• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.153-169
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• 2012

This study reviews an English enhancement course implemented for medical and nursing college students of 2011 to improve their standardized English test scores. A total of 117 first-year students underwent the pre-test and the post-TOEIC in November 2011. After the pre-test, lectures on listening enhancement strategies and problem solving tactics on reading comprehension were supplemented with 4 times of enhancement-tests. Their pre- and post-TOEIC results were compared to see if such enhancement strategies were effective to improve their TOEIC scores. It was further to investigate, through survey questionnaires, how the subjects felt about a number of pre-test-type TOEIC exercise with what-to-listen and how-to-infer listening strategies and pattern-drill practices for reading comprehension. It was found that the scores of listening comprehension improved significantly for both major students whereas reading scores showed slight decrease among nursing majors. It is concluded that administering numerous pre-test-type-TOEIC exercise is effective for students to improve their listening scores supplemented with listening strategies Also, students' response showed positive toward the enhancement course.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.123-139
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• 2011

The purpose of the current study is to analyze a model of OPIc-based speaking test for Korea English classroom. The research questions were (1). What is the English teachers' opinion on the current speaking teaching and testing? (2). Is the OPIc speaking test appropriate in the Korea English class? and (3). What are the English education students' perceptions of the OPIc-based speaking test for English classes? To answer the first research question, a survey was conducted targeting one hundred and forty-seven teachers. The result of the survey shows that Korea English teachers' great concern on the English teaching and speaking test are "communicative competence," "scoring and criteria," and "condition and need." To answer the second research question, the OPIc speaking test for the class was analyzed and it was found that in terms of the communicative competence," "scoring and criteria," and "condition and need" issues, OPIc based speaking test is appropriate in Korea English class. For the third research question, Q methodology was used targeting English education students and the result shows that most English education students strongly agree to the statements that the OPIc-based speaking test has the advantage to improve communicative competence. This study may provide the information about creating and adopting tests for English classes and relating standardized test and the English classes.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.spc
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• pp.79-98
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• 2003

This article reports that a testee's content schemata have detrimental effects on the validity of standardized reading comprehension tests. in case that the reading passages constitute his prior background knowledge framed by regular academic pursuits focused on a major field of study. The empirical research findings on such a reliability issue have shown that the Korean subjects' familiarity with the content domain of the reading materials may substantially enhance their test performance, operated as unfair advantages over the other participants at the same level of English proficiency who do not possess technical knowledge closely related to the contents of the test passages. Based on these results, it may be argued that the reading text should be composed of maximally neutral contents to every testee to avoid the possible overlapping between a test-taker's content schemata and the content domain of the materials. Therefore, this article claims that the tenets of schema theory with its long-standing foundation on culturally predetermined content and formal schemata need to be expanded to cover professional knowledge structures, like those acquired by higher education, as the hard-wired framework of an individual's original culture-specific background knowledge.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.153-171
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• 2003

The scores of TOEFL, TOEIC, and TEPS have been increasingly used for many purposes in Korea. In particular, these test scores are being used as a predictor for determining readiness for and success in college work, or as a measure of the testees' overall English proficiency. Nonetheless, studies have rarely proposed that the validity of the test scores is used for either purpose. As a preliminary step to explore the predictive validity of the test scores, we collected the scores of TOEFL, TOEIC, and TEPS from thirty students of a university as well as their cumulative grade point averages (GPAs). The correlations between the test scores and GPAs show that TOEFL will be most likely to have the highest validity coefficient as a predictor for determining success in college work as well as a measure of overall English proficiency. Although this study has a few limitations such as the small number of participants, their homogeneousness as a group, etc., it provides some insight into the use of the three tests for college admissions and measurement of overall English proficiency and suggests need for conducting further validation studies in these areas.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.191-210
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• 2004

