Search

This study describes a typology of the teaching styles of practicing teachers. Teaching style refers to a teacher's distinct qualities that are persistent from situation to situation regardless of the content. The Teaching Style Assessment Scale, which measures teaching style, was completed by 1,261 nursing faculty in Japan. Prior cluster analysis revealed four naturally-occurring groups based on their teaching style, with teachers practicing learner-centered and teacher-centered styles nearly equally. The dual purposes of this study were (1) to measure the differences between these groups to determine if they were unique and (2) to describe any teaching style differences among these groups. Analysis of variance and Scheffé descriptive statistics supported the conclusion that a typology exists for classifying teaching styles as they are practiced in the field by teachers. Discriminant analysis identified the distinctions among the groups. The four distinct groups clearly described in this Teaching Styles Typology of Practicing Teachers are "Distinctly Teacher-Centered," "Moderately Teacher-Centered," "Consistently Learner-Centered," and "Decidedly Learner-Centered." This typology of teaching styles can be a valuable tool for teachers to improve their professional practice. It has implications for increased professionalism by facilitating increased self-awareness and assisting in developing an educational philosophy.

This study describes the teaching style behaviors that differentiate between learner-centered and teacher-centered approaches to teaching. The Teaching Style Assessment Scale, which measures teaching style, was completed by 1,261 nursing faculty in Japan. Discriminant analysis and cluster analysis revealed that the distinctive characteristic distinguishing the learner-centered approach from the teacher-centered approach is Personalizing Instruction. Personalizing Instruction recognizes and utilizes the uniqueness of each student's strengths. Personalizing Instruction can facilitate students' interpersonal understanding and self-awareness. By implementing Personalizing Instruction, teachers can facilitate the metacognitive process in their students, which is healthy for the individual and productive for meaningful learning. Learner-centeredness embraces Personalizing Instruction, while teacher-centeredness rejects it. Teachers practice learner-centered and teacher-centered styles nearly equally. Personalizing Instruction is the most critical teaching style element and the indispensable definitive factor separating these styles.

Teaching style has been a popular concept for many years. Teaching style refers to the distinct qualities displayed by a teacher that are persistent from situation to situation regardless of the content. The Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS) has been used extensively in the West for measuring teaching style in relationship to the adult education literature, but no version has been available for use in Japan. Therefore, this research used PALS as the foundation for creating a new instrument to measure teaching style in Japan. Following a rigorous translation process, data were collected from a national sample of 1,111 nursing educators. Factor analysis and correlation were used to establish the construct and content validity of the new instrument. Reliability was established with Cronbach's alpha. The new 30-item instrument was named the Teaching Style Assessment Scale and is available in both Japanese and English for use either for personal self assessment or for research purposes.

Multiple-choice formats remain a popular design for assessing listening comprehension, yet no consensus has been reached on how multiple-choice formats should be employed. Some researchers argue that test takers must be provided with a preview of the items prior to the input (Buck, 1995; Sherman, 1997); others argue that a preview may decrease the authenticity of the task by changing the way input is processed (Hughes, 2003). Using stratified random sampling techniques, more and less proficient Japanese university English learners (N = 206) were assigned one of three test conditions: preview of question stem and answer options (n = 67), preview of question stem only (n = 70), and no preview (n = 69). A two-way ANOVA, with test condition and listening proficiency level as independent variables and score on the multiple-choice listening test as the dependent variable, indicated that the amount of item preview affected test scores but did not affect high and low proficiency students' scores differently. Item-level analysis identified items that were harder or easier than expected for one or more of the conditions, and the researchers posit three possible sources for these unexpected findings: 1) frequency of options in the input, 2) location of item focus, and 3) presence of organizational markers.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which performance on the TOEFL iBT speaking section is associated with other indicators of Japanese university students' abilities to communicate orally in an academic English environment and to determine which components of oral ability for these tasks are best assessed by TOEFL iBT. To achieve this aim, TOEFL iBT speaking scores were compared to performances on a group oral discussion, picture and graph description, and prepared oral presentation tasks, and their component scores of pronunciation, fluency, grammar/vocabulary, interactional competence, descriptive skill, delivery skill, and question answering. Participants were Japanese university students (N = 222), who were English majors in a Japanese university. Pearson product-moment correlations, corrected for attenuation, between scores on the speaking section of TOEFL iBT and the three university tasks indicated strong relationships between the TOEFL iBT speaking scores and the three university tasks and high or moderate correlations between the TOEFL iBT speaking scores and the components of oral ability. For the components of oral ability, pronunciation, fluency, and vocabulary/grammar were highly associated with TOEFL iBT speaking scores while interactional competence, descriptive skill, and delivery skill were moderately associated with TOEFL iBT speaking scores. The findings suggest that TOEFL iBT speaking scores are good overall indicators of academic oral ability and that they are better measures of pronunciation, fluency and vocabulary/grammar than they are of interactional competence, descriptive skill, and presentation delivery skill.

