Bibliographic Identification Name and surname of the author: Mgr. Jan Jirovec Name of dissertation: The level of influence of motor proficiency on the performance in the nonverbal aspect of intelligence in younger school-age children (6 - 11 years): A longitudinal study. Workplace: Department of Kinanthropology and Humanities Supervisor of the work: doc. PhDr. Martin Musálek, Ph.D Year of presentation: 2021 Abstract Motor development in children is often linked to the development of cognitive or executive functions. Nevertheless, it still remains unclear how much the level of children's motor proficiency can impact the level of nonverbal intelligence, which is an important part of academic achievement of children. Objectives: The aim of the dissertation thesis is to determine the level of influence and its stability in time between the level of motor proficiency and the performance in the nonverbal aspect of intelligence in younger school-age children with age (categories: 6 - 7 years, 8 - 9 years and 10 -11 years) and sex being considered. Methods: The research sample consisted of 396 children (n=214 girls, n=182 boys) aged 6 - 11 years (age 8,9±1.3) from two elementary schools (Karlovy Vary Region, Prague). The children were divided into 3 groups by age: 6 - 7 years, 8 - 9 years, 10 - 11 years. The...

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires high standards, but academic achievement among English Language Learners (ELL) falls below that of their peers in Texas. These students' lower academic achievement may lead to their dropping out of high school, not going to college, or being underemployed, a problem that led to this study. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether computer-assisted language learning (CALL) helps ELLs improve their English language proficiency compared to traditional learning approaches. Levy's theoretical framework on the implementation of CALL guided this study. A nonequivalent, pretest-and-posttest design was used to examine mean differences in the increase in proficiency level from the beginning to the end of the year on the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) of ELLS in Grades 3-5 who participated in CALL and of those who did not participate. The sample consisted of 106 English language learners in Grades 3-5: 57 students in the treatment group and 49 in the comparison group. A one-way analysis of variance was conducted to compare language proficiency between the treatment and comparison groups. Results revealed no significant difference in the mean increase in proficiency levels of English language learners between the treatment and comparison groups. Additional analyses of TELPAS subdomains (reading, speaking, listening, and writing) indicated CALL was effective on reading only. Based on the findings, a project study on professional development was designed to focus on instructional strategies to support CALL. This project may lead to social change among administrators and teachers in the methods and strategies they use in the classroom to support CALL and as they work collaboratively to improve language proficiency among English language learners.

Testing oral proficiency is an important, but often neglected part of the foreign language classroom. Currently accepted methods in testing oral proficiency are timely and expensive. Some work has been done to test and implement new assessment methods, but have focused primarily on English or Spanish (Graham et al. 2008). In this thesis, I demonstrate that the processes established for English and Spanish elicited imitation (EI) testing are relevant to French EI testing. First, I document the development, implementation and evaluation of an EI test to assess French oral proficiency. I also detail the incorporation of the use of automatic speech recognition to score French EI items. Last, I substantiate with statistical analyses that carefully engineered, automatically scored French EI items correlate to a high degree with French OPI scores.

The Missionary Training Center (MTC), affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, needs a reliable and cost effective way to measure the oral language proficiency of missionaries learning Spanish. The MTC needed to measure incoming missionaries' Spanish language proficiency for training and classroom assignment as well as to provide exit measures of institutional progress. Oral proficiency interviews and semi-direct assessments require highly trained raters, which is costly and time-consuming. The Elicited Imitation (EI) test is a computerized, automated test that measures oral language proficiency by having the participant hear and repeat utterances of varying syllable length in the target language. It is economical, simple to administer, and rate. This dissertation outlined the process of creating and scoring an EI test for the MTC. Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to analyze a large bank of EI items. The best performing 43 items comprise the final version MTC Spanish EI test. Questions about what linguistic features (syllable length, grammatical difficulty) contribute to item difficulty were addressed. Regression analysis showed that syllable length predicted item difficulty, whereas grammar difficulty did not.

