The purpose of this study was to explore junior high school students¡¦ attitudes toward learning English and achievement in learning English, and analyzed the significant differences between student came from different backgrounds, students¡¦ attitudes toward learning English and achievement in learning English. Stratified sampling was conducted to recruit 470 junior high school students who are 2nd graders in Kaohsiung city. All participants completed the questionnaire of ¡§attitudes toward learning English scale¡¨ which was developed by the investigator. Descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, one-way ANOVA, spearmann¡¦s rank correlation test and chi-square test assessed the similarities and differences among groups. The initial findings were as follows: 1.The attitudes toward learning English of junior high school students are good. 2.Huge gaps are found in low and high achievers¡¦ achievement in learning English. 3.Female students¡¦ attitudes toward learning English are significantly higher than male students¡¦. 4.Students with longer time spending in learning English showed significantly higher scores in attitudes toward learning English scale than those who spent fewer time in learning English. 5.Students came from families with higher educated parents presented significantly higher scores in attitudes toward learning English scale than those who came from families with lower educated parents. 6.Students who received more support from family members presented significantly higher scores in attitudes toward learning English scale than those who were lack of support from family members. 7.Number of years of learning English showed significant effects on the attitudes toward learning English scale. The more time students spent in learning English, the better achievement they accomplish. 8.Students who attained private English tutoring presented significantly higher scores in attitudes toward learning English scale than those who only learned English from formal school education. 9.There were significantly positive correlations among students¡¦ attitudes toward learning English and achievement in learning English. Results hopefully contribute to further researches in student¡¦s attitudes toward learning English and achievement in learning English. Suggestions are provided to parents as well as school teachers.

The activities attended by elementary students are surely not just the classroom lessons only. It includes the participations in classroom and school wide student organizations, in academic and sport competitions sponsored by schools, regions, and states, in self-study and school plays and other performance organized by schools, as well as the participations in after school activities , such as cram schools, dance schools, music and instrument lessons, sport trainings, homework, housework, and leisure activities. It is believed that student participation is somewhat related to their family socio-economic status and to some extent shaping their personality in respect to their self-esteem, autonomy, attitudes towards school, and educational aspiration. This study was designed to examine the interrelationships between student participation, the socioeconomic status of their family , and their personality development . Our data were collected from the survey administered to the fifth graders and the sixth graders in class randomly and systematically selected from two metropolitan elementary schools with a salient descent background in farming and labor in Kaohsiung City and Fonsan City. It was found that both participations in school activities and after school activities favor students more for students from upper socioeconomic status family than for those from lower socioeconomic status family, except sport competitions, homework, and housework. On the other hand, the participation in school activities appears to bear more impact upon self-esteem, autonomy, attitude, and aspiration than does the participation in after school activities. Nevertheless, neither the participation in school activities nor the participation in after school activities can completely explain away the relationship between socioeconomic status and the personality variables. The personality variables of self-esteem, autonomy, attitudes, and aspiration are a reflection in social opportunity structure, particularly, for those at the elementary schools, and also attuned to the earlier findings in the study in social inequality. This study provides information worthwhile for those in academic and education who are concerned with the welfare and the equal opportunity for the poor.