Test takers should have a voice in testing practices (Mathew, 2004). However, when incorporating their input, systematic processes to ensure the validity of testing practices must be followed. Such processes allow for test development to be a more democratic process (Shohamy, 2001), without sacrificing the value of the resulting inferences made from the test scores. This article describes a case study that incorporated the desires of test takers to change the procedures of a group oral discussion test in a university English as a Foreign Language program. A study was designed to determine the extent to which the proposed changes would threaten the validity of the testing process. Specifically, the procedures for the group oral were altered to investigate the effect of interlocutor familiarity. Students were randomly assigned to class-familiar (n?=?146) and class-unfamiliar (n?=?159) groups to identify to what extent group familiarity affected test takers' scores in the four assessed categories: pronunciation, fluency, lexis and grammar, and communication skills. For the two groups, no statistically significant difference in scores was found, and score reliability estimates were similar. The implications of the findings are addressed in terms of recommendations for using stakeholder input in the assessment design process.

The second language group oral is a test of second language speaking proficiency, in which a group of three or more English language learners discuss an assigned topic without interaction with interlocutors. Concerns expressed about the extent to which test takers' personal characteristics affect the scores of others in the group have limited its attractiveness. This study investigates the degree to which assertive and non-assertive test takers' scores are affected by the levels of assertiveness of their group members. The sample of test takers was Japanese first year university students who were studying English in Japan. The students took the revised NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Shimanoka et al., 2002), a group oral test, and PhonePass SET-10 (Ordinate, 2004). Two separate MANCOVA analyses were conducted, one designed to determine the extent to which assertive test takers' scores are affected by the levels of assertiveness of group members (N = 112), and one designed to determine the extent to which non-assertive test takers' scores are affected by the levels of assertiveness of group members (N = 113). The analyses indicated that assertive test takers were assigned higher scores than expected when grouped with only non-assertive test takers and lower scores than expected when grouped with only assertive test takers, while the study failed to find an effect for grouping based on assertiveness for non-assertive test takers' scores. The findings of the study suggest that when the group oral is used, rater-training sessions should include guidance on how to evaluate a test taker in the context of the group in which the test taker is assessed and assign scores that are not based on a comparison of proficiencies of group members. (Contains 2 tables, 4 figures and 4 footnotes.)

