The moderating role of cultural orientation in explaining temporal orientation of self-referencing

A psychological process called self-referencing justifies the use of ‘you’ statements in advertisements; the more an individual relates an ad to him/herself, the greater the likelihood of recall and favorable evaluation. Self-referencing can be differentiated based on the temporal dimension of the self being activated while processing advertisements: when people remember themselves in the past they engage in retrospective self-referencing whereas they engage in anticipatory self-referencing when imagining themselves in the future. The current study examined the moderating role of consumers’ cultural background (i.e. long-term vs. short-term orientation) on the effects of temporal orientation of self-referencing. A corollary of this premise is that the match between cultural time orientation and the type of self-referencing activated by an ad will increase the extent of viewers’ self-referencing as well as advertising effectiveness. Further, this study confirmed a mediating role of self-referencing in explaining the match effects. The findings inform the extant literature on self-referencing and also provide managerial implications for international advertising practitioners.     

Effects of motivation,academic stress and age in predicting self-directed learning readiness (SDLR): Focused on online college students

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the self-directed learning readiness (SDLR) among online students might be significantly predicted by motivation, academic stress, and age. To complete the purpose of this study, the Pearson correlation and multiple-regression are analyzed. The participants for this study are college students who are taking online counseling classes at one online university in Korea. A total of 186 students responded to the web-survey questionnaire. The Pearson correlation is used to examine whether there are significant correlations among motivation, academic stress, age, and SDLR. Results show that motivation and academic stress have an influence on the level of SDLR. However, there is no significant relationship between age and SDLR. Also, the multiple-regression is used to analyze any influence on three predictors (motivation, academic stress, and age) in predicting SDLR. As a result, motivation and academic stress turn out as significant predictors which are influential in predicting the level of SDLR. However, the variable of the age among online college students is not influential in predicting the level of SDLR. Lastly, suggestions and implications are discussed for future study.     

Key Value Drivers of Startup Companies in the New Media Industry—The Case of Online Games in Korea

The amazing speed of innovations in the new media industry is now forcing major studios and publishers to search for promising startup companies to sustain their competitive edge. However, selection and valuation of startup companies, especially in the new media industry, is difficult to conduct because of the high amount of uncertainty. To understand and find the fair value of startup companies in the new media industry, we needed to investigate the key value drivers. In this study, we focused on the characteristics of uncertainty and the resource-based view of the firm and empirically analyzed the market value of startup companies based on the case of the online games industry in Korea. Results showed that the product development stage, market size, the ease of lock-in, technological competency, and a key talent are the five major key value drivers of startup companies in the Korean online games industry.     

Education and Recreation Activities of Older Asian Immigrants

Older Asian immigrants experience a variety of challenges when attempting to adapt to life in a new society. Adjustment difficulties associated with cultural differences among older Asian immigrants and the host country may result in a certain levels of acculturative stress. This stress is negatively associated with health and quality of life. In spite of benefits of participation in recreation activities for older Asian immigrants, they continue to experience constraints to their leisure participation that are associated with cultural differences (e.g., language barriers, limited social networks, different family roles, lack of awareness of leisure resources). To address this challenge, it may be helpful to develop strategies to support older Asian immigrants in their leisure pursuits. The purpose of this paper is to (a) examine older Asian immigrants’ issues related to acculturation and their help-seeking patterns, (b) discuss potential leisure constraints associated with cultural differences for leisure participation, and (c) provide suggestions on ways leisure service providers can offer leisure education programs, meaningful recreation activities originating in Asia, and multicultural recreation events.     