The scores of TOEFL, TOEIC and TEPS have been increasingly used for many purposes in Korea In particular, these test scores are being used as a measure of the test-takers' overall communicative competence. Nonetheless, few studies have been conducted that investigate the validity of the test scores used for this purpose. As a preliminary step to explore the validity of the test scores, we conducted a small scale study by comparing 30 university students' scores in TOEFL, TOElC and TEPS with their class performances in English conversation and composition courses. The correlations between the test scores and the grade point averages of the courses show that the test scores are much harder to use as a valid measure of test-takers' overall communicative competence than usually thought to be and that the score in TOEFL is, nonetheless, a more reliable measure than the ones in the other tests. Although tins study has a few limitations such as the small number of participants, the homogeneity of the sample as a group, etc, it provides some insight into the use of the three tests for measurement of overall communicative proficiency and suggests need for conducting further validation studies in these areas.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.35-70
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• 2003

This study investigates the acquisition of English prepositions of location and direction by Malaysian Chinese ESL learners. It was conducted with the objective of finding out which of the two types of prepositions was more problematic to the L1 Chinese learners. The study also sought to investigate the effect of age and proficiency levels in English on the acquisition of the English prepositions of location and direction by these learners. Additionally, the study sets out to determine the extent to which the L1 Chinese learners have acquired the English prepositions of location and direction. This study involved three groups of Chinese ESL learners: elementary, intermediate and advanced. They were selected based on their age and their performance on a standardized proficiency test. The instrument used to collect data was a preposition test comprising 85 items. These items on prepositions of location and direction were randomly arranged in the tasks. The test required subjects to respond to multiple choice questions, match given sentences with appropriate prepositions, fill in blanks with the appropriate prepositions, judge given sentences to see if they are grammatical or ungrammatical and correct the ungrammatical sentence by providing the appropriate prepositions. The results indicate that age and proficiency levels of the learners made a difference in the acquisition of English prepositions of location and direction. The older learners with higher proficiency levels seem to fare better than the younger and less proficient learners. The results suggest that the prepositions of location arc slightly more problematic than prepositions of directions to the L1 Chinese learners. Our data also suggest that certain prepositions of each type are more problematic than others.

• Asian Oncology Nursing
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.145-154
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• 2009

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to obtain information about the experiences of sensations after breast cancer surgery characterized by prevalence, frequency, and severity, distresses, and disturbances in ADL using the BSAS (Breast Sensation Assessment Scale) and to develop the standardized Korean BSAS. Methods: Thirty two women from 3 to 100 days after breast cancer surgery (BCS) completed Roberta's BSAS. The 18 sensations of BSAS were translated using the references of Lee's Korean Pain Rating Scale and English-English, English-Korean dictionaries and the consultation from two native Americans, one bilingual permanent resident of the States, and one nursing professor. The Korean-translated BSAS has high reliability in test-retest. Likert type 4-point scale and 100 mm VAS were used for assessment. Results: Certain sensations remained prevalent (tender, pull, pain), frequent (numb, nag, throb), severe (throb, shoot, numb), causing distress (throb, penetrate, shoot), and influencing on ADL (throb, penetrate, nag). The most frequently experienced sensation other than BSAS was itching. There was little difference in the prevalence of symptom experiences between sentinel lymph node biopsy and axillary lymph node dissection. Conclusion: The women after BCS are suffering from neuropathic sensations. The Korean- translated BSAS could be used in effectively assessing breast sensations after BCS in Korean women.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.17 no.32
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• pp.255-266
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• 1994

