The present study explores the relationship between temporal fluency and second language (L2) learners' self-assessed and externally assessed proficiency level across the target languages French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Temporal fluency is operationalized as articulation rate (the speed of speech), the mean length of utterance, and the silent pause frequency. Participants (n = 283) in this study are native English speakers enrolled in upper-division language courses at Brigham Young University (BYU). Each participant completed both a self-assessment (the Language Ability Self-Evaluation Resource or LASER) as well as the Computerized Oral Proficiency Interview (OPIc) to receive an external proficiency assessment. Temporal fluency measures were automatically extracted from audio recordings used for the self-assessment (LASER) using a Praat script developed by De Jong & Wempe (2009). The results from this study find a strong, significant relationship between all temporal fluency measures and both self-assessed and OPIc-assessed proficiency. This relationship remains strong when comparing across L2 groups for all three temporal fluency measures and OPIc proficiency rating. For self-assessed proficiency, only some temporal fluency measures are found to be significantly related to self-assessed proficiency across each target language group, with articulation rate found to be the most consistently significant temporal fluency measure across all three target language groups. Together, these findings suggest that as speakers speak faster, produce longer utterances, and pause less frequently, they also tend to increase in proficiency, both according to their own self-assessment as well as within a formal oral proficiency assessment (OPIc).

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Syftet med studien var att undersöka självupplevd oral hälsa (SPOH) och faktorer som påverkar den, i en vuxen population i Kalmar län, Sverige. Studien är en del av en epidemiologisk studie som genomfördes under 2010-2012. Urvalet för denna studie bestod av 380 slumpvis utvalda personer som deltog i en omfattande klinisk undersökning och svarade på en enkät. Enkäten bestod av 56 frågor angående bl.a. patientens självupplevda orala hälsa och socioekonomiska situation. Den studerade populationen bestod av 189 kvinnor (49,9%) och 190 män (50,1%). Individerna var 20-90 år, med en genomsnittlig ålder av 52 år. Självupplevd oral hälsa definierades statistiskt utifrån en av frågorna i enkäten: självupplevd oral hälsa jämfört med jämnåriga, och benämndes SPOH. De kliniska variabler som analyserades var antal egna tänder, DMFT (Decayed, Missed, Filled Teeth), tandluckor och riskbedömning (summa av tandläkarens bedömning av kariesrisk, parodontal risk, teknisk risk och allmän risk). Bakgrundsvariablerna var ålder, kön, utbildning och etnicitet. Bivariata korrelationer och en regressionsanalys utfördes med SPOH som beroende variabel och med bakgrundsfaktorer och kliniska variabler som oberoende variabler. Signifikanta korrelationer påvisades mellan SPOH och ålder (p<0,01), DMFT (p<0,01), antal egna tänder (p<0,01) och tandläkarens riskbedömning (p<0,01). Högre SPOH korrelerade med ökande ålder, fler egna tänder och lägre DMFT. En överensstämmelse mellan tandläkarens bedömning av patientens orala status och SPOH påvisades i sambandet mellan dessa två variabler, vilket indikerar att högre bedömd risk är förknippat med en lägre SPOH. / The aim of this study was to investigate self-perceived oral health (SPOH) and factors affecting it, among adults in the Swedish county of Kalmar. The study is part of an epidemiologic study conducted in 2010-2012. The sample for this study was comprised of 380 individuals, randomly selected, who participated in a clinical examination with a concomitant questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 56 questions concerning e.g. patient perception of oral health and socio-economic situation. The final study population consisted of 189 women (49.9%) and 190 men (50.1%). The individuals were 20-90 years, with a mean age of 52 years. Self-perceived oral health was statistically defined by one question of the questionnaire: self-assessed oral health as compared to contemporaries of the same age, and termed SPOH. The clinical variables analysed were number of own teeth, DMFT (Decayed, Missed, Filled Teeth), gaps between teeth and risk assessment (sum of the dentists assessment of caries risk, periodontal risk, technical risk and general risk). The background variables were age, gender, education and ethnicity. Bivariate correlations and regression analyses were conducted with SPOH as dependent variable, and with background factors and clinical variables as independent variables. Significant correlations were found between SPOH and age (p<0.01), DMFT score (p<0.01), number of own teeth (p<0.01) and the dentists’ risk assessment (p<0.01). Higher SPOH was associated with increased age, increased number of own teeth and decreased DMFT. A consistency between the clinician’s assessment of the patient’s oral status and SPOH was shown in the correlation between these two variables, which implies that a higher risk assessment is associated with a lower SPOH.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) on prosody with or without self-assessment on the prosodic and global aspects of L2 speech by Japanese EFL learners using a pre-post design. In addition, native English speaking (NS) and non-native English speaking (NNS) raters with high levels of English proficiency were compared to examine the influence of raters’ L1 backgrounds on their comprehensibility ratings. Sixty-one Japanese university students from four intact English presentation classes participated in the study. The comparison group (n = 16) practiced making one-minute speeches in class (45 minutes x 8 times) without explicit instruction on prosody, while the two experimental groups (n = 17 for the FFI-only group; n = 28 for the FFI + SA group) received FFI on word stress, rhythm, and intonation, practiced the target prosodic features in communicative contexts, and received metalinguistic feedback from the instructor. In total, the experimental groups received six-hours of instruction in class, which was comparable to the comparison group. Additionally, the experimental groups completed homework three times; only the FFI + SA group recorded their reading performance and self-assessed it in terms of word stress, rhythm, and intonation. Three oral tasks were employed to elicit the participants’ speech before and after the treatment: reading aloud, one-minute speech, and picture description. The speech samples were rated for comprehensibility by NS and NNS raters and were also analyzed with four prosodic measurements: word stress, rhythm, pitch contour, and pitch range. Instructional effects on prosody were observed clearly. The FFI-only group improved their controlled production of rhythm and pitch contour, while the FFI + SA group significantly improved all of the prosodic features except pitch range. Moreover, the instructional gains for the FFI + SA group were not limited to the controlled task but transferred to the less-controlled tasks. The results showed differential instructional effects on the four prosodic aspects. The FFI in this study did not help the participants widen their pitch range. The FFI on prosody, which was focused on the cross-linguistic differences between Japanese and English, tended to be more effective in terms of improving rhythm and pitch contour, which were categorized as rule-based, than an item-based feature, word stress. The study offered mixed results regarding instructional effects on comprehensibility. The FFI-only group did not significantly improve comprehensibility despite their significant prosodic improvements on the reading aloud task. Their significant comprehensibility growth on the picture description task was not because of the development of prosody, but of other linguistic variables that influence comprehensibility such as speech rate. The FFI + SA group made significant gains for comprehensibility on the three tasks, but the effect sizes were small. This finding indicated that the effects of FFI with self-assessment on comprehensibility were limited due to the multi-faceted nature of comprehensibility. The data elicited from the post-activity questionnaires and students’ interviews revealed that not all the participants in the FFI + SA group reacted positively to the self-assessment practice. Individual differences such as previous learning experience and self-efficacy appeared to influence the learners’ perceptions of the self-assessment practice and possibly their instructional gains. The two groups of raters, L1 English raters (n = 6) and L2 English raters with advanced or native-like English proficiency (n = 6) did not differ in terms of consistency and severity. These findings indicated that NNS raters with high English proficiency could function as reliably as NS raters; however, the qualitative data revealed that the NS raters tended to be more sensitive to pronunciation, especially at the segmental level, across the three tasks compared to the NNS raters. This study provides evidence that FFI, especially when it is reinforced by self-assessment, has pedagogical value; it can improve learners’ production of English prosody in controlled and less-controlled speech, and these gains can in turn contribute to enhanced L2 comprehensibility. / Teaching & Learning

