This study investigated students? perceptions of their own and their peers? academic dishonesty (AD), their reasons for this dishonesty, their achievement goals, and their willingness to report AD (WRAD) within a Chinese cultural context. The results identified students? belief that their peers had a greater likelihood of engaging in AD and had more motivation to do so than did the students themselves. Gender and academic major did not affect students? WRAD. However, students were significantly more willing to report classmates than (...) friends. In terms of the participants? self-perceptions and peer perceptions concerning motivations for AD, more female students cited the lack of penalties as the reason for their own and their peers? AD, whereas male students more frequently cited their lack of attention to schoolwork as the reason for their own AD. In contrast to students in the social sciences, business students more frequently cited inadequate capabilities as the reason for their AD, and engineering students more frequently attributed their AD to self-interest. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that three motivations for AD (opportunism, inadequacy, and self-promotion) could positively predict AD, whereas mastery-approach goals could negatively predict AD. (shrink)

Investors' confidence in the financial market is boosted by good corporate governance (CG). Good governance builds trust and improves an organization's financial performance (FP). However, organizations with bad management lose the trust of their stakeholders because they do not perform well financially. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of CG 89; on FP through mediating the role of humble leadership (HL) and monetary incentive (MI) as a moderator between CG and HL. Data were collected from (...) 300 respondents who were working in various cement manufacturing organizations located in different cities of Pakistan. The analysis was performed using SPSS software version 25 and AMOS version 22 software to work out the study sample size. The result revealed that the framework of CG has a positive impact in terms of FP. Furthermore, HL positively and significantly mediates on CG, and FP is inextricably linked. However, MI acts as a moderator between CG and HL, but despite strengthening, it weakens the impact of CG' on HL. This study contributes toward the literature, specifically toward the expectancy theory literature. Finally, some theoretical and practical implications at the organizational level are offered, describing how CG influences FP within the organization, and research limitations and future directions are presented. (shrink)

This study examined academic dishonesty (AD) of 586 Taiwanese graduate students, the relationship between students' AD and their perceptions of AD of their peers, and their judgments regarding the seriousness of AD. Results showed that female students were more critical of AD than their male counterparts were in the areas of fraudulence, plagiarism, and falsification. Male students demonstrated more awareness of peer involvement in AD in the area of falsification than did female students. Master's students confessed to greater involvement in (...) AD compared with the PhD students. Doctoral students were more judgmental with respect to unethical acts of fraudulence, plagiarism, and falsification. (shrink)

Using Reidenbach and Robin's Multidimensional Ethics Scale, this study investigated the relationships between background variables and students' ethical evaluations, judgments, and behavioral intentions using 3 scenarios involving dilemmas related to academic dishonesty. The sample included 436 master's students and 142 doctoral students. The study found that the participants used a combination of ethical philosophies to make ethical decisions. The respondents judged improper citations more harshly than acts of inappropriate authorship or the falsification of data. The doctoral students generally considered behaviors (...) related to plagiarism and falsification to be more unethical than the master's students did, though no gender differences were found. (shrink)

A new venture barely makes a profit in its initial stage, and its success depends on innovation. Innovation is related to the work environment, and the innovation behavior of employees is of great significance to the performance improvement of new venture. Based on the previous research, in this study, hypotheses on the correlation between work environment, employee innovation behavior, and corporate performance are put forward first. Then, with team cooperation, organizational incentive, leadership support, sufficient resources, and work pressure as the (...) factors of the work environment, the bosses, middle and senior managers involved in entrepreneurship, and the main members of the entrepreneurial team of 202 newly established enterprises in developed regions are surveyed online or in scene. Multivariate hierarchical regression analysis is performed to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire. The results show that the effective recovery rate of the questionnaire is 86.4%; the number of traditional enterprises is 108, and that of R&D enterprises is 68 ; teamwork, leadership support, and work pressure are all correlated with employees’ innovative behavior ; employee innovation behavior is positively correlated with enterprise performance ; the working environment and employee innovation behavior promote enterprise performance ; and the working environment affects the relationship between employee innovation behavior and enterprise performance. The study theoretically enriches the research on the relationship between innovation behavior, work environment, and enterprise performance of new ventures. In practice, it is suggested that start-up enterprises provide good working environment for employees and attach importance to innovation activities at the individual level of employees, which provides useful guidance and reference for the development of Chinese start-up enterprises. (shrink)

