The aim of this research was to study the relationship between lived experiences and critical thinking of college students in Taiwan. Investigation method was employed in the study. The employed instruments included College Student Lived Experiences Questionnaire, Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale, and the Critical Thinking Scale. The subjects were college students in Taiwan. 505 questionnaires were sent and 310 were valid. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, one-way MANOVA , canonical correlation, and stepwise multiple regression. According to the statistic result, the conclusions were¡G 1. Lived experiences of college students were rich and diversity in which team works were the highest and adventure experiences were the lowest. 2. College students¡¦ critical thinking in which deductive was the highest and inference was the lowest. As a whole, college students¡¦ critical thinking abilities in 2005 were better than those 1996, but interval was small¡FMoreover, college students¡¦ critical thinking dispositions were better. 3. There were no significant gender differences in critical thinking dispositions and abilities. There were significant differences of critical thinking dispositions and abilities between technology and social science college. There were significant differences of critical thinking dispositions and abilities between junior ¡B senior and freshman ¡Bsophomore college students. 4. There were significant differences of critical thinking dispositions between high and low father¡¦s education. There were significant differences of critical thinking dispositions and abilities between have and no relevant curriculum experiences. Moreover, the students¡¦ critical thinking abilities in experimental curriculum were better than those in nothing. There were significant differences of critical thinking abilities between educational university and science technology university. 5. Lived experiences of college students have canonical correlation with critical thinking. Two canonical factors of college students lived experiences efficacy explains 37% of all the critical thinking. 6. Father¡¦s education of college students¡Bschool styles¡Bteam work¡Bart¡Bpopular and information experiences could efficacy predict students¡¦ critical thinking .

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between lived experiences and thinking styles for college students in Taiwan.Investigation method is employed in the study.There are 2443 college students are served as the standardization sample in order to develop their percentile norm in Taiwan.In addition,there are 346 college students to write Thinking Style Inventory with Lived Experience Inventory of the norm sample. The data is analyzed through descriptive statistics,t-test,One-Way ANOVA and canonical correlation. The results indicate that: 1.College students¡¦lived experiences styles tend to be group activities style, and then thinking styles tend to be monarchic style.There are no significant differences in the mean scores of all kinds of lived experiences and thinking styles. 2.Gender has significant differents in the college students¡¦lived experiences and thinking styles.Birth order has no significant differents in the college students¡¦lived experiences and thinking styles.Then education level of parents has significant differents in the college students¡¦lived experiences,but in the thinking styles is not. 3.The shool background have no significant differents in the college students¡¦lived experiences and thinking styles. 4.College students¡¦lived experiences have canonical correlation with college students¡¦thinking styles.The first canonical factor of college students¡¦lived experiences efficacy explains 4¢H of all the college students¡¦thinking styles.

In the ongoing pursuit of excellence in products and services, many enterprises have been seeking ways to ensure their superiority in process and quality. To improve competitiveness, many management techniques and concepts have been tried, for example; TQM, Lean Thinking (Lean Production), Six Sigma, and Design for Six Sigma, etc. These are quality management systems currently having widespread application in virtually all well-known companies. This empirical study utilizes a questionnaire to explore the relationship between Process Excellence (PE) with that of quality performance (QP). In a correlation analysis we have found a positive correlation between QP and such categories as ¡§leadership and information analysis¡¨ ¡§resource utilization and participation¡¨ ¡§improvement of quality process¡¨ ¡§clear objectives and customer oriented¡¨. We have also found that two of these categories ¡§improvement of quality process¡¨ and ¡§leadership and information analysis¡¨ play especially important roles in raising QP performance. We can conclude that the greater the emphasis on these two items the better will be the performance of QP. We are also assured that the company can experience continuous quality improvement by acting on the basis of the above research findings.