Seven species of the genus Cosmospora collected in Japan are reported in this article. Among them, Cosmospora japonica is described as a new species. Cosmospora henanensis, C. rishbethii, and C. triqua, all of which are known only from their type localities, are added to the Japanese mycobiota. The other species, C. chaetopsinaecatenulatae, C. diminuta, and C. peponum, are new records for Japan. Additional distribution records are given for Cosmospora species hitherto known in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A six-year monitoring programme characterized the migration/dispersion patterns of sediment slugs generated following typhoon-induced disturbances in 1993 and 1997 along a single-thread gravel-bed stream, Oyabu Creek, on Kyushu Island, Japan. This laterally confined creek comprises riffle–pool sequences with intervening bedrock outcrops. The passage of sediment pulses associated with sediment slug processes reflected, and was controlled by, the riffle–pool structures which provided channel bed roughness, the volume of sediment stored along valley floors, and the distribution of bedrock outcrops. Changes to bed material size following major sediment inputs during the disturbance events also exerted an influence on subsequent sediment slug processes. The sequence of rainfall events, together with changes to channel bed structure, induced different phases in the sediment slug processes. The capacity of a reach to store or trap sediment, as recorded by the longitudinal structure of the channel, varied during these differing phases. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficacy of neuropathic pain control remains unsatisfactory. Despite the availability of a variety of therapies, a significant proportion of patients suffer from poorly controlled pain of this kind. Consequently, new drugs and treatments are still being sought to remedy the situation. One such new drug is mirogabalin, a selective ligand for the α2δ subunits of voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCC) developed by Sankyo group for the management of neuropathic pain. In 2019 in Japan, mirogabalin was approved for peripheral neuropathic pain following the encouraging results of clinical trials conducted with diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain (DPNP) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) patients. The ligand selectivity of mirogabalin for α2δ-1 and α2δ-2 and its slower dissociation rate for α2δ-1 than for α2δ-2 subunits of VGCC may contribute to its strong analgesic effects, wide safety margin, and relatively lower incidence of adverse effects compared to pregabalin and gabapentin. This article discusses the mechanism of action of mirogabalin, presents data on its pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, and reviews the available experimental and clinical studies that have assessed the efficacy and safety of the drug in the treatment of selected neuropathic pain syndromes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Core recovered during Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 319 from below the Kumano forearc basin of Japan''s Nankai margin provides some of the only in situ samples from an inner accretionary wedge, and sheds light on the tectonic history of a seismically hazardous region. The 84m of core comprises Miocene-age well-bedded muds, silts, and volcaniclastic sediments. Beds increase in dip with depth, and are cut by (i) soft-sediment deformation bands (“vein structures”), (ii) ∼1-cm thick shear zones within ∼10-cm thick regions of high shear strain, and (iii) <1-mm thick slickensided faults which are the youngest structures in the core and highly localized. Microstructural analyses of the shear zones suggest that they formed via multiple increments of shear localization and a mixed granular and cataclastic flow. Kinematic analysis of slip indicators in shear zones further reveals that they formed via north–south shortening. In contrast, the faults cut the shear zones with mixed slip kinematics, and accommodated northwest–southeast shortening, roughly parallel to the modern shortening direction. The entire section was also rotated ∼15° counterclockwise about a roughly vertical axis. Therefore the principle strain axes and stratigraphic section rotated during or postdating development of the major sub-basin (∼5.6–3.8Ma) unconformity, a time that generally coincides with a change in the Philippine Sea plate convergence direction. Forearc basin development therefore postdates a protracted geologic evolution of shear-zone development, tectonic rotations, and inner-wedge development, the last of which coincides with a rheological evolution toward localized frictional faulting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: The US continues to be in the midst of an opioid epidemic. The prescription of narcotics for acute injury or post-operative pain is a common inciting event leading to opioid abuse and addiction. It is eminently important for orthopedic surgeons to lead the charge in changing practice patterns to decrease the prescribing and subsequent use and abuse of opioids. Anecdotally, many surgeons are aware that use of opioids for post-operative pain is substantially less in other countries compared to the US. However, this has not been well quantified and may be useful information to guide practice., Methods: The 2018 American Orthopedic Association (AOA)- Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) traveling fellows developed a survey to compare orthopedic surgeon-reported opioid prescribing patterns after various common orthopedic surgeries in Japan and the US., Results: We present here survey data demonstrating significantly less post-operative prescription of opioids in Japan in terms of number of pills provided and duration of prescriptions compared to orthopedic surgeons in the US., Conclusion: We hope this provides meaningful data to motivate orthopedic surgeons in the US to evaluate and potentially alter their own prescription habits to help mitigate the opioid crisis., (Copyright © 2019 The Japanese Orthopaedic Association. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Industrial release of mercury into the local Minamata environment with consequent poisoning of local communities through contaminated fish and shellfish consumption is considered the classic case of environmental mercury poisoning. However, the mercury species in the factory effluent has proved controversial, originally suggested as inorganic, and more recently as methylmercury species. We used newly available methods to re-examine the cerebellum of historic Cat 717, which was fed factory effluent mixed with food to confirm the source. Synchrotron high-energy-resolution fluorescence detection-X-ray absorption spectroscopy revealed sulfur-bound organometallic mercury with a minor β-HgS phase. Density functional theory indicated energetic preference for α-mercuri-acetaldehyde as a waste product of aldehyde production. The consequences of this alternative species in the "classic" mercury poisoning should be re-evaluated.