This study examines the mechanism of maternal parenting stress on marital satisfaction based on the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model, and draws on the needs theory to explore the role of alone time in marital relationships under different solitude preferences. The marital satisfaction Scale, Self-rating Depression Scale, Parenting Stress Scale, Preference for Solitude Scale, and alone time scale were used to conduct a questionnaire survey of 1,387 Chinese mothers in their parenting stage. The results found that: in the overall group and the high (...) and low solitude preference level group, depression plays a significant mediating role between parenting stress and marital satisfaction. For mothers who prefer solitude, alone time can reduce the positive impact of parenting stress on depression, and but it cannot alleviate the negative impact of parenting stress and depression on marital satisfaction. In the low solitude preference level group, alone time can aggravate the positive impact of parenting stress on depression and the negative impact of parenting stress on marital satisfaction. (shrink)

Using a sample of 52 work teams in China, we investigated the influence mechanism of leaders' work engagement on their followers' work engagement and subjective career success. A multilevel structural equation model was applied to analyze the survey data. The results of this study indicated that leaders' work engagement positively influenced their followers' subjective career success, and this relationship was mediated by the followers' work engagement. Implications of these findings, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed in the final (...) section of the paper. (shrink)

Due to the development of information technology, music piracy has become an escalating problem. This study attempts to employ the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the social identity theory to investigate the antecedents of downloading pop music illegally from the Internet, the relationship between the intention to illegally download music and the intention to buy music, and the moderating effects of idolatry. Data were collected from 350 teenagers in Northern Taiwan through questionnaire interviews conducted in city centers where teenagers (...) gather. The results of partial least squares (PLS) analyses reconfirm the explanatory power of the TPB model with regard to the pop music illegal downloading behavior. However, it is interesting to note that the intention to illegally download music does not have a significant influence on the intention to buy music. This finding contradicts our common intuitions. Further analyses also reveal that idolatry moderates the relationship between the intention to illegally download music and the intention to buy music. For teenagers with high idolatry, a higher music downloading intention results in a lower buying intention. One possible explanation is the price of music CDs. Several interviews were also held to verify our results. Implications and a discussion are then provided. (shrink)

In the context of the slowing growth of the real economy and the rapid development of the financial industry, more and more non-financial companies are participating in the financial industry for the purpose of development and profit expansion. China has gradually appeared the phenomenon of corporate financialization. This paper uses the panel fixed effect model empirically examines the effect of political turnover on corporate financialization by using data of listed companies and top prefecture level officials in China between 2007 and (...) 2020. We find that the turnover of mayors significantly decreases corporate financialization, while the turnover of party secretaries has no impact on corporate financialization. Moreover, these results are moderated by the characteristics of government officials and firm’s characteristics. Our results further show that changes by mayors increase fixed asset investment and decrease cash holdings, and, thus, reduce corporate financialization. These findings could assist in solving the “from real to virtual” problems, strengthening financial services, and realizing high-quality economic development. (shrink)