Critical thinking has long been recognized as a valuable skill, both in education in general and within the world language teaching field specifically. In recent years, critical thinking has been identified as one of the 21st century skills that students need to succeed in modern society (Partnership, 2009). However, there is no clear, unifying definition of the term itself (Paul, 2004), and the definition of critical thinking is debated in many different fields without support from empirical data (Kuhn, 1999). Similarly, critical thinking has been often discussed in the literature as having great potential to facilitate language learning, and particularly to develop language proficiency (Gaskaree, Mashhady & Dousti, 2010; Heining-Boynton & Heining-Boynton, 1992; Hoch & Hart, 1991; Rojas, 2001; Williams, Lively & Harper, 1994). However, this discussion has not been centered around a single, clear definition or been supported by empirical research. This study attempts to fill these gaps by exploring how currently practicing world language teachers define the term critical thinking. Definitions were gathered through a survey of K-16 world language teachers from across the United States and through interviews with individual beginning level German instructors at a large, private university in the western United States. Findings revealed three primary ways in which teachers define critical thinking: first, by identifying characteristics of critical thinking; second, by discussing the thought processes and skills used in the action of critical thinking; and third, by describing the topics about which critical thinking takes place, either on the micro-level, dealing with language itself, or on the macro-level, dealing with real-world issues and themes. Based on these three areas of definition, several pedagogical implications were identified. As critical thinking is integrated as a 21st century skill into the world language classroom, the traditional roles of the teacher may need to transform, the content used in the classroom may need to change, and the activities in which students are asked to engage may likewise need to shift. The integration of these pedagogical implications into the world language classroom as a means to facilitate the development of advanced levels of language proficiency is also discussed.

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Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Abby Franchitti / The role of first language (L1) has been controversial in foreign language (FL) learning and teaching. This study examines the relationship between L1 use and gender and level of education of EFL teachers as well as gender and EFL proficiency level of learners in an Afghan university setting. It also investigates the relationship between FL use and learner anxiety by learner gender and EFL proficiency level. The study hypothesized that female FL teachers use the L1 more than male teachers in FL classrooms. Second, low FL proficiency learners consider L1 use as necessary in FL classrooms. Third, low FL proficiency students experience more anxiety with the exclusive use of FL than higher level learners. Fourth, female learners experience more anxiety than male students with the exclusive use of FL by learners and teachers. Twenty EFL teachers participated in the study by completing a 19-item questionnaire and sixty EFL learners by completing a 27-item questionnaire about their views towards L1/FL use and learner anxiety. The data, analyzed through SPSS software, included calculating frequencies and percentages, computing correlations, and conducting independent-samples t-tests to compare the mean difference between the variables. The first hypothesis was not supported as male teachers reported using the L1 more than female teachers. The study also revealed that male teachers with BA and MA degrees used the L1 more than female teachers with BA degrees. In contrast, female teachers with MA degrees used the L1 more than male teachers with BA and MA degrees and also more than female teachers with BA degrees. The results supported hypothesis two. More elementary learners considered the use of L1 as necessary than intermediate and advanced students. The findings also supported hypotheses three and four. Elementary learners as well as female students experienced more anxiety with the exclusive use of FL than intermediate and advanced level students and male learners. The principal conclusion indicated a significant positive correlation between the exclusive use of FL and learner anxiety.