This research takes the perspectives of employees¡¦ perception towards Organizational Change; explore the influential factors of Career Development of Marsh insurance brokers and its relationship with Emotional Intelligence. Besides, this research takes personal differences of population variable as independent variable, independently explore each influential factor and analyze its variance. Having gone through the process of literature review, consulting professionals and interviewing with the employees, the research framework was then finalized. Taking into account the issue of language and terminology differences, apart from consulting four insurance professional on questionnaire design, comment from the head of Human Resources of each country was also sought. Finally it was decided to have 3 versions of questionnaire, i.e. the Traditional Chinese version, Simplified Chinese version and English version. 107 valid questionnaires were finally collected with a valid sample return rate of 36.27%. Regarding the statistical analysis, firstly a confidence analysis was done on each variable factor to validate its confidence. Those inapplicable questions were then deleted. Then other statistical tools like Independent T Test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis were employed to perform further analysis. It is shown that there are only a few findings of significant variance on personal background of population statistics and its independent variables, dependent variables, moderating variables. This matches with the characteristics of cultural difference. Besides, in the aspect of ¡§Perception towards Organizational Change¡¨, there are only a few factors which have significant relations on ¡§Influential Factors of Career Development¡¨, implying that personal factor and the need for teamwork are the key factors. This also matches with the fact that servicing corporation emphasizing team-spirit, but not only heroic individualistic operation. Finally, in the relationship of Emotional Intelligence on ¡§Perception towards Organizational Change¡¨ and ¡§Influential Factors of Career Development¡¨, it appears ¡§Emotion¡¨and¡§Behavior¡¨with moderating effect on partial Influential Factors of Career Development. This shows that personal elements and teamwork have significant impact on interpersonal relationship. Hence, effectively enhance the interaction of employees with the participation of senior management and team leaders take care of subordinates will help to build good team spirit and working environment.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the conceptual change oriented instruction using hands-on activities and traditionally designed chemistry instruction on 10th grade students&rsquo / understanding of gases concept. Also, the effect of instruction on students&rsquo / attitude toward chemistry as a school subject was investigated. The sample of the study consisted of 59 tenth grade students from two chemistry classes in a public high school. This study was conducted during the 2006-2007 fall semester. The classes were randomly assigned as control and experimental groups. Students in the control group were instructed by traditionally designed chemistry instruction whereas students in the experimental group were instructed by the conceptual change oriented instruction accompanied with hands-on activities. Gases concept test and Attitude Scale Toward Chemistry were administered to both groups as a pre-test and post-test to assess the students&rsquo / understanding of gases concepts and to determine their attitudes toward chemistry, respectively. Science Process Skills Test was given only at the beginning of the instruction to determine students&rsquo / science process skills. v The hypotheses were tested by using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The post-test results showed that conceptual change oriented instruction using hands-on activities caused a significantly better acquisition of scientific conceptions related to gases concept. But it was found that treatment has no significant effect on students&rsquo / attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject.

The aim of the present research was to investigate attitudes toward sexual harassment (SH) and the relationships of these attitudes with locus of control and ambivalent sexism. A total of 311 university students from Middle East Technical University participated to the study. In order to measure attitudes toward SH, a new scale, Sexual Harassment Attitude Scale (SHAS), was developed by the author of the thesis and another researcher (Salman &amp / Turgut, 2006). This scale consists of three subfactors which were accepting SH as a result of provocative behaviors, accepting SH as normal flirtations between men and women, and endorsement of SH as a trivial matter. Locus of control was measured with Locus of Control Scale (LCS, Dag, 2002) having five subfactors which were personal control, belief in chance, meaninglessness of the effortfulness, belief in fate, and belief in an unjust world. Lastly, sexist beliefs were measured with Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI, Glick &amp / Fiske, 1996) having two factors which were hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. The results revealed that some domains of locus of control were significantly associated with sexist beliefs and subfactors of attitudes toward SH. In particular, people having internal personal control were more likely to accept SH as provocative behaviors of women. In addition, people believing in external forces, such as belief in fate and powerful others were more likely to have sexist beliefs and tolerate SH by seeing provocative behaviors as causes of SH, by accepting SH as normal flirtations and by trivializing this problem. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature by investigating (1) attitudes toward sexual harassment and its relationship with locus of control and (2) the roles of ambivalent sexism and gender differences in this relationship.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between ambivalent sexism, gender related system justification and religious orientation with attitudes toward physical wife abuse (APWA). APWA are investigated in three facets, namely justifiability (JPWA), perceived functionality (PFPWA) and consequences (ACPWA). As measurement tools, Attitudes toward Physical Wife Abuse Scale, Content Domains for Justification of Physical Wife Abuse Scale, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI), Revised Muslim Religious Orientation Scale (MROS-R), Gender Related System Justification Scale (GSJ) and demographic information form were used. Although a total of 385 student and non-student participants responded the questionnaire, only 303 (119 males, 184 females) participants who stated their religion to be Islam were included in the study for accurate assessment of Muslim religious orientation. The age range of the participants was between 17 and 72 (M=27.30 / SD= 8.68). Since women and men significantly differed with respect to their APWA, separate hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to further observe the differences between them. Although there were slight differences in unique contributions of the variables for the three subscales of APWAS and for men and women, a general pattern was drawn in which results revealed that intrinsic religious orientation and quest religious orientation were not related to any of the three dimensions of APWA whereas fundamentalist religious orientation was found to be a significant predictor of APWA. Among the dimensions of ASI and AMI, Hostile Sexism (HS) and Benevolence toward Men (BM) predicted more favorable attitudes toward the three dimensions of physical wife abuse, whereas hostility toward men (HM) and benevolent sexism (BS) predicted less favorable attitudes. GSJ was not found to have a unique contribution in predicting any of the three dimensions of APWA. The major contributions of the present study are / 1) Investigation of religious orientation as an individual difference affecting APWA first in a Muslim culture, 2) Investigating GSJ first in Turkey and first with relation to APWA and 3) Providing a detailed measurement tool for specific assessment of attitudes toward physical wife abuse in three dimensions and 4) Providing a re-constructed Muslim Religious Orientation Scale which was extended and improved in content, reliability and validity after revision.

