Journal of Sciences, Technology, and Arts Research : A Scholarly Journal.

Includes bibliographical references.

Perceived Safety Culture of Healthcare Providers in Hospitals in the Philippines -- The Mechanisms of Defenses: Mistresses in the Philippine Contemporary Narratives -- Evaluation of Speech Emotion Recognition Based on Support Vector Machines with Mixture Model Super Vectors -- Using Differentiated Instruction in Improving the Academic Performance of Students in Filipino Language -- Developing Speed, Flexibility and Endurance of People with Developmental Disabilities Using Zumba -- Current Principles and Concepts in the Teaching of Macroskills.

[Article Title: Perceived Safety Culture of Healthcare Providers in Hospitals in the Philippines/ Fritz Gerald V. Jabonete and Leonora R. Concepcion, p. 1-22]<br/><br/>Abstract:Safety culture has been proposed as a means to keep patients safe. Identifying the level of culture and awareness on patient safety is essential in order to improve the quality of care is crucial. This descriptive, correlation study determined the perceived safety culture of healthcare providers in selected hospitals in central region in the Philippines. This study utilized the Manchester Patient Safety Culture Assessment Tool. Generally, healthcare providers in the public and private hospitals perceived their safety culture at proactive maturity level. Perception in almost all dimensions of safety culture must be enhanced. Greater emphasis on safety culture dimensions is needed such as recording and evaluating incidents and communication dimensions of safety culture. Staff education concerning safety issues and practice has been clearly established. Awareness of the existing safety culture of an individual or group is the initial step towards improvement of healthcare service through safe and quality care. Age group is significantly different among healthcare providers who perceived safety culture at reactive (F-5.45), bureaucratic (F-4.26), and proactive (F-3.66) maturity levels respectively. On the other hand, job position was found significantly different to those who perceived it at generative (F-3.95) level. However, no significant differences were found to those who perceived it at reactive, bureaucratic and proactive level respectively. According to area of assignment, only those who have perceived safety culture at reactive (F-2.26) level have significant differences in their scores together with length of experience at reactive (F-2.86) level. Interestingly, a significant difference was found to type of hospital to almost all safety culture level except at bureaucratic level. The findings will guide hospital leaders to give focus on strategies to improve patient safety. It suggests that group-specific interventions should be campaigned to improve patient safety.

[Article Title: The Mechanisms of Defenses: Mistresses in the Philippine Contemporary Narratives/ Christopher Y. Wright and Jerome C. Hilario, p. 23-33]<br/><br/>Abstract: Through the psychoanalytic lens, this paper examined the image of mistresses in the Philippine contemporary narratives. The study covered four selected contemporary short stories by the Filipino female authors (1949-present). To establish warranted assertions for this study, the researcher followed the following stages: (1) drafting the criteria for selecting the authors; (2) crafting the criteria for the literary selections; and (3) analyzing and interpreting short stories. The present study revealed the following findings: (a) the image of the Filipino mistress is remarkably seen as physically beautiful, emotionally stable, and intellectually impressive; (b) the Filipino mistress’ behavior is rooted from economical, emotional, and social factors. The factors are nonexclusive and sometimes overlapping; (c) to protect the self, the Filipino mistress has employed different defense mechanisms, which include repression, displacement, sublimation, denial, and projection. Apart from the use of Psychoanalysis in the other Philippine narratives in English, this study also recommends the use of the parameters and set criteria established in this paper in terms of selecting literary texts that can be explored and considered meaningfully in literary research.

[Article Title: Evaluation of Speech Emotion Recognition Based on Support Vector Machines with Mixture Model Super Vectors/ Maria Art Antonette D. Clariño and Mark M. Alfonso, p. 34-46]<br/><br/>Abstract: This paper presents multi-class speech emotion recognition developed using Support Vector Machines (SVM) with Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) super vectors. Input to the system is in the form of speech utterances. Seven emotions (Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Surprise, Disgust, and Neutral) were considered in this study. For each of these emotions, feature extraction and normalisation were implemented using Praat Scripting Language (PSL) to compute for the average pitch and intensity and to perform batch processing of the training data. The processed features were then subjected to SVM-GMM for modelling and classification. A data set comprising of 175 speech utterances collected from selected individuals were divided into 140 training and 35 test data. To measure the performance of the developed SVM-GMM classifier, performance measures such as precision, recall, F score, accuracy and error rate were calculated. Two levels of averages were computed: micro- and macroaveraging. The initial data set resulted to macro-averages of 54.29% recall, 48.06% precision, 50.99% F Score, 86.94% accuracy, and 13.06% error rate. A second run was implemented using labelled speech data from the website of Center for Empathic Human-Computer Interaction of De La Salle University increasing the training data to 1750 and test data of 175 speech utterances. This resulted to higher macro-averages of 96% recall, 96.66% precision, 96.33% F Score, 98.86% accuracy and lower error rate of 1.14%.

[Article Title: Using Differentiated Instruction in Improving the Academic Performance of Students in Filipino Language/ Ma. Rita R. Aranda and Joel L. Zamora, p. 47-59]<br/><br/>Abstract: Student diversity inside the classroom challenges educators to create an environment focused on individual learning. Differentiated instruction based on different learning styles of each student can facilitate individual learning. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of differentiated instruction in the academic performance of grade ten students in Filipino subject. In this study, quasi-experimental design was used to determine the effectiveness of differentiated instruction in terms of improving the academic performance of the students. The participants were purposively chosen for the control and experimental group, respectively. The learning styles of the students were identified using the Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Style Scale which served as the basis for designing differentiated activities in the Filipino subject. The experimental group received differentiated instruction for two months while the control group received traditional teaching instruction. The results revealed that the academic performance of the students in the experimental group is higher compared to the control group. This study concludes that differentiated instruction based on different learning styles was effective in teaching the Filipino subject to grade ten students.

[Article Title: Developing Speed, Flexibility and Endurance of People with Developmental Disabilities Using Zumba/ Paolo E. Hilapