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The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) English proficiency test has been the focus of increasing research since its inception in 1989. While research has contributed to a better understanding of test construction and has highlighted the limitations of individual test scores for predicting academic success, few studies have focused on students’ perceptions of the academic module of IELTS. The present study attempts to address this gap in the research by investigating student expectations of an IELTS preparation course. The study, adopting a multi-method approach using surveys and interviews, investigated ten international students enrolled in a twelve-week academic IELTS preparation course in a language school affiliated to a university in Auckland, New Zealand. The study found that students have high expectations not only of an IELTS preparation course, but of the IELTS band score they will achieve. The study also found that student expectations of the course were met at least to some extent. Various factors contributed to the fulfilment of students’ expectations including a focus on speaking and listening activities and the use of formative practice tests. Although all four language skills were recognised by the students prior to the course as being important, speaking and listening were identified as those most expected to be improved. By the end of the course, however, reading and writing skills were acknowledged to be most important, suggesting a growing awareness of the importance of literacy skills, both for achieving an appropriate IELTS score and for further academic study. Although limited by the number of participants, the findings have significance for the development and delivery of academic IELTS preparation courses. Firstly, although there is value in focusing on listening and speaking skills, given the change in students’ perceptions, academic literacy skills perhaps need a predominant focus. Related to this focus, challenging reading activities and related vocabulary development should be an integral part of the course. Secondly, the inclusion of practice IELTS tests provides an important formative component of preparation courses. Finally, the study suggests that administration staff and teachers need to better prepare students to have realistic expectations of an achievable IELTS band score.

The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) English proficiency test has been the focus of increasing research since its inception in 1989. While research has contributed to a better understanding of test construction and has highlighted the limitations of individual test scores for predicting academic success, few studies have focused on students’ perceptions of the academic module of IELTS. The present study attempts to address this gap in the research by investigating student expectations of an IELTS preparation course. The study, adopting a multi-method approach using surveys and interviews, investigated ten international students enrolled in a twelve-week academic IELTS preparation course in a language school affiliated to a university in Auckland, New Zealand. The study found that students have high expectations not only of an IELTS preparation course, but of the IELTS band score they will achieve. The study also found that student expectations of the course were met at least to some extent. Various factors contributed to the fulfilment of students’ expectations including a focus on speaking and listening activities and the use of formative practice tests. Although all four language skills were recognised by the students prior to the course as being important, speaking and listening were identified as those most expected to be improved. By the end of the course, however, reading and writing skills were acknowledged to be most important, suggesting a growing awareness of the importance of literacy skills, both for achieving an appropriate IELTS score and for further academic study. Although limited by the number of participants, the findings have significance for the development and delivery of academic IELTS preparation courses. Firstly, although there is value in focusing on listening and speaking skills, given the change in students’ perceptions, academic literacy skills perhaps need a predominant focus. Related to this focus, challenging reading activities and related vocabulary development should be an integral part of the course. Secondly, the inclusion of practice IELTS tests provides an important formative component of preparation courses. Finally, the study suggests that administration staff and teachers need to better prepare students to have realistic expectations of an achievable IELTS band score.

Tesi doctoral--Barcelona, 1984--Universitat autònoma. / Bibliogr. p. 449-484. Index.

Diss.--Hamburg--Universität, 1992.

