This study aims to examine refusal strategies of Turkish learners of English and explore their perceptions of social factors that are influential in their strategy use. The study was conducted at a private university in the west of Turkey, and eighty Turkish L2 learners enrolled at an English language preparatory program participated in the study.…

This paper, through the use of Joycean narrative inquiry, offers a qualitative narrative analysis of two types of language input the South Korean community was exposed to when the doors opened to a large number of western teachers in 1993 (i.e., General American and Received Pronunciation). Specifically, this paper provides examples of lexical…

This article reports on a study of student experiences of a Walls to Bridges (W2B) class taught by Faculty of Social Work instructors in a Canadian women's prison. The Walls to Bridges (W2B) program is based on the U. S. Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program and brings students from the university together with students from the prison to study for a…

The present study aimed at investigating the influence of social power, as a social hierarchy, on perception of speech act of apology by 40 Jordanian second language speakers (JL2Ss) compared to that of 40 Jordanian non-English speakers, those whose English proficiency is low (JNESs) and 40 English native speakers (ENSs). Discourse Completion Test…

Mental health screening in schools is a progressive practice to identify students for prevention and intervention services. Multiple gating procedures, in which students are provided more intensive assessments following initial identification of risk, are aligned with prevention science and poised to enhance multi-tiered systems of support. Yet,…

Given that there is evidence that college student-athletes may be at risk for psychological disturbances (Pinkerton, Hintz, & Barrow, 1989), and possibly underutilizing college mental health services (Watson & Kissinger, 2007), the purpose of this study was to examine attitudes toward mental illness and help seeking among college…

Few studies investigate what members of the general population know about individuals with autism. Only one study has previously investigated how beliefs about autism differ from those about other psychiatric disorders. This study surveyed a convenience sample of the general adult population, within the Northern Region of Denmark, about their…

This study presents a three-year replication and extension of Maurer's (2013) evaluation of a classroom activity to reduce prejudice and discrimination. Students in six sections of an introductory family science course were assigned to one of three conditions and one of two target marginalized groups for a 3x2 design. Results differed…

The main purpose of this study was to explore the perceived social distance among a small Arab community residing in a college town in the Midwest of the USA. The study examines its possible impact on the process of learning/acquiring English as a second language (ESL). It draws on the findings and contentions of the acculturation model as…

Teacher beliefs are an important area of inquiry because research has found that these beliefs are often diverse (Breen et al., 2001) and strongly impact classroom practices (Borg, 1998, 2003; Burns, 1992; Farrell & Bennis, 2013). Therefore, uninformed teacher beliefs could be to the detriment of the L2 learner. Despite the fact that knowledge…

Research shows that a very small percentage of those who suffer from mental illness seek professional help and fear of stigma is a principal factor why individuals are reluctant to obtain assistance. This study evaluated whether using examples of celebrities' experiences with mental illness as a form of "contact" with a mentally ill…

An instrument was developed to assess the perceived learner-teacher transactional distance in the context of the Hellenic Open University and to provide psychometric evidence of reliability and validity of the interpretation of the scores derived from the scale. First, an elicitation study gathered information on students' beliefs and feelings…

The paper discusses qualitative findings from an in-depth study of the school choices of 65 parents living in rural and remote areas of Tasmania and their views about the need for their children to move out of the area to pursue education at secondary and post-secondary level. A constructivist analysis of open-ended survey questions and focus…

This study examines the apology strategies used by 30 Saudi EFL teachers in Najran, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), paying special attention to variables such as social distance and power and offence severity. The study also delineates gender differences in the respondents' speech as opposed to studies that only examined speech act output by…

Assessing pragmatic knowledge in the instructed setting is seen as a complex but necessary task, which requires the design of appropriate research methodologies to examine pragmatic performance. This study discusses the use of two different research methodologies, namely those of Discourse Completion Tests/Tasks (DCTs) and verbal reports. Research…