The study developed from realisation that there is no information available about strategies or processes in the iBT speaking scoring rubrics, although ETS (Educational Testing Service) claims that the iBT speaking test is designed to measure strategic processes, which is one constructs of academic proficiency. Therefore, the study investigates which strategic processes are used to complete given speaking tasks. This would provide evidence to help in the evaluation of the validity claims proposed by the test designers. Six Korean participants, studying at English-medium universities, completed 2 independent tasks and 2 integrated tasks both in a test and in their class. Participants’ speech samples were collected during the performances and stimulated recall verbalisation was conducted after they had completed the tasks. Speech samples were coded into five categories: approach, compensation, cognitive, metacognitive strategies and feelings. Consequently, the study examined how strategies reported through stimulated recalls were present in actual speech. The findings showed that metacognitive strategies were used most frequently under both conditions. Fair-level speakers employed more strategies in the test, while good-level speakers used more strategies in the class. Moreover, integrated task types elicited more strategy use for both conditions. Speakers reported that they felt significantly more negative under test conditions than in the class. More importantly, two conditions shared 67.74% of the strategy types, and 84% of the strategy types used in the test were also used in the classroom, which may strengthen the validity of the iBT speaking test in terms of strategy use. Finally, evidences of strategy use were identified in actual speech, which can open the way to operationalised strategy use assessment in speaking test. However, the figure of evidenced strategy use was very low: 5.28% and 2.66% respectively in the test and in the class. It is recommended that future research be carried out with a large number of participants in order to generalise strategy use in speaking performance. Moreover, further studies might be conducted to examine the significance of observable strategic evidence in speech, to inform decisions to include strategies in the scoring rubrics.

My dissertation follows a coherent theme on three important and interesting issues for the Korean labor market as follows: Chapter 1 using data from the 2008 Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled (PSED) investigates gender wage differentials among the disabled. The selectivity corrected decomposition framework is employed to examine what factors - endowments, discrimination, and selectivity - account for the wage gap. The main results are as follows: (1) the gender wage gap among the disabled is sizable: (2) the wage gap is significantly attributable to discrimination: (3) the endowments factor plays an important role in explaining gender wage differentials, as well: and (4) the presence of selection effects raises the observed wage gap. Such evidence suggests that Korean disabled female workers are more likely to be disadvantaged than their male counterparts in terms of wages.Chapter 2 using the 2007 Korea Labor and Income Panel Survey (KLIPS) examines the impact on wages of skills-job mismatch between acquired and required English language proficiency in Korean workplaces. The main findings of this study reveal (1) job mismatch in terms of English language skills has a strong statistically significant impact on wages: (2) the returns to over-skilling are negative (the wage penalty), while the returns to under-skilling are positive (the wage premium): and (3) the wage penalty associated with over-skilling is stronger than the wage premium associated with under-skilling.Chapter 3 using the KLIPS data from 1998 through 2008 investigates the causal relationship between veteran status and post-service labor market outcomes by examining the wage experience of veterans and nonveterans. The major empirical findings can be summarized as follows: (1) contrary to the general perception, veteran status has a significant positive impact on wages after completion of military service, inducing a veteran wage premium: and (2) in terms of the veteran wage premium in subgroups based on educational attainment at the time of entry into military service, less-educated veterans have a greater wage premium relative to their nonveteran counterparts of similar backgrounds than is the case for more-educated veterans. It suggests that military service could be particularly important for less-educated veterans.

This study explored the extent to which graduate students enrolled in Higher Education courses were proficient at writing. While writing proficiency has been extensively studied in elementary students, high school students, and undergraduates, little attention has been paid to formally evaluating graduate student proficiency. Despite the relatively new idea of assessing graduate student writing, it is a concern for graduate faculty and a valid area for study. This study was based on a sample of graduate students enrolled in at least one course in Higher Education at public institutions of higher education in the United States. A total sample size of 97 students was obtained. Two instruments were administered to the participants: A General Information and Writing Experience Questionnaire (G-WEQ) and the SAT II: Writing Test, Part B. The G-WEQ was designed to capture demographic information about the participants, as well as allow participants to provide a self-assessment of writing and describe the writing experiences they are currently encountering in graduate school. To assess writing proficiency for the participants, the SAT II: Writing Test, Part B was used. The purpose of the test is to "measure [test takers'] ability to...recognize faults in usage and structure, and to use language with sensitivity to meaning" (Educational Testing Service, 1999-2000, p.7). The z-Statistic for a Single Sample Mean significance test was used to determine whether the sample mean scored significantly higher than the population mean on the SAT II: Writing Test. This was not the case (z=0.295, p<0.38). The graduate students in this sample did not score significantly higher on the SAT II: Writing Test, Part B than the typical high school senior whose scores enter into the norm group.