No abstract

Listening assessment has been a neglected area of research and teaching in the past due to difficulties such as separating input comprehension from output ability, rater variability, and text ambiguity. The goal of this study was to develop a norm-referenced and holistic model summary by surveying Taiwanese English listening and speaking teachers and then comparing that model summary to listening summaries created by non-expert college age native speakers. Eleven Taiwanese college English listening and speaking teachers were surveyed to determine i) their general listening assessment preferences and ii) how they would score a specific listening task, including selecting the key main ideas, key vocabulary, and drafting a model summary. For comparison purposes, the listening task was administered to 10 college-age native speakers of English and they were asked to orally construct a summary of the listening task. The results showed that the teachers were consistent in their listening assessment preferences and also in their preferred assessment choices for a specific listening task. The native-speaker produced summaries did not converge on a single model for the same listening task.

An online general education platform, e-Holistic (e-HO), was developed to support digital learning. Following Burnard's (2007) adoption of Activity Theory (AT) in designing music education to galvanize learners' creativity, the authors' study extended her theoretical framework through a hypothetical model they designed. From AT, this article investigates a number of elements—musical activities (tools), e-HO (community), emotional arousal (object), and musical creativity (outcome). Through the operation of the AT system, 733 students immersed in musical activities in e-HO were able to compose music even without any musical background. The purpose of this article is to report how an e-HO online activity helps arouse students' emotions and inspire their musical creativity. The structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicates that all research hypotheses were supported, and the musical activities on e-HO predicted 71.6% of students' self-assessed musical creativity. Finally, the implications of the authors' findings are reported for the future development of online musical education.

No abstract

An online general education platform, e-Holistic (e-HO), was developed to support digital learning. Following Burnard's (2007) adoption of Activity Theory (AT) in designing music education to galvanize learners' creativity, the authors' study extended her theoretical framework through a hypothetical model they designed. From AT, this article investigates a number of elements—musical activities (tools), e-HO (community), emotional arousal (object), and musical creativity (outcome). Through the operation of the AT system, 733 students immersed in musical activities in e-HO were able to compose music even without any musical background. The purpose of this article is to report how an e-HO online activity helps arouse students' emotions and inspire their musical creativity. The structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicates that all research hypotheses were supported, and the musical activities on e-HO predicted 71.6% of students' self-assessed musical creativity. Finally, the implications of the authors' findings are reported for the future development of online musical education.