The aim of this study was three-fold: first, to describe pre-service teachers&rsquo / (i) critical thinking levels, (ii) attitudes towards teaching for critical thinking, and (iii) self-efficacy beliefs in teaching for critical thinking in terms of performance and outcome efficacy beliefs / secondly, to investigate whether there was a correlation between these three variables / and finally, to examine the relationship between participants&rsquo / certain background variables and their critical thinking levels, attitudes and self efficacy beliefs in teaching for critical thinking. A cross-sectional survey design was employed. The participants of the study were senior pre-service teachers from fourteen state universities across the seven geographical regions in Turkey. Quantitative data were collected by means of (i) a critical thinking test, (ii) an attitude scale, (iii) a self-efficacy scale with two subscales: performance efficacy and outcome efficacy, and (iv) a participant profile form, all of which were designed by the researcher. Both descriptive and inferential statistics (MANOVA) were used. Results indicated that pre-service teachers&rsquo / critical thinking levels were &lsquo / below average&rsquo / however, they had a moderately positive attitude towards and a moderate level of self efficacy in teaching for critical thinking. The correlation analyses indicated that there was a moderate degree of positive correlation between teachers&rsquo / attitude and self efficacy beliefs towards critical thinking. Finally, the results of MANOVA analyses indicated that pre-service teachers&rsquo / gender and level of motivation towards teaching had no impact on their critical thinking levels, attitudes or self efficacy beliefs in teaching for critical thinking. On the other hand, major, academic achievement, high school background, father&rsquo / s level of education, reading behaviour, and prior training in critical thinking had impacts of varying degrees on one or more of the dependent variables.

Abstract The purposes of this study were (1) to compare the relationship among teachers and students¡¦ thinking styles and their background. (2) to explore the relationship among teachers¡¦ background,teachers¡¦ thinking styles, and teaching behaviors. (3)to investigate the relationship among teaching behavior, students¡¦ thinking styles, learning perception satisfaction, and achievement. (4)to explore the influences of different matching of teachers¡¦ thinking styles and students¡¦ thinking styles on learning perception satisfaction and achievement. Two groups of subjects were arranged: with one including 374 high school teachers in Taiwan area, and the other including 30 teachers and their 1217 students in Koashuing. Teachers were asked to fill out ¡¨ Thinking Styles Questionnaire for Teacher(TSQT)¡¨ and ¡§Teaching Behavior Scale(TBS)¡¨, while students ¡§Thinking Styles Questionnaire(TSQ)¡¨ and ¡¨ Learning Perception Satisfaction Check List(LPSCL)¡¨. The data were analyzed by Pearson¡¦s product-moment correlation, t-test, canonical correlation, one-way ANOVA, and one-way MANOVA. The conclusion were drawn as follows: 1. On teachers¡¦ background: (1) There were significant differences between male and female in legislative, global, liberal, local, conservative thinking styles. (2) There were significant differences between high, mid and low age groups in executive, local, conservative thinking styles. (3) There were significant differences between high, mid and low years groups in conservative thinking styles. (4) There were significant differences between high, mid and low father¡¥s education in executive, global, conservative thinking styles. (5) There were significant differences between high, mid and low mother¡¦s education in executive, conservative thinking styles. 2. On students¡¦ background: (1) There were significant differences between male and female in legislative, executive, judicial, global thinking styles. (2) Birth order have no significant differences with thinking styles. (3) There were significant differences between high, mid and low father¡¥s education in executive, judicial, global thinking styles. (4) There were significant differences between high, mid and low mother¡¦s education in judicial, global of thinking styles. 3. Teachers¡¦ background has canonical correlation with teachers¡¦ thinking styles. The one canonical factor of Teachers¡¦ background efficacy explains 4% of all the teachers¡¦ thinking styles. 4. Teachers¡¦ thinking styles have canonical correlation with teaching behavior. Three canonical factors of Teachers¡¦ thinking styles efficacy explains 37% of all the teacher behavior. 5. The relationship between teaching behavior and teachers¡¦ thinking styles has significant correlative with legislative, local, liberal of teachers¡¦ thinking on discovery teaching. 6. Teaching behavior has significant correlation with learning perception satisfaction, but achievement does not. 7. Executive thinking styles have significant correlation with achievement. 8. Teachers¡¦ thinking styles have no significant correlation with students¡¦ thinking styles. 9. Matching of teachers¡¦ thinking styles and students¡¦ thinking styles has no significant correlation with learning perception satisfaction and achievement.

Given the importance of the critical thinking, many developed countries have considered the critical thinking as one of the aims that the education of social science should achieve. Taiwan¡¦s new curriculum policy ¡V namely the ¡¥coherence curriculum of civil education¡¦ ¡V also emphasizes that students, particularly those of social science, should be able to solve problems independently, think critically and make appropriate decisions. In the case of teaching history in Taiwan, however, most teachers focus on delivering knowledge to students rather than fostering students¡¦ ability of thinking in a critical way. In order to remedy such problem, many developed countries have developed the so-called ¡¥inquiry model¡¦, which is to develop students¡¦ capability of thinking in a critical way by ¡¥doing the history¡¦, for the tuition of history at high schools. Given the advancement of information technology (IT) nowadays, internet has become an useful tool for tuition. With the integration of the tuition of IT into Taiwan¡¦s 9-year curriculum education, it can be assumed that tuition through internet will become a trend in the future. Therefore, this study aims to develop an IT-based method which can be used to foster students¡¦ ability of thinking critically in learning history. There are three aims of this study: 1. to develop a blueprint of the website which demonstrates how IT can be integrated into the tuition of history; 2. to explore the concept of critical thinking in the subject of history and to develop a IT-based method which can be used to train students¡¦ capability of thinking in a critical way in the study of history; 3. to offer suggestion and reference for the tuition of history. In order to carry out the study and to achieve the aims listed above, I employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches, that is: my analysis is based on the collection of questionnaires, worksheets, the information available online, and samples of website design. The findings and conclusions of this research are as the following: 1. A website which is designed to teach history is an useful tool for the development of students¡¦ capability of learning history in a critical way. The interaction between teachers and students is helpful for fostering students¡¦ history critical thinking disposition. 2. Most students enjoy learning history on internet. With the integration of the IT into the tuition, teachers can easily encourage students to learn history. 3. In order to apply an IT-based teaching method, history teachers can cooperate with the teachers tutoring different subjects¡]e.g. computer science), thus providing a better IT techniques for the tuition of history. 4. Students¡¦ perception of the subject of history is changed ¡V they no longer see history as a static-descriptive subject. With the method which is designed to develop students¡¦ capability of critical thinking in learning history, students do not only know what happened in the past, but also realize how to make inquiries and search for answers. 5. The application of my method shows that students¡¦ capability of thinking of history in a critical way is enhanced in a different way ¡V some realize better techniques while the other less so. As a result, it is important to design a long-term project which aims to develop such techniques. 6. Through worksheets students can better understand what happened in the past. Therefore, I suggest teachers to design worksheets in order to encourage students to learn history and help them develop better perception of what happed in the past. Finally, according to the findings of this research, I make some suggestions for teaching history and further research in this field.