This study does present things to suggest to foreign multinational corporation or domestic corporation through the empirical study on the standardization level. If we summary this study, it is as follows. In chapter I, we did institute the problems and explain the objects and methods and system of the study. In chapter II, we did explain the universality of the culture and international advertisement. Next, we did explain the background of doing specialization strategy and standardization strategy. Also we did study the previous study about the arguements for and against these. Lsat we did institute the hypothesises as follows. - Hypothesis 1 $H_0$ : The use of westerner appeal means has been increased than 11 years before and is able to increase continuously. - Hypothesis 2 $H_0$ : The use of westerner model and knowned has been increased than 11 years before and is able to increase continuously. - Hypothesis 3 $H_0$ : The use of the English language has been increased than 11 years before and is able to increase continuously. - Hypothesis 4 $H_0$ : The use of the west short piece and background has been increased than 11 years before and is able to increase continuously. In chapter III, we did refer to the method of this study. First, we did adjust the measure of standardization index, and we did work coding it, such after the two coder did check the freguency of the appeal meanstype about the advertisement of four daily report. Then we did select eight production as high involvement production and seven production as low involvement. We did test the coder's trust degree on the such sample to be selected through the 't-test' of the SAS statistic program and regression analysis through the spss/$pc^+$ statistic program to approve the this study's hypothesises. In chapter IV, we did analysis the results of the empirical study on the high or low involvement productions. First, the results of t-test to approve the coder's trust degree is that it is same statistically attentionly the distribution of the sample between coder at 10% attention level. Next, the results of the regression analysis on eight hypothesises are as fellows. In case of high involvement production we are able to speak that the use of the English language appeal among the eight appeals is only standardized. And incase of low involvement production, we are able to speak that the use of the hard-sell appeal among the eight appeds is only standardized. Therefore we did conclude that the standardization level of Korea newspaper advertisement is low. Also this suggests that it will do plan and do the specialzation strategy or localization strategy foreign multinational corporation or domestic corporation in Korea newspaper advertisement. In chapter V, we do present the boundary of this study and new study methods.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.185-192
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• 2010

Objectives: We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between low external doses of ionizing radiation exposure and the risk of cancer mortality among nuclear power plant workers. Methods: We searched MEDLINE using key words related to low dose and cancer risk. The selected articles were restricted to those written in English from 1990 to January 2009. We excluded those studies with no fit to the selection criteria and we included the cited references in published articles to minimize publication bias. Through this process, a total of 11 epidemiologic studies were finally included. A publication bias was tested for using Egger's test. The homogeneity test was performed before the integration of each of the standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) and the result proved that the studies were heterogeneous. Results: We found significant decreased deaths from all cancers (SMR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.62 - 0.90), all cancers excluding leukemia, solid cancer, mouth and pharynx, esophagus, stomach, rectum, liver and gallbladder, pancreas, lung, prostate, lymphopoietic and hematopoitic cancer. The findings of this meta-analysis were similar with those of the 15 Country Collaborative Study conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. A publication bias was found only for liver and gallbladder cancer (p = 0.015). Heterogeneity was observed for all cancers, all cancers excluding leukemia, solid cancer, esophagus, colon and lung cancer. Conclusions: Our findings of low mortality for stomach, rectum, liver and gallbladder cancers may explained by the health worker effect. Yet further studies are needed to clarify the low SMR of cancers, for which there is no useful screening tool, in nuclear power plant workers.

• Korean Journal of Anesthesiology
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• v.71 no.6
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• pp.467-475
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• 2018

Background: The Quality of Recovery-40 (QoR-40) is a widely-used, self-rated, and self-completed questionnaire for postoperative patients. The questionnaire is intended to elicit information from each patient regarding the quality of recovery during the postoperative period. It is noteworthy, however, that an official Korean version of the QoR-40 (QoR-40K) has not been established. The purpose of this study was to develop the QoR-40K by translation and cultural adaptation process and to evaluate the validity and reliability of the QoR-40K. Methods: After pre-authorization from the original author of the QoR-40, the translation procedure was established and carried out based upon Beaton's recommendation to create a QoR-40K model comparable to the original English QoR-40. Two hundred surgical patients were enrolled, and each completed the questionnaire during the preoperative period, on the third day, and 1 month after surgery. The QoR-40K was compared with the visual analogue scale (VAS) and another health-related questionnaire, the Short-form Health Survery-36 (SF-36). The method of validation for QoR-40K included test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and level of responsiveness. Results: Spearman's correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.895 (P < 0.001), and Cronbach's alpha of the global QoR-40K on the third day after surgery was 0.956. A positive correlation was obtained between the QoR-40K and the mental component summary of SF-36 (${\rho}=0.474$, P < 0.001), and a negative correlation was observed between QoR-40K and VAS (${\rho}=-0.341$, P < 0.001). The standardized responsive mean of the total QoR-40K was 0.71. Conclusions: The QoR-40K was found to be as acceptable and reliable as the original English QoR-40 for Korean patients after surgery, despite the apparent differences in the respective patients' cultural backgrounds.