This study is addressing course design as an important process within the area of language curriculum development. The importance of course design lies in its being as the preparatory stage that contributes to shaping and guiding the subsequent stages of the whole process of course development-implementation and evaluation. The study aims at understanding the role of teachers at a tertiary context in Oman in designing the courses they teach based on their perspectives. It also aims at understanding how students conceptualize and evaluate theses courses. In addition, it aims at exploring what issues and factors have the greatest impact on course design and in what way from the teachers and students’ perspectives as course developers and course receivers, respectively. Based on its purpose, the study is conceived within the paradigm of interpretivism employing its epistemology and philosophy as an underpinning stance. On the basis of the participants’ perspectives and experiences, the qualitative approach has been chosen for determining the strategy and methods of sampling, and data collection and data analysis. In order to gain thick descriptions and information about the investigated phenomenon, the researcher used the method of semi-structured interviews with the teacher sample and focus group discussion with the student sample. In addition, the method of document analysis was also used as a supplementary tool for the teacher sample as it is concerned with the mechanism of course design. Findings of the study were categorized according to the five research questions of the study and the two types of data (teachers and students’ data). Interpretations of teachers’ data revealed that they conceptualize course design as a matter of prioritizing the key element- that is mainly students’ needs- that contributes to shaping and guiding the other components of a course. The students’ data, on the other hand, revealed a variety of perspectives involving their evaluation of single aspects of course design, particularly materials development and selection of the content of a course, with their major concern about course implementation. Among the major findings of this study is the identification of challenges confronted by teachers and students that were described in terms of problems impacting negatively the process of designing courses by teachers and the process of learning by students. Based on the findings of data analysis, the study offers a number of implications and suggestions that are of value for teachers who are involved in the process of course design and the institution where the study takes place. Teachers must have an active role in course design due to their direct contact with the learning situation. Teachers’ involvement in course design is considered as a major factor behind the stage of course implementation. For this, teachers need to be aware of the relationship between course design and its implementation and how they affect each other. Doubtlessly, teachers can play an active role in course design, yet the institution must provide external support such as professional development programs and establishing a professional curriculum committee in order to ensure the effectiveness of curriculum development.

DNA microarray technology makes it possible to analyze the expression levels of many thousands of genes simultaneously. One of the goals of microarray data analysis is to understand the multiple biological roles of genes and their interactions in complex biological processes. Genes with similar expression patterns are likely to share similar functions or biological processes. Therefore, analysis of changes in gene expression of a certain biological processes over time is of particular interest. Unsupervised clustering methods provide an efficient way of finding overall patterns and tendencies by clustering microarray gene expression data. The genes in the same cluster are regulated in a similar manner based on the assumption above. But traditional unsupervised clustering methods usually end up with clusters of genes with similar expression patterns but without interpretations describing the clusters in terms of gene functions or processes involved. In this project, some statistical techniques are applied to analyze the data set from microarray experiments of sporulation in yeast. These techniques include LOWESS data normalization, which is intended to remove the systematic variations from the data; a partitional clustering method, K-means, is used with initial centroids obtained from hierarchical clustering method of DIANA; the "gap statistic" technique is implemented to estimate the "optimal" number of clusters in the data set; and finally multiple hypothesis testing is used to determine whether biologically related genes are statistically over-represented in the gene clusters using the web query tool FatiGO. These methods are combined with graphical representation of cluster profile shape and colour maps of up and down regulation via heat maps. Application of these methods to a yeast sporulation time-course data set [Chu 𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭. 1998] demonstrates the utility of cluster analysis to such data sets and provides an automated method for including biological information about gene function and characteristics. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Gurdip Singh / KSU Course Reader is an android application developed for Kansas State University students to access their course materials, listen to the audio lectures, watch the video lectures and read the lecture slides or other materials from all their enrolled courses with a single application. A student can add RSS xml link associated with the courses enrolled in the current semester in the application and can receive the course materials for each course automatically after every lecture. The aim of this project is to develop a one stop android application for students to access the course materials of all their courses from their android smart phones and tablets. The project also provides a jsp form for course instructors to update the course materials for every lecture which automatically updates the xml file associated with the course. The application also allows students to add other RSS xml like K-State News, K-state Events etc. The same application can be used for adding public rss xml sites and can also be used as a podcast player. It is very essential to provide the course materials readily available to the students all the time wherever they are. Since most students have smart phones or tablets and use them for accessing emails, surf internet etc , it becomes easier for them to use this KSU course reader application to access, read or view all their course materials at one place which is also customized for mobiles and tablets. As android is one of the leading and fastest growing smart phone platforms the project becomes more appropriate to develop in android.

The main aim of the course advising system is to build a course recommendation path for students to help them plan courses to successfully graduate on time. The recommendation path displays the list of courses a student can take in each quarter from the first quarter after admission until the graduation quarter. The courses are filtered as per the student’s interest obtained from a questionnaire asked to the student. The business logic involves building the recommendation algorithm. Also, the application is functionality-tested end-to-end by using nightwatch.js which is built on top of node.js. Test cases are written for every module and implemented while building the application.

Diss.--Fachbereich 1--Siegen--Universität-Gesamthochschule, 2004. / Bibliogr. p. 203-228.