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The present research tried to prompt self-regulated learning, autonomy, and self-efficacy of EFL learners through authentic assessment in Iranian EFL classrooms. To do so, 57 Iranian EFL learners were chosen and assigned to two equal groups; the Experimental Group (CG) and the Control Group (CG). Then, three questionnaires were administered to assess the respondents' self-regulated learning, autonomy, and self-efficacy before doing the treatment. After that, the EG received the treatment via using authentic assessments whereas the CG received the instruction through non-authentic assessments. After teaching 15 English passages to both groups, three post-tests were administered to them to determine the effects of the treatment on their self-regulated learning, autonomy, and self-efficacy. Lastly, the attitude questionnaire was given to the EG students to assess their attitudes toward implementing authentic assessments in EFL classes. The outcomes of ANCOVA revealed that there were significant differences between the post-tests of the EG and the CG. The results displayed that the EG noticeably outdid the CG in self-regulated learning, autonomy, and self-efficacy post-tests. In addition, the results showed that the EG held a positive attitude toward using authentic assessment in EFL classes. It can be concluded that applying authentic assessment in EFL classes can bring about constructive impacts for EFL learners. The findings of this investigation can be extremely valuable for EFL teachers and material designers to consider the impacts of authentic assessments and invest more in using these sorts of assessments.

Finding out which teaching strategies best support students learning is a key objective of educational research. Knowing this, this study investigated the comparative effects of consciousness-raising (CR) tasks and dynamic assessment (DA) on morphological awareness in an Afghani EFL context. To achieve this, 90 EFL grade 11 learners from three intact classes were selected through a convenience sampling procedure and were assigned to DA, CR, and control groups, respectively, with the same number of participants in each condition. A nonrandomized pretest-posttest design was carried out. The results of the Oxford quick placement test revealed that the participants had pre-intermediate English proficiency. To assess learners' morphological awareness, two different tests of morphological awareness were given both prior to the treatment and right after it. The DA group received interactionist DA on the target morphemes, the CR group received CR instruction on the target form, and the control group received nothing. The results of a one-way between-groups ANOVA revealed that both DA and CR groups significantly outperformed the control group on the post-test. A further post hoc analysis using Bonferroni adjustment demonstrated that the difference between DA and CR groups was also statistically significant with a small effect size (eta squared = 0.042), substantiating the superiority of DA over CR tasks on morphological awareness. The theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study are discussed.

Abstract The Advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has led to the use of auditory data for detecting various diseases, including COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 infection has claimed more than six million lives to date and therefore, needs a robust screening technique to control the disease spread. In the present study we created and validated the Swaasa AI platform, which uses the signature cough sound and symptoms presented by patients to screen and prioritize COVID-19 patients. We collected cough data from 234 COVID-19 suspects to validate our Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture and Feedforward Artificial Neural Network (FFANN) (tabular features) based algorithm. The final output from both models was combined to predict the likelihood of having the disease. During the clinical validation phase, our model showed a 75.54% accuracy rate in detecting the likely presence of COVID-19, with 95.45% sensitivity and 73.46% specificity. We conducted pilot testing on 183 presumptive COVID subjects, of which 58 were truly COVID-19 positive, resulting in a Positive Predictive Value of 70.73%. Due to the high cost and technical expertise required for currently available rapid screening methods, there is a need for a cost-effective and remote monitoring tool that can serve as a preliminary screening method for potential COVID-19 subjects. Therefore, Swaasa would be highly beneficial in detecting the disease and could have a significant impact in reducing its spread.