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of case-based instruction based on conceptual change conditions to overcome 10th grade students&rsquo / misconceptions related to gas concepts. Moreover, the effect of this method on students&rsquo / attitudes toward chemistry and their perceived motivation was explored. The study was carried out during the 2008-2009 academic year at both a state high school and an Anatolian high school. A total of 128 tenth grade students were the participants of the study. One of the classes of the same chemistry teacher was randomly assigned as experimental group and one of them was control group in each school. Students in experimental groups were instructed by case-based learning based on conceptual change conditions while the control group students received traditionally designed chemistry instruction. Gas Concept Test, Attitude toward Chemistry and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire were administered to both groups of students as pretest and posttest to determine the students&rsquo / misconceptions and their understanding of gas concepts, their attitude toward chemistry and perceived motivation. Two two-way ANOVA based on gain scores were used to assess the effect of case-based learning on students&rsquo / understanding of gas concepts and attitudes toward chemistry. In addition, the effect of case-based learning on students&rsquo / perceived motivation was investigated by MANOVA based on gain scores. The results revealed that case-based learning was an effective method for overcoming students&rsquo / misconceptions about the gas concepts and promoting their attitudes and motivation towards chemistry in Anatolian high school.

The purpose of the research study is to investigate the effect of peer instruction method on the 8th grade students&rsquo / mathematics achievement and mathematics attitudes in transformation geometry (fractals, rotation, reflection, translation) in crowded classrooms (more than 50 students). Besides, in this study it was aimed to investigate the gender differences regarding mathematics achievement and mathematics attitude. The study was conducted during the academic year 2009-2010. The sample was consisted of 112 eighth grade students from a public elementary school in K&uuml / &ccedil / &uuml / k&ccedil / ekmece district in Istanbul. Two classes, instructed by the researcher, were randomly assigned as experimental and control groups. The experimental group students were taught the subject transformation geometry through peer instruction method, while the control group students were taught the subject transformation geometry conventionally. Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) and Attitude towards Mathematics Scale (ATMS) were administered to students as measuring instruments. The two-way ANCOVA and two-way ANOVA statistical techniques were performed in order to answer to the research questions. Results indicated that the peer instruction method has significant positive effects on students&rsquo / mathematics achievement and attitudes towards mathematics. Also, it was shown that there is not a significant difference between the female and male students&rsquo / mathematics achievement and mathematics attitudes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of argumentation based instruction on sixth grade students

In the coming 21st century, the real winners are those who make the most of the resources in learning new skills or ideas. In addition to classroom, you can study anywhere and anyplace as long as you are willing to (broadcasting, TV, computer, internet, etc). In my study, I examine the study through the internet and its effectiveness in relation to characteristics, strategies, and attitude toward learning through computers. The initial sample included volunteers from different ranks of companies in Tainan and Kaoshoung areas which participated in Employment and Vocational Training Administration. The courses the participants took were entry-level management, intermediate management, advanced management, and decision management, Each subject was composed of the following contents. 1.main theme 2.case study 3.comment 4.analysis 5.theory 6.practice. At the end of each course was the evaluation. Participants were also welcomed to log on to discuss area their opinions, enhancing interaction among teachers and students. The research results are based on the questionnaire fill out by participants. The statistics methods applied are descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA. The results show that: (1)Participants¡¦ characteristics in relation to attitude toward computer and learning strategy; the research shows that the participants¡¦ seniority bears no consequences in attitude toward computer. However, the participants¡¦ education and position indicates variances in attitude toward computer. On the other hand, Participants¡¦ seniority, education and position show differences in learning strategy. (2)Participants¡¦ strategies in relation to effectiveness of the learning strategy; the research shows that the participants¡¦ strategies bear positive relation in both satisfaction of the learning and overcoming obstacles during the process. (3)Participants¡¦ attitude toward computer in relation to effectiveness in learning; the research shows that the participants¡¦ attitude toward computer bear positive relation in both satisfaction of the learning and overcoming obstacles during the process. The research also shows that: The reasons why the participants did not join the discussion are: 1.lack of time 2.typing too slow 3.no idea of how to discuss 4.afraid to discuss 5.afraid of being challenged. The reasons why the participants did not take the test are: 1.inconvenience in attending the class 2.afraid of failure 3.no request from the company they work for 4.mistake in operating the computer 5.no motivation. Failure to attend the test shows no relation in age, education, position and seniority. Finally, we provide advises to the corporations and other researchers who are interested in the subject.