 and 3 academically outperformed those who were outside this classification during both assessments. The degree of outperformance was greatest for those who were aerobically fit, followed by those who were high-fit in terms of muscular endurance, muscular strength, and flexibility, respectively. It is therefore concluded that the relationship between physical fitness and academic performance in Taiwanese junior high school students is strongest in the case of aerobic fitness.

The Visual Analogue Scale for Rating, Ranking and Paired-Comparison (VAS-RRP): A new technique for psychological measurement.

Traditionally, the visual analogue scale (VAS) has been proposed to overcome the limitations of ordinal measures from Likert-type scales. However, the function of VASs to overcome the limitations of response styles to Likert-type scales has not yet been addressed. Previous research using ranking and paired comparisons to compensate for the response styles of Likert-type scales has suffered from limitations, such as that the total score of ipsative measures is a constant that cannot be analyzed by means of many common statistical techniques. In this study we propose a new scale, called the Visual Analogue Scale for Rating, Ranking, and Paired-Comparison (VAS-RRP), which can be used to collect rating, ranking, and paired-comparison data simultaneously, while avoiding the limitations of each of these data collection methods. The characteristics, use, and analytic method of VAS-RRPs, as well as how they overcome the disadvantages of Likert-type scales, ranking, and VASs, are discussed. On the basis of analyses of simulated and empirical data, this study showed that VAS-RRPs improved reliability, response style bias, and parameter recovery. Finally, we have also designed a VAS-RRP Generator for researchers' construction and administration of their own VAS-RRPs.

The Effects of Mobile-Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Meta-Analysis and Critical Synthesis.

One of the trends in collaborative learning is using mobile devices for supporting the process and products of collaboration, which has been forming the field of mobile-computer-supported collaborative learning (mCSCL). Although mobile devices have become valuable collaborative learning tools, evaluative evidence for their substantial contributions to collaborative learning is still scarce. The present meta-analysis, which included 48 peer-reviewed journal articles and doctoral dissertations written over a 16-year period (2000-2015) involving 5,294 participants, revealed that mCSCL has produced meaningful improvements for collaborative learning, with an overall mean effect size of 0.516. Moderator variables, such as domain subject, group size, teaching method, intervention duration, and reward method were related to different effect sizes. The results provided implications for future research and practice, such as suggestions on how to appropriately use the functionalities of mobile devices, how to best leverage mCSCL through effective group learning mechanisms, and what outcome variables should be included in future studies to fully elucidate the process and products of mCSCL.

Identifying the Career-Interest Profiles of Junior-High-School Students Through Latent Profile Analysis.

Exploring the career-interest profiles of students has both practical and theoretical significance; however, a minimal amount of research has been conducted to address this issue. The present study combined latent profile analysis and differentiation values to investigate the career-interest profiles of 13,853 junior-high-school students. The results indicate that while the students' interests could be stratified into 25 profiles, 44.6% of students could be classified the as having low-differentiation profiles (such as like or dislike all types of vocational activities) and 24.9% of students could be classified the as having the artistic-social (like both artistic and social types of activities) profile. In addition, the proportions of females and males differed significantly among the profiles, but different grades did not. The proportion of males was higher for all three low-differentiation groups than of female proportions. Implications for career practices and future research are proposed.

Processing Preference Toward Object-Extracted Relative Clauses in Mandarin Chinese by L1 and L2 Speakers: An Eye-Tracking Study.

The current study employed an eye-movement technique with an attempt to explore the reading patterns for the two types of Chinese relative clauses, subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) and object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs), by native speakers (L1), and Japanese learners (L2) of Chinese. The data were analyzed in terms of gaze duration, regression path duration, and regression rate on the two critical regions, head noun, and embedded verb. The results indicated that both the L1 and L2 participants spent less time on the head nouns in ORCs than in SRCs. Also, the L2 participants spent less time on the embedded verbs in ORCs than in SRCs and their regression rate for embedded verbs was generally lower in ORCs than in SRC. The findings showed that the participants experienced less processing difficulty in ORCs than SRCs. These results suggest an ORC preference in L1 and L2 speakers of Chinese, which provides evidence in support of linear distance hypothesis and implies that the syntactic nature of Chinese is at play in the RC processing.