BackgroundValue-driven career attitude is considered a dimension of a protean career attitude. Individuals with this attitude seek out personally meaningful experiences and set their own psychological career success standards. This study investigates the association between value-driven career attitude and job performance. It looks at how organizational citizenship behavior affects the relationship between value-driven career attitudes and job performance.MethodsA self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 random employees of SMEs in Pakistan during the early pandemic. We chose Cochran’s formula (...) to determine the appropriate sample size, and PLS-SEM was used to analyze the model. P-O fit and self-determination theory is the theoretical lenses used in this study. The underpinning theories to this study enable the researchers to establish a link between VDCA, OCB, and job performance.ResultsBy analyzing a sample of 400 employees from active enterprises, we discover that VDCA contributes to an improvement in job performance. Furthermore, OCB plays an intervening effect in the relationship between VDCA and job performance. Thus, the study provided evidence for the underpinning models of P-O fit and self-determination theory.ConclusionThis study adds to the body of knowledge by investigating the connections between VDCA, OCB, and job performance in SMEs. The existing literature sheds scant light on these linkages, leaving a gap that this study will address. The current study expands on other themes to provide an in-depth analysis of many under-explored PCA outcomes, which may open up new avenues for future researchers to broaden and strengthen PCA with other constructs. (shrink)

With the development of network technology, enterprises face the explosive growth of data every day. Therefore, to fully mine the value of massive data, big data analysis technology has become the key to developing the core competitiveness of enterprises. However, few empirical studies have investigated the influencing mechanism of the BDA capability of an enterprise on its operational performance. To fill this gap, this study explores how BDA technology capability influences enterprise operation performance, based on dynamic capabilities theory and resource-based (...) theory. It proposes the key variables, including the connectivity, compatibility, and modularization of big data analysis technical capability, enterprise's operational performance, and the fit between data and tools, to establish a model and study the correlation between the variables. The results highlight the mediating role of data-tool fit in the relationships between BDA capability and the enterprise's operational performance, which is a major finding that has not been underlined in the extant literature. This study provides valuable insight for operational managers to help them in mobilizing BDA capability for enterprises' operational management and improving operational performance. (shrink)

BackgroundMental stress and imbalance of its two neural stress systems, the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, are associated with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome and erectile dysfunction. However, the comprehensive analyses of psychological stress and stress systems are under-investigated, particularly in CP/CPPS patients complicated by lower urinary tract symptoms and ED.Materials and methodsParticipants were 95 patients in CP/CPPS+ED group, 290 patients in CP/CPPS group, 124 patients in ED group and 52 healthy men in control group. The National Institutes (...) of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index, the International Index of Erectile Function-5 and the International Prostate Symptom Score were used for assessing the disease severity of CP/CPPS, LUTS and ED. Psychometric self-report questionnaires including the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Perceived Stress Scale, Type A Personality Test and Symptom Checklist 90 were completed for distress from physical symptoms. Twenty-five subjects per group were randomly selected for further investigating the changes of the HPA axis and ANS. Saliva samples were taken on 3 consecutive days at 8 specific times with strict reference to time of morning awakening for evaluation of free cortisol. Heart rate variability as marker of the ANS was measured using 24 h electrocardiography, and time-and frequency-domain variables were analyzed.ResultsThe BAI and SCL-90 scores were significantly higher in the CP/CPPS+ED, CP/CPPS and ED groups compared with the control group. The PSS scores of both groups with ED were significantly higher than the control group. Compared with the CP/CPPS group, the differences of PSS, SCL-90 and TAPT scores were statistically significant in CP/CPPS+ED patients. The IPSS scores were shown to have significantly positive correlations with BAI, PSS and SCL-90 in the CP/CPPS patients. However, in all subjects, the IIEF-5 scores were shown to have significantly negative correlations with BAI, PSS, SCL-90 and quality of life score in NIH-CPSI. Cortisol awakening response parameters and diurnal cortisol levels did not significantly vary between the four groups. Time-dependent parameters of HRV also did not differ significantly across groups. In the frequency domain analysis, low frequency was significantly lower in ED patients when compared with CP/CPPS+ED patients and healthy controls, high frequency power was significantly higher in healthy controls compared to patients with ED, CP/CPPS and CP/CPPS+ED, and the CP/CPPS+ED group had significantly higher LF/HF ratio than the control group.ConclusionCP/CPPS and ED patients score exceedingly high on most psychosocial variables. The symptom scores of LUTS and ED positively correlate with the severity of psychological stress. Our findings also suggest that the ANS sympathovagal imbalance is associated with ED and LUTS in CP/CPPS, whereas HPA axis activity is not. (shrink)

The youngest generation of students prefers a more active learning style. Sandwich teaching may suit their learning style by alternating between active individual learning and passive collective learning. Sandwich teaching has been rarely applied to the Community Nursing Course for nursing students, and its teaching effects on this course remain unclear. This study applied Sandwich teaching to the Community Nursing Course for Chinese nursing undergraduates and investigated its effects on students' critical thinking, self-learning ability, course experience, and academic performance. This (...) is a quasi-experimental study with 72 Chinese nursing undergraduates. Students receiving traditional teaching were enrolled in the control group, and those who received Sandwich teaching were recruited into the experimental group. Both groups received the 12-week, 90-min Community Nursing Course. Our main outcome variable, including students' critical thinking, self-learning ability, and course experience, was assessed by specific questionnaire. The paired t-tests were applied to compare the differences of the same group in the pre-test and the post-test, and the independent-sample t-tests were used to compare the differences between the two groups. We observed that nursing students' critical thinking ability and self-learning ability were significantly improved after receiving Sandwich teaching. Students' course experience of Sandwich teaching was significantly better than that of traditional teaching. The final exam score in the experimental group was not significantly higher than that in the control group. These results suggest that Sandwich teaching in Community Nursing Course improved Chinese nursing undergraduates' critical thinking, self-learning ability, and course experience, but failed in improving academic performance. (shrink)

Learning burnout is an important indicator that reflects an individual’s learning state. Understanding the influencing factors and mechanism of learning burnout of medical students has practical significance for improving their mental health. This study aimed to explore the mediating roles of school identity and collective self-esteem between school psychological environment and learning burnout in medical students. A total of 2,031 medical students were surveyed using the School Psychological Environment Questionnaire, School Identity Questionnaire, Collective Self-esteem Scale, and Learning Burnout Scale. The (...) results showed the following: school psychological environment had a negative effect on learning burnout among medical students, and school identity and collective self-esteem played significant mediating roles between school psychological environment and learning burnout [95% CI = ]. Specifically, there were three paths that school psychological environment and learning burnout: first, through the independent mediating role of school identity; second, through the independent mediating role of collective self-esteem; and third, through the chain mediating roles of school identity and collective self-esteem. The findings reveal that school psychological environment not only directly influences the learning burnout of medical students but also indirectly influences it through school identity and collective self-esteem. Thus, this study has some important implications for prevention and intervention of learning burnout among medical students. (shrink)

Using conversation analysis as its research method, this article investigates the interactional function of the particle ba in Mandarin Chinese conversation. It is argued that ba is frequently employed by its speakers to adjust deontic gradients in action sequences of directives in mundane conversation besides its function of adjusting epistemic gradients in certain action sequences. The present study claims that the agent and beneficiary of future action can only distinguish one category of directive actions from another, but each category still (...) constitutes several member actions which contrast with one another in terms of social power. The member actions of each category form a continuum, one end of which is the action with the highest level of social power and the other end of which is the action with the lowest level of social power. There exists a normative relation between each member action of a category and the speaker’s deontic status in the real world. The particle ba is a practice of minutely adjusting the speaker’s deontic stance from a higher position to a lower one. (shrink)

BackgroundBreast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors.MethodsA cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at (...) least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received and did not receive CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression.ResultsDuring the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year.ConclusionFinding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials. (shrink)