This study was an investigation of the validity of students' self-assessment of L2 oral performance, the influences of L2 affective variables on their self-assessment bias, and the degree to which the influences of L2 affective variables differ between high and low proficiency learners. The participants were 389 science majors from two private Japanese universities. A questionnaire was administered using items based on the Attitude/Motivational Test Battery (Gardner, 1985), the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwtiz et al., 1986), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), Sick and Nagasaka's (2000) Willingness to Communicate Scale, and items designed to measure motivation adapted from Gardner, Tremblay, and Masgoret (1997), Yashima (2002), Irie (2005), and Matsuoka (2006). A factor analysis identified seven factors in the questionnaire data: Self-Esteem, L2 Speaking Anxiety, L2 Willingness to Communicate, Attitude Toward Learning to Speak English, L2 Speaking Motivational Intensity, Desire to Learn to Speak English, and L2 Speaking Self-Confidence. The scales were further validated using the Rasch rating scale model. Student oral interviews were recorded and rated by five English teachers using an oral assessment scale based on the Kanda English Proficiency Test (Bonk & Ockey, 2003).Immediately after the interviews were completed, the participants were asked to consider how they perceived their own speaking performance and they rated their own performance from their memory using the same oral assessment scale that the teacher raters used. The oral assessment scale included the descriptions of the oral performances that match each level. The participants read the descriptions of each level and chose a level that they thought matched their own performance. The study produced four main findings. First, a multi-faceted Rasch analysis revealed that the participants rated their own L2 speaking more severely than the teacher raters and that the students' self-assessments were neither reliable nor consistent. Second, self-assessment bias measures were calculated and used to test a hypothesized structural model of how affective factors influenced self-assessment bias. The hypothesized model showed poor fit to the data, possibly due to the poor reliability of the self-assessment measures. Multiple regression analyses conducted as a follow-up analysis revealed that participants with greater Desire to Learn to Speak English tended to underestimate and those with greater L2 Speaking Self-Confidence tended to overestimate their own speaking performance. Third, 106 participants whose self-ratings were similar to the teachers' ratings were compared with other students in order to examine their distinctive features. However, no significant differences in L2 oral proficiency or affective variable measures were found between the two. Therefore, those whose self-assessments agreed with teachers could have resulted in some agreements that occurred by chance alone. Finally, 100 higher proficiency students were compared with 100 lower proficiency students and the results showed that the higher proficiency students with greater Desire to Learn to Speak English generally underestimated their L2 speaking proficiency, while those with higher Self-Esteem and greater L2 Speaking Self-Confidence tended to overestimate it. Lower proficiency students with greater L2 Speaking Self-Confidence tended to overestimate their L2 speaking proficiency. The results suggest that the self-assessment of L2 speaking might not be a sufficiently reliable or consistent assessment tool. Therefore, if teachers are considering including self-assessment in a speaking class, self-assessment training should be conducted. Additionally, giving L2 learners more opportunities to speak the L2 can help them notice gaps between their productions and those of proficient speakers, which might lead to more accurate self-assessment. Second, although some studies utilized only one teacher-rater, five teacher raters in this study displayed a great deal of diversity and exhibited unique bias patterns, so multiple raters should be employed and Facets analyses should be employed because the multi-faceted Rasch model provides person ability estimates that are adjusted for rater bias. Finally, the use of multi-faceted Rasch analysis is useful for examining oral data because unlike raw scores, multi-faceted Rasch analysis provides detailed information concerning speaker ability, rater severity, and category difficulty. Moreover, while most researchers have utilized self-assessment raw scores, in this study bias measures of self-assessment were calculated using Facets, which indicated that the bias measures produced different outcomes compared with self-assessment scores. / Teaching & Learning