Investigating the Processing of Relative Clauses in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from Eye-Movement Data.

A number of previous studies on Chinese relative clauses (RC) have reported conflicting results on processing asymmetry. This study aims to revisit the prevalent debate on whether subject-extracted RCs (SRC) or object-extracted RCs (ORC) are easier to process by using the eye-movement technique. In the current study, the data are analyzed in terms of the gaze duration and regression of eye-movement in three critical areas: head noun, embedded verb, and RC-modifying noun phrase as subject. The results show an ORC preference for the processing of RC structures, which supports the word-order account and the Dependency Locality Theory, and a better cross-clausal integration for SRC, which supports the perspective-shift account. The processing asymmetry in Chinese RCs are discussed under relevant theoretical accounts, such as structure-based, memory-based, and perspective shift accounts. We argue that the findings are associated with the syntactic nature of Chinese (a head-initial language with pre-nominal RCs).

CRIE: An automated analyzer for Chinese texts.

Textual analysis has been applied to various fields, such as discourse analysis, corpus studies, text leveling, and automated essay evaluation. Several tools have been developed for analyzing texts written in alphabetic languages such as English and Spanish. However, currently there is no tool available for analyzing Chinese-language texts. This article introduces a tool for the automated analysis of simplified and traditional Chinese texts, called the Chinese Readability Index Explorer (CRIE). Composed of four subsystems and incorporating 82 multilevel linguistic features, CRIE is able to conduct the major tasks of segmentation, syntactic parsing, and feature extraction. Furthermore, the integration of linguistic features with machine learning models enables CRIE to provide leveling and diagnostic information for texts in language arts, texts for learning Chinese as a foreign language, and texts with domain knowledge. The usage and validation of the functions provided by CRIE are also introduced.

Examining the online reading behavior and performance of fifth-graders: evidence from eye-movement data.

Online reading is developing at an increasingly rapid rate, but the debate concerning whether learning is more effective when using hypertexts than when using traditional linear texts is still persistent. In addition, several researchers stated that online reading comprehension always starts with a question, but little empirical evidence has been gathered to investigate this claim. This study used eye-tracking technology and retrospective think aloud technique to examine online reading behaviors of fifth-graders (N = 50). The participants were asked to read four texts on the website. The present study employed a three-way mixed design: 2 (reading ability: high vs. low) × 2 (reading goals: with vs. without) × 2 (text types: hypertext vs. linear text). The dependent variables were eye-movement indices and the frequencies of using online reading strategy. The results show that fifth-graders, irrespective of their reading ability, found it difficult to navigate the non-linear structure of hypertexts when searching for and integrating information. When they read with goals, they adjusted their reading speed and the focus of their attention. Their offline reading ability also influenced their online reading performance. These results suggest that online reading skills and strategies have to be taught in order to enhance the online reading abilities of elementary-school students.

Constructing and validating readability models: the method of integrating multilevel linguistic features with machine learning.

Multilevel linguistic features have been proposed for discourse analysis, but there have been few applications of multilevel linguistic features to readability models and also few validations of such models. Most traditional readability formulae are based on generalized linear models (GLMs; e.g., discriminant analysis and multiple regression), but these models have to comply with certain statistical assumptions about data properties and include all of the data in formulae construction without pruning the outliers in advance. The use of such readability formulae tends to produce a low text classification accuracy, while using a support vector machine (SVM) in machine learning can enhance the classification outcome. The present study constructed readability models by integrating multilevel linguistic features with SVM, which is more appropriate for text classification. Taking the Chinese language as an example, this study developed 31 linguistic features as the predicting variables at the word, semantic, syntax, and cohesion levels, with grade levels of texts as the criterion variable. The study compared four types of readability models by integrating unilevel and multilevel linguistic features with GLMs and an SVM. The results indicate that adopting a multilevel approach in readability analysis provides a better representation of the complexities of both texts and the reading comprehension process.

