Introduction: Return-to-work (RTW) can be a problematic occupational issue with detrimental impact on the quality of life of previously-employed breast cancer survivors. This study explored barriers and facilitators encountered during the RTW process in the area of cancer survivorship. Materials and Methods: Six focus groups were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide on 40 informants (employed multiethnic survivors). Survivors were stratified into three groups for successfully RTW, and another three groups of survivors who were unable to return to work. Each of the three groups was ethnically homogeneous. Thematic analysis using a constant comparative approach was aided by in vivo software. Results: Participants shared numerous barriers and facilitators which directly or interactively affect RTW. Key barriers were physical-psychological after-effects of treatment, fear of potential environment hazards, high physical job demand, intrusive negative thoughts and overprotective family. Key facilitators were social support, employer support, and regard for financial independence. Across ethnic groups, the main facilitators were financial-independence (for Chinese), and socialisation opportunity (for Malay). A key barrier was after-effects of treatment, expressed across all ethnic groups. Conclusions: Numerous barriers were identified in the non-RTW survivors. Health professionals and especially occupational therapists should be consulted to assist the increasing survivors by providing occupational rehabilitation to enhance RTW amongst employed survivors. Future research to identify prognostic factors can guide clinical efforts to restore cancer survivors to their desired level/type of occupational functioning for productivity and wellbeing.
Students experience different levels of autonomy based on the mediation of self-regulated learning (SRL), but little is known about the effects of different mediation technologies on students' perceived SRL strategies. This mixed explanatory study compared two technology mediation models, Icourse (a learning management system) and Icourse+Pigai (an automatic writing evaluation system), with a control group that did not use technology. A quasi-experimental design was used, which involved a pre and post-intervention academic writing test, an SRL questionnaire, and one-to-one semi-structured student interviews. The aim was to investigate 280 Chinese undergraduate English as a foreign language (EFL) students' academic writing performance, lexical complexity, and perceptions of self-regulated strategies in academic writing. One-way ANCOVA of writing performance, Kruskal-Wallis test of lexical complexity, ANOVA of the SRL questionnaire, and grounded thematic content analysis revealed that, first, both Icourse and Icourse+Pigai provided significant support for the development of SRL strategies vs. the control group, although there was no significant difference between the two groups. Second, Icourse+Pigai-supported SRL was more helpful for improving students' academic writing performance because it enabled increased writing practice and correction feedback. Third, Icourse+Pigai-supported SRL did not significantly improve students' lexical complexity. In conclusion, we argue that both learning management systems and automated writing evaluation (AWE) platforms may be used to assist students' SRL learning to enhance their writing performance. More effort should be directed toward developing technological tools that increase both lexical accuracy and lexical complexity. We conclude that the technical tools used in this study were positively connected to the use of SRL techniques. However, when creating technologically mediated SRL activities, students' psychological study preferences should be considered.
This paper discusses findings from a study investigating feedback efficacy on the accurate use of prepositions by ESL learners in written work over a period of 12 weeks. The study involved two treatment groups and a control group comparing the differential effects of the focused indirect with the unfocused indirect corrective feedback on the uptake and retention measured from the pretest, immediate and delayed posttests. The study also analysed the language-related episodes (LREs) occurring in the collaborative dialogue during the treatment sessions to identify the factors affecting uptake and retention of the corrective feedback in subsequent writing tasks. Findings revealed that both treatment groups outperformed the control group in the posttests, but, there was no significant difference between the unfocused and focused corrective feedback groups. Evidence from the LREs analysis suggests that extensive engagement in all the three functions of the Swain (2005) output hypothesis: noticing, hypothesis testing and metalinguistic, during the collaborative dialogue contribute toward the enhancement of uptake and retention. Since both correction types were equally facilitative in increasing accuracy of preposition usage, teachers may consider using them accordingly in writing tasks.
Unemployment among the Malaysian public universities’ graduates due to their inability to communicate proficiently and accurately in English language with proper pronunciation has been a concern among various parties. One possible method to address such issue is to look at how these graduates learn and improve their command of English language. Language learning strategies (LLS) is one of the prominent variables that can affect their language learning process. With that in view, this study investigated the LLSs used by the first year undergraduates in a Malaysian public university. It also examined the relationship between language learning strategies based on gender. The survey utilised the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) by Oxford (1990) on 535 male and 1173 female respondents. Data obtained were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test, One-way ANOVA and chi-square test. Finding revealed that females employed more strategies if compared to males. The research result also showed that metacognitive strategies were highly employed by these undergraduates whereas affective strategies were least used among them. Further ANOVA test revealed there was a significant difference between the language learning strategies used by these undergraduates. The implications of these findings to educators, scholars and researchers were also discussed.
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