The Effects of STS-Infusion Instruction in Science on Fifth Graders¡¦ Learning Attitude, Critical Thinking, and Technological Creativity Abstract The main objectives of this study were to explore (a) the effects of STS-infusing instruction in science on learning attitude, critical thinking, and technological creativity; and (b) the relationships among learning attitude, critical thinking, and technological creativity. An unequal group pretest-posttest design was employed in this study. Eight fifth-grade classes of a public elementary school in Taina were selected based on purposive sampling. The participants were divided into the experimental group (n = 79 ) and the control group (n = 78 ). The experimental group received a twelve¡Vweek STS-Infusion instruction in the subject of Science, while the control group received regular instruction. The employed instruments included The Test of Technological Creativity, Critical Thinking Test¡XLevel I, The Questionnaire of Learning Attitude on Science, and the Questionnaire of Teaching Feedback. The analysis methods included Descriptive Statistics, t-test, Multivariate Analysis of Variance, Univariate Analysis of Variance, Multivariate Analysis of Covariance, and Multiple Stepwise Regression. The main findings in this study were: (a) the STS-Infusion Instruction had significant effects on upgrading the fifth graders¡¦ learning attitude toward Science; (b) the STS-Infusion Instruction did not have significant effects on improving the fifth graders¡¦ critical-thinking abilities; (c) the STS-Infusion Instruction had significant effects on improving the fifth graders¡¦ technological creativity; (d) students with different level of learning attitude toward Science did not perform differently on technological creativity; (e) students with different level of critical-thinking abilities did not perform differently on technological creativity; and (f) the STS instruction, critical-thinking abilities, and learning attitude toward Science could effectively predict the fifth graders¡¦ technological creativity. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for educational authorities, teachers, and future researchers.

This study is to discuss the small and medium enterprises¡¦ business model through systems thinking. In the study, we try to find the casual loop diagrams of all art tutorial schools¡¦ business models first. Then we use systems thinking to analyze how the art tutorial school leaders¡¦ business concepts help him to run the art tutorial school so well. And we get two points. Firstly, through casual loop diagrams¡¦ analysis, we found that a constantly growing art tutorial school must prepare enough both high quality and quantity teaching resources. Do not extend before you prepare your teaching capacity, otherwise you¡¦ll lose customers¡¦ trust. Secondly, in daily business running, the leader should tell his employees what his business concepts are and how to fulfill them to overcome the business¡¦s limitation. In this case, the leader thinks one must have these three business concepts: (1) The more you give, the more you¡¦ll get; (2) People should consider others before themselves; (3) With virtue, people can create great artistic creations. Through good business concepts and an integral dynamic cooperation, the business would grow up in a constant way.

A business ideology has very significant influences on a company. A well-thought business ideology can bring great profits and long-term sustainable developments; on the other hand, a flawed business ideology often creates losses for the employees, business itself and even the society. Since the importance of business ideology to a business is undeniable; how then, is the business ideology play a part in the business dynamic influence process and what influences does it have on the actual management process of a company? This paper is proceeded through the method of systems thinking, using XXX Co. as the study case, to discuss how management ideology affects business dynamic influence process. The conclusions found are as follow: 1. By following ¡§people-oriented¡¨ management ideology, managers at higher positions truly care for their employees, and do not lay off any employees arbitrarily, willing for employees to learn, increase interactions with employees by listening attentively to their true thoughts and adjust employee work loads accordingly. In the long run, employee cohesions toward the company strengthen, employee work pressure lessen, project quality elevated and employee leave rate lowered. 2. Under the influences of ¡§people-oriented¡¨ management ideology, in combination with a strict job selection process, a fair and unbiased wage system, and dynamiccriteria such as employee work loads. Thus, the firm can achieve sustainability in business growth without triggering the landmine structure of employee leaves. 3. It is been proven that the influences of business ideology to a company are immense and very broad. At the same time, it made us realize that the ¡§people-oriented¡¨ business ideology has a positive affects and impacts on the growth and business management of a company.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to develop a teaching program integrating critical thinking in Civic Education and explore the effects on improving critical thinking skills, critical thinking tendency, and related knowledge of law of junior high school students. The participants were second-year junior high school students¡]14 boys and 21 girls included¡^, conducted with the teaching program for 17weeks. The teaching effects were analyzed both with qualative and quantative methods. The results showed that the teaching program was effective on improving critical thinking skills and knowledge of law of the participants. However the teaching program did not influence participants¡¦ tendency of critical thinking. The results also showed that the webquest teaching program can improve the quality of oral presentation and works of participants. The result showed that the webquest teaching program integrating K12 Digital School can improve the self-regulated learning abilities of oral presentation.And the result showed that adequate group cooperative learning can promoted students¡¦ learning performance.