Processing Chinese hand-radicals activates the medial frontal gyrus: A functional MRI investigation.

Embodied semantics theory asserts that the meaning of action-related words is neurally represented through networks that overlap with or are identical to networks involved in sory-motor processing. While some studies supporting this theory have focused on Chinese characters, less attention has been paid to their semantic radicals. Indeed, there is still disagreement about whether these radicals are processed independently. The present study investigated whether radicals are processed separately and, if so, whether this processing occurs in sensory-motor gions. Materials consisted of 72 high-frequency Chinese characters, with 18 in each of four ries: hand-action verbs with and without hand-radicals, and verbs not related to hand actions, with and without hand-radicals. Twenty-eight participants underwent functional MRI scans while reading the characters. Compared to characters without hand-radicals, reading characters with hand-radicals activated the right medial frontal gyrus. Verbs involving hand-action activated the left inferior parietal lobule, possibly reflecting integration of information in the radical with the semantic meaning of the verb. The findings may be consistent with embodied semantics theory and suggest that neural representation of radicals is indispensable in processing Chinese characters.

How many heads are better than one? The reliability and validity of teenagers' self- and peer assessments.

Self- and peer assessments are becoming more popular in classrooms, but there are few data on the reliability and validity of such assessments performed by school children. Because these factors are greatly affected by the number of raters, we conducted two studies to determine the rating behaviours of teenagers in self- and peer assessments, and how the number of raters influences the reliability and validity of self- and peer assessments. The first study involved 116 seventh graders (the first grade of middle school), where students individually playing musical recorders were subject to self- and peer assessments. The second study involved 110 eighth graders, with Web pages constructed by students being subject to self- and peer assessments. Generalizability theory and criterion-related validity were used to obtain the reliability and validity coefficients of the self- and peer ratings. Analyses of variance were used to compare differences in self- and peer ratings between low- and high-achieving students. The coefficients of reliability and validity increased with the number of raters in both studies, reaching the acceptable levels of 0.80 and 0.70, respectively, with 3 or 4 raters in the first study (involving assessments of individual performance) and with 14-17 raters in the second study (involving assessments of group work). Furthermore, low- and high-achieving students tended to over- and underestimate the quality of their work in self-assessment, respectively. The discrepancy between the ratings of students and experts was higher in group-work assessments then in individual-work assessments. The results have both theoretical and practical implications for researchers and teachers.

Low birth weight, prematurity, and paternal social status: impact on the basic competence test in Taiwanese adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether birth weight and paternal education may have independent and interactive effects on the learning achievement of adolescents. STUDY DESIGN: We linked birth weights, gestational ages (term or preterm) and paternal education of a 4-year birth cohort to the Basic Competence Test (BCT) scores in Mandarin, mathematics and science for junior high school students age 15 to 16 years. The study groups comprised infants with term low birth weight (TLBW; n = 33 507), preterm normal birth weight (PNBW; n =19 905), and preterm low birth weight (PLBW; n = 25 840), as well as randomly selected term infants with normal birth weight (TNBW; n = 83 756). Paternal education levels were categorized. RESULTS: Compared with the TNBW adolescents, the TLBW adolescents consistently showed larger deficits in mean scores for Mandarin (beta = -2.36), mathematics (beta = -2.89), and science (beta = -2.11). The corresponding significant deficit scores for the PLBW adolescents were -1.93, -2.80, and -1.92. The deficit scores were very small for the PNBW adolescents. Paternal education was inversely associated with scores of all 3 groups. Lower paternal education level tended to worsen the negative impact of low birth weight on BCT scores. CONCLUSIONS: Both lower birth weight and lower paternal education exert an independent and interactive effect on adolescent learning achievement.