A scalable and adaptive method for finding semantically equivalent cue words of uncertainty

Scientific knowledge is constantly subject to a variety of changes due to new discoveries, alternative interpretations, and fresh perspectives. Understanding uncertainties associated with various stages of scientific inquiries is an integral part of scientists’ domain expertise and it serves as the core of their meta-knowledge of science. Despite the growing interest in areas such as computational linguistics, systematically characterizing and tracking the epistemic status of scientific claims and their evolution in scientific disciplines remains a challenge. We present a unifying framework for the study of uncertainties explicitly and implicitly conveyed in scientific publications. The framework aims to accommodate a wide range of uncertainty types, from speculations to inconsistencies and controversies. We introduce a scalable and adaptive method to recognize semantically equivalent cues of uncertainty across different fields of research and accommodate individual analysts’ unique perspectives. We demonstrate how the new method can be used to expand a small seed list of uncertainty cue words and how the validity of the expanded candidate cue words is verified. We visualize the mixture of the original and expanded uncertainty cue words to reveal the diversity of expressions of uncertainty. These cue words offer a novel resource for the study of uncertainty in scientific assertions.     

Exploring learning culture in Finnish and South Korean classrooms

The authors aimed to investigate learning culture in classrooms at schools to understand education in Finland and South Korea. For this, Finnish and South Korean university students made observations on classrooms in partner countries and reflected on both education systems based on their own previous experiences (2011–2014). Afterwards, researchers from both countries categorized and thematized the experiences of the participants, and interpreted the main themes to figure out the learning culture in Finland and South Korea. As a result, the learning culture in both countries were characterized into six themes: teacher's autonomy in teaching, authenticity in learning, relationships between teachers and students, learning assessment, student engagement, and student well-being. Noteworthy features of high-performing education were recognized through the observation on the learning culture in both countries.     

Optimal flow experience in web-based instruction

The purpose of this study is to explore learner engagement and motivation related toFlow particularly in WBI settings. In theFlow state people are absorbed in their activities while irrelevant thoughts and perceptions are screened out. In this article, we attempted to identify some of the critical elements of learner feelings and WBI features which relate to the experience ofFlow. Survey data were collected from 266 Korean cyber-university students and the data were subject to factor analyses and multiple regression to determine the best predictors ofFlow in WBI environments. As a result, six factors, including G-factor for flow, were found. Based on these findings, a theoretical model for Learner Flow within WBI was proposed     

Serious Leisure,Health Perception,Dispositional Optimism,and Life Satisfaction Among Senior Games Participants

This study investigated factors that explain the life satisfaction of Senior Games participants. One 193 older adults from the 2005 Michigan State Senior Games and the 2005 New York State Senior Games participated in the study. The results of the study show that one of the indicators of serious leisure (affective attachment) was positively correlated to optimism (.16, p <.05), age (.28, p <.01), and the number of years participated (.28, p <.01). Regression analysis was also used to identify which variables contribute to predicting life satisfaction. It was found that dispositional optimism (β =.308, p <.001) and perceived health (β =.185, p <.05) were significant predictors of life satisfaction.     

Identification of social-emotional problems in young children using a parent-completed screening measure

The early identification of social and emotional problems in infants, toddlers, and young children is critical for improving developmental outcomes. The Ages and Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional, a newly-developed screening tool, is described in this article. Questionnaires span the 3- to 63-month period with 8 separate assessment intervals. Research findings, including data on 3014 questionnaires, are reported. Internal consistency was generally high, with an overall alpha of 0.82. Test-retest reliability between parents’ classifications was 0.94. Sensitivity ranged from 0.75 to 0.89 with 0.82 overall sensitivity; specificity ranged from 0.82 to 0.96 with 0.92 overall specificity. Parents reported easy understanding and high satisfaction with the questionnaires.     

Bodily Regulation and Vocational Schooling

Since the late 1980s, young women in South Korea (hereafter Korea) have had to satisfy certain physical requirements in order to gain low-status clerical jobs in larger corporations. This article analyses the impact of these physical requirements on commercial high school education and the subjectivity of the female students. The discussion revolves around three main issues: (1) the socio-economic contexts in which large companies have come to demand certain physical characteristics of lower status female clerical workers; (2) the responses of commercial high schools and female students; and (3) the theoretical implications of this study.