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Language learning motivation plays an important role in both research and teaching, yet language learners are still largely understood in terms of North American and European cultural values. This research explored language learning motivation constructs in a Chinese cultural setting, where large numbers of students are required to study English. In Taiwan, 567 language learners responded to a survey concerning motivation orientation, expectancy, and self-evaluated skill. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to explore potential relationships within the framework of the process model. Expectancy was found to be an intervening construct between motivation orientations and self-evaluated skill. The strongest link to expectancy was the required motivation, with the integrative motivation playing no significant role. The context of these findings is discussed in relation to Chinese cultural and educational history and a proposed motivator--the "Chinese Imperative." Implications for teaching practice are explained, including the need to reconsider motivation constructs within non-Western cultural settings. (Contains 3 tables, 2 figures, and 1 footnote.)

Whereas many researchers have examined differences in values and behavior between Westerners and Asians, fewer have investigated differences within Asian cultural groups. A recent government initiative in Taiwan to encourage international education has led to the development of an international MBA program at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan; both Chinese and Southeast Asian students participate in the program. They exhibit different behaviors in their classes, particularly in their postings in online discussion boards. For reasons that can be partly explained by the students' responses on a Chinese-Value Survey, Chinese students tend to post fewer messages than Southeast Asians, and both groups post fewer messages than Westerners in the classes under study. Instructors in multicultural classes have to consider such differences when they design assignments and set expectations for students in online discussions. (Contains 1 table.)

Introducing a culturally unfamiliar food to a new market requires understanding local meaning. Local psychological associations with nonendemic food often remain masked from common research methods such as surveys and home interviews. We apply a localized adaptation of the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique to explore consumer psychosensory perceptions of nonendemic foods—the contemporary phenomenon of coffee's acceptance in Taiwan's tea‐dominated market. A purposive sample of 10 trial and 20 full study participants, avid coffee drinkers, ranged in age from 19 to 52. Participants were supplied with single‐use film‐based cameras that they carried about in everyday life to snap photos later used in structured interviews. Over 120 concepts were generated from a total count of 95,472 transcribed words. This resulted in six top‐level categories: emotions/feelings, flavor/taste/color, cultural integration, nature, eat/drink, and coffee type organized in hierarchies of meaning. Participants consistently associated coffee with the desire for relaxation, enjoyment, and nature. Practical Applications: The revealed psychometric themes unearthed in this study suggest practical applications including informing market positioning segmentation strategies. In Taiwan's tea culture, findings show coffee plays a strong metaphorical role in consumers' psychology of escape and retreat from hectic daily life. Marketers of coffee should align with this theme rather than the standard Western messaging of energy and motivation boosting. This local metaphor provides coffee with a better opportunity for market adoption. Building on locally meaningful representations is key to market penetration and a strategy of glocalization that is fundamental to marketing of nonendemic food products. Successful diffusion of a nonendemic food product begins from a core group of dedicated loyal users, like the participants in the current study. By understanding the values these consumers associate with the nonendemic product, marketing managers can identify and select key features and meanings to emphasize in the product's design and marketing communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examined a possible link between computer-generated feedback and changes in writing strategies of English-as-a-foreign-language business-writing students in Taiwan. Numerous detailed analyses were carried out using computer software that measured students' writing, including time spent on a document, amount of editing of a document, specific errors made in a document, and the amount of text copied from resource material. (Author/JL)

Objective: To quantify differences in patient expectations of healthscape (e.g., interior environment) across Western medicine (WM) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) paradigms. Data sources/study setting: Primary survey data comprise 469 Taiwanese consumers. National insurance coverage of both TCM and WM is an ideal setting to test for differences in healthscape expectations. Study design: Respondents report their recent experience as either exclusive users of TCM, exclusive WM, neither, or dual usage (both TCM and WM), and are randomly assigned to one of two surveys (identical except one refers to WM contexts, the other TCM) to rate the importance of 28 healthscape factors derived from previous studies. Data collection/extraction methods: Multivariate analysis of variance is used to test the research hypotheses. Principal findings: Dual users accept some differences across paradigms. In contrast, exclusive WM users apply their existing WM expectations to TCM contexts, raising the possibility of dissatisfaction and low adoption. Conclusions: A person's experience with TCM is related to acceptance of healthscape differences. Medical service providers of TCM, and by extension complementary and alternative medicine, should devise strategies to ease initial visitation by exclusive WM users. Healthscape designs need not be modeled closely on a WM standard, as dual users accept differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]