An increasingly evident trend within higher education is the transition to online settings and the emergence of new online learning initiatives. This study evaluates an online learning environment which incorporates question-based learning.  Previous research has shown that question-based learning accelerates student learning. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect that question-based learning has on self-assessed student confidence in programming, but also on  the relation between their confidence and learning outcomes.  The latter can be used to measure consistency in self-assessments. Learning outcomes were estimated based on student quiz scores. A gender perspective was also included in the analysis of confidence and learning outcomes.  Data on confidence and quiz scores was gathered from 210 students in an introductory programming course between the years of 2018 and 2021. The first two course offerings were given before a question-based learning design was introduced and the following four included a question-based learning approach. This enabled a case-control study, comparing the two learning designs. To analyze the data set, two statistical analysis methods were conducted: multiple linear regression and  correlation analysis. The results suggested that the presence of question-based learning design increases correlation between quiz scores and confidence. This indicates that students are more consistent in their self-assessment of confidence with regards to their quiz scores when question-based learning is used. It was also shown that question-based learning design increased students’ confidence in programming. Another finding was that male students reported greater confidence than female students, but the correlation between quiz scores and confidence did not differ significantly between the genders. / En alltmer tydlig trend inom högre utbildning är dess  förflyttning till digitala rum samt uppkomsten av nya digitala  utbildningsinitiativ. Den här studien har genomförts på en  digital lärandemiljö som inkorporerar frågebaserat lärande.  Tidigare forskning har visat att frågebaserat lärande påskyndar  inlärning. Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka effekten  som frågebaserat lärande har på studenters självförtroende i  programmering, men också på relationen mellan deras  självförtroende och kunskapsnivå. Den senare kan ses som ett  mått på hur konsekventa de är i sina självskattningar.  Kunskapsnivå estimerades med utgångspunkt i studenters  quiz-resultat. Ett genusperspektiv inkluderades också i analysen  av självförtroende och kunskapsnivå.  Data gällande självförtroende och quiz-resultat samlades in från  210 studenter i en introduktionskurs i programmering mellan  åren 2018 och 2021. De två första kursomgångarna gavs innan  frågebaserat lärande var introducerat och de påföljande fyra  hade frågebaserat lärande implementerat. Detta möjliggjorde en  fall-kontrollstudie för jämförelse mellan de två typerna av  lärande. Datasetet analyserades med två statistiska analyser:  multipel linjär regression och korrelationsanalys. Resultatet  antyder att närvaro av frågebaserat lärande ökar korrelationen  mellan quiz-resultat och självförtroende. Detta indikerar att  studenterna är mer konsekventa i sina skattningar av  självförtroende med avseende på deras quiz-resultat när  frågebaserat lärande används. Det visades också att frågebaserat  lärande ökade studenternas självförtroende inom  programmering. Vidare rapporterade män högre självförtroende  än kvinnor, men korrelationen mellan quiz-resultat och  självförtroende skilde sig inte signifikant mellan könen.

This graduation thesis has a theoretical and an exploratory character. The theoretical part is focused on the knowledge in the field of school evaluation and self- assessment of pupils. It defines the basic concepts, types, forms and functions of evaluation and self-assessment. The main aim is to define ways and various strategies to develop self-assessment skills of children in the beginning of primary school. The research questions and methods of investigation are formulated in the theoretical part. It presents results of long-term research about development of self- assessment skills of children from the beginning of 1st grade to the end of the first half of 2nd grade. One of the most significant parts of the research is devoted to specific strategies of the teacher, which positively affect the development of self- assessment skills of pupils, as well as involving parents in this process during a common consultation of teacher, student and parent.

This thesis is divided into two main parts. The theoretical part defines the concept of self-assessment and focuses on the significance and forms of self-assessment, as well as the factors arising during implementation of self-assessment in education. This part also contains findings from specialized publications analysing the relationship between assessment and self-assessment directed towards individualisation (personalisation). The practical part of this thesis takes the form of pro-active research, the aim of which is to observe implementation of self- assessment by a specific pupil with a specific learning disability. It describes how to teach an integrated pupil to self-assess, confirms that the pupil is able to self-assess his work and describes the steps involved in the implementation. Key words evaluation, self-assessment, pupil with special needs, integrated pupil, descriptive language, evaluation criteria, quality indicator, forms of self-assessment, action research