Suchergebnisse

Individual factors relating to dietary behaviors are widely explored. However, the effects of social environment on dietary patterns for the older people are less explored. The purpose of this study was to identify dietary patterns among older people in Taiwan and to examine the relationship of dietary patterns with social environment and individual factors. The current study used the 2013–2016 Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan. The sample was representative at the national and city levels. Only those who were aged 55 years old and above were included for analysis (n = 2922); the mean age of the participants was 68.62 (SD = 8.76). The city-level data, including population characteristics, food availability, and age-friendly city indicators, were obtained from the open data and survey report of government. Three dietary patterns were identified: high protein-vegetable (41.6%), high sweets and low protein-vegetables (37.9%), and high viscera and fats (20.5%). The results of multilevel multinomial logistic regressions showed that marital status, economic status, education, drinking alcohol, dietary belief, living a the city with more food availability, and bus accessibility were related to dietary patterns. Dietary patterns are related to the individual-level factors and social environment. Healthy dietary beliefs and age-friendly environments are beneficial to promoting healthy dietary patterns.

Employment of idioms is essential to reach higher English expressive levels, especially for English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. However, English idioms are challenging for both instructors and learners because the complex content of idioms depends on understanding their cultural context. Most mobile language applications are for vocabulary acquisition. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop an animation/video-based application, "My English Idiom Learning Assistant" (MEILA), to explore the different idiom learning behaviors, as well as the relationships of their learning behaviors to MEILA. To explore the relationship between the learning outcomes and the learning behaviors, the researcher used logs from the MEILA database. The participants consisted of 59 freshmen from two English conversation classes in one private university in central Taiwan. Students experienced the learning activities over 3 weeks. The researcher adopted idiomatic understanding pre- and posttests for the study as well as in-depth interviews. The results revealed that MEILA significantly enhanced idiomatic learning outcomes. The sequential analysis used provides language instructors an example of monitoring learning behaviors to improve teaching materials and methods. The findings may stimulate more mobile-assist language learning (MALL) researchers, English instructors, and app designers to create innovative mobile environments for English idiomatic learning.