第一本完整、翔實的關於孔子生平、學說、思想的辭典 《孔子辭典》是孔子權威傅佩榮教授歷時多年主編‧審訂而成，以《論語》為主要文本，將《論語》及與孔子相關的重要辭條全部收錄，清楚展現孔子思想的每一個側面。 《孔子辭典》架構分為： 1.歷史背景 2.人物 3.典章制度 4.哲學思想 5.成語 其中哲學思想部分又分為 1.邏輯與知識理論 2.人性論與倫理學 3.形上學與宗教哲學 4.政治哲學和教育與藝術哲學 孔子權威傅佩榮教授主編‧審訂的這部《孔子辭典》，以白話文為主，《論語》原文則以數字編碼注於其後，並附上相關重要文獻的出處。 《孔子辭典》特色是附錄《論語》全文、孔子年表、孔子周遊列國地圖。《論語》全文皆按編碼排列，便於查索對照。書末另附索引，便於搜尋。 《孔子辭典》全書辭條總計628條，包括： 1、歷史背景64條：國家地域37條、事件27條。 2、人物138條：孔子、孟子、荀子、孔子弟子共35條、政治及知名人物103條。 3、典章制度43條 4、哲學思想183條：邏輯與知識理論13條、人性論與倫理學95條、形上學與宗教哲學23條、政治哲學21條、教育與藝術哲學31條。 5、成語200條。.

When there is no immediate response after a proposal and normally the silence is longer than 0.2 s, the proposer would take subsequent actions to pursue a preferred response or mobilize at least an articulated one from the recipient. These actions modulate the prior deontic stance embedded in the original proposal into four trends as follows: maintaining the prior deontic stance with a self-repair or by seeking confirmation; making the prior deontic stance more tentative by making a revised other-attentiveness proposal, (...) providing an account, pursuing with a tag question, or requesting with an intimate address term; making the prior deontic stance more decisive by making a further arrangement, closing the local sequence, or providing a candidate unwillingness account ; and canceling the prior deontic stance by doing a counter-like action. Additionally, these trends inherently embody a decisive-to-tentative gradient. This study would penetrate into the phenomena occurring in Mandarin mundane talk with the methodology of Conversation Analysis to uncover the underflow of deontic stance. (shrink)

Using Reidenbach and Robin’s Multidimensional Ethics Scale, this study designs three scenarios related to academic dishonesty dilemmas to explore students’ moral philosophies, behavioral intentions, and ethical judgments and further examines whether students with different individual factors have differences in the above variables. A total of 605 students from two areas, Taiwan and Mainland China, participated in this study. The results indicated that Taiwanese students had stricter moral equity, relativism, and contractualism philosophies in the duplicate submission scenario than Mainland China students. (...) They also had stricter moral equity and relativism philosophies in the incomplete citation scenario. Similarly, relatively harsh relativism and contractualism philosophies accompanied by a low level of willingness to be a perpetrator in the failure to cite research published in other countries scenario were found. In addition, females applied relatively harsh moral equity and utilitarianism to all scenarios, reporting that they and their peers were less likely to engage in all AD activities. Graduates had a stricter egoism attitude toward duplicate submission and had stricter moral equity, relativism, and contractualism philosophies toward the behavior of incomplete citation. Graduate students also had strict moral equity, relativism, egoism, and contractualism beliefs in the failure to cite the foreign research scenario. Finally, regression analysis showed that moral equity, contractualism, and self-behavioral intention are significant predictors of students’ ethical evaluations in the three scenarios. (shrink)

Within the context of China, this study seeks to examine the relationship between English language proficiency, the native dialect of the learner, and the learner’s reason, or motivation for learning English. English language proficiency can be an important vehicle for accessing high quality higher education, for interacting with non-Chinese, and for enhancing employment and career opportunities Data was gathered through an online survey with 985 usable responses recorded. Respondents included a distribution of speakers from five of the major distinct dialects (...) of China. The analysis provides empirical evidence of a diversity of propensities and motivations for English language acquisition among learners from different regions and native dialects. Access to international higher education as a type of motivation is found to have a moderating effect on English proficiency. Other findings suggest that learners in regions with more historic exposure to foreign interaction are more likely to be motivated for social reasons, those from regions with export focused commerce will be motivated for business related reasons. The results of this study may be of interest to policy makers, linguists, educators, and those with an interest in socioeconomic sustainability through language acquisition and education as a method of socioeconomic mobility. (shrink)

Reichle et al. specify two assumptions as being basic to E-Z Reader: Words are sequentially attended during fixations, and saccades are triggered by a cognitive event. We point out that there is little evidence for the first assumption and counterevidence for the second. Also, the labile/nonlabile stage distinction in saccade preparation seems to be contrary to current evidence. An alternative explanation of saccade onset times in reading assumes that saccades are strategically generated, independent of language processing, but are delayed on (...) a probabilistic basis by processing difficulties. (shrink)

Given the rapid growth of music technology, this study reports Chinese pre-service music teachers’ perceptions of musical instrument learning assisted by augmented reality. In this study, we conducted a small-scale case study with six pre-service teachers enrolled in a music teacher training programme at a comprehensive university in China. Participants engaged in semi-structured, face-to-face interviews after hands-on experiences with an AR-based piano learning app. Thematic analysis revealed that the participants were generally aware of the potential of this instructional approach but (...) doubted its efficacy and exhibited weak intention to adopt it in their future classrooms. Implications of the findings for music teacher training are discussed. (shrink)

With the advancement of China’s economic transformation, the impact of economic policy uncertainty on family firms has become increasingly significant. The “familism” of family firms makes them more motivated to maintain family harmony, pursue innovative activities, and the long-term development of enterprises when faced with economic policy uncertainty. In this paper, we employed the data of listed Chinese family firms from 2010 to 2018 to analyze the impact of economic policy uncertainty on family business innovation activities, analyze the inherent characteristics (...) of family firm innovation, and find the path that enables the innovative activities of family firms and provides a valuable experience for the innovation of private enterprises in economic policy uncertainty. We provide evidence that economic policy uncertainty positively relates to family firm innovation. Moreover, the relationship is affected by factors such as directors’ executive background and access to state-owned equity. Further analysis indicates that economic policy uncertainty can promote family firms’ innovation activities by improving their risk-taking, internal capital market circulation, and reducing political connections. (shrink)

For achieving the sustainable development goals, green development has been raised to a high position for cities in China. The economic development in Northwest China is slow, the ecological environment is fragile, and the mineral resources are rich. Only through green development can we realize the comprehensive income of regional production development, rich life, and good ecology. This paper measures the green development efficiency of 30 prefecture-level cities in Northwest China by using DEA-SBM model of unexpected output, explores the differences (...) and causes of green development efficiency from the perspective of time and space through convergence coefficient, coordination matrix, GIS, and other methods, and empirically tests the impact of industrial structure, technological progress, and other driving factors on green development efficiency by using panel Tobit model. The results show that, on the whole, the efficiency of green development in Northwest China is low, path dependence is serious and unbalanced, the coordinated development effect of different regions is weak, and the spillover effect of core urban agglomerations has not been effectively exerted; from the perspective of driving factors, economic development, population density, traffic situation, and education investment can significantly improve the efficiency of urban green development, and the second is that the proportion of industries significantly hinders the improvement of green development efficiency, while the impact of scientific and technological innovation is not significant. Based on the empirical results, this paper believes that the harmonious development of natural environment and economic society can be realized only by improving the coordinated development effect among cities, implementing the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, introducing excellent talents, and promoting the technological upgrading. (shrink)

In the presence of heterogeneity between the randomized controlled trial (RCT) participants and the target population, evaluating the treatment effect solely based on the RCT often leads to biased quantification of the real-world treatment effect. To address the problem of lack of generalizability for the treatment effect estimated by the RCT sample, we leverage observational studies with large samples that are representative of the target population. This article concerns evaluating treatment effects on survival outcomes for a target population and considers (...) a broad class of estimands that are functionals of treatment-specific survival functions, including differences in survival probability and restricted mean survival times. Motivated by two intuitive but distinct approaches, i.e., imputation based on survival outcome regression and weighting based on inverse probability of sampling, censoring, and treatment assignment, we propose a semiparametric estimator through the guidance of the efficient influence function. The proposed estimator is doubly robust in the sense that it is consistent for the target population estimands if either the survival model or the weighting model is correctly specified and is locally efficient when both are correct. In addition, as an alternative to parametric estimation, we employ the nonparametric method of sieves for flexible and robust estimation of the nuisance functions and show that the resulting estimator retains the root- n n consistency and efficiency, the so-called rate-double robustness. Simulation studies confirm the theoretical properties of the proposed estimator and show that it outperforms competitors. We apply the proposed method to estimate the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy on survival in patients with early-stage resected non-small cell lung cancer. (shrink)

The problem of missingness in observational data is ubiquitous. When the confounders are missing at random, multiple imputation is commonly used; however, the method requires congeniality conditions for valid inferences, which may not be satisfied when estimating average causal treatment effects. Alternatively, fractional imputation, proposed by Kim 2011, has been implemented to handling missing values in regression context. In this article, we develop fractional imputation methods for estimating the average treatment effects with confounders missing at random. We show that the (...) fractional imputation estimator of the average treatment effect is asymptotically normal, which permits a consistent variance estimate. Via simulation study, we compare fractional imputation’s accuracy and precision with that of multiple imputation. (shrink)

ObjectiveFew research efforts have substantially introduced relevant studies on Chinese students’ adaptability in relation to the ineffectiveness of blended learning mode in College English. This study is guided by social cognitive theory, and related literature has been reviewed concerning adaptability. In this study, we aim to examine the involved relationships among contextual factors, self-efficacy, motivation, and adaptability to blended learning mode among non-English majored Chinese learners in the College English course.MethodsThe quantitative research method was employed in this study, and 595 (...) respondents were eventually collected to enable the data analysis. The structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data.Results The non-English majored learners’ adaptability to blended learning mode in College English was at a low level with a mean value of 2.26, indicating that students still suffer difficulties from class conducted in blended learning; the fit indices were at the level of good fit, and it suggested the structural model had an overall good fit to the data as shown: x2/df = 2.496, RMESA = 0.050, GFI = 0.956, AGFI = 0.936, NFI = 0.968, RFI = 0.959, IFI = 0.980, TLI = 0.975, CFI = 0.980; adaptability was positively related to contextual factors, self-efficacy, and motivation ; contextual factors exerted an indirect effect on the adaptability not only through the separate mediating role of self-efficacy and motivation, but through the chain mediating role of self-efficacy and motivation.ImplicationsThis study theoretically extends previous studies on adaptability by investigating the affecting factors in the framework of social cognitive theory. More practically important is that this study sheds light on the impact mechanism of positive and enjoyable environment, self-efficacy and motivation on non-English majored learners’ adaptability to blended learning mode in English course, which would provide a vital insight for administrators and College English instructors to reconsider the role of learners’ responses in the mixed mode to improve their English achievement more effectively, as well as to enhance and promote their user experience of the offered blended learning service. (shrink)

As increasingly retail enterprises have adopted the omnichannel retailing strategy, both online-generated and offline-generated reviews should be considered to better understand the helpfulness of online reviews in the omnichannel retailing context. Drawing on the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the present study attempts to examine the impacts of review label volume, review content length, and review label-content relevance on review helpfulness in the omnichannel retailing context. The empirical data of 2,822 product reviews were collected from Suning.com. The results of Negative Binomial Regression (...) showed that both central cue and peripheral cue positively affect review helpfulness. Specifically, the positive effect of review content length on review helpfulness will be stronger when the online review is submitted from an omnichannel retailer’s online store. On the contrary, the positive effect of review label-content relevance on review helpfulness will be weaker when the online review is generated from an omnichannel retailer’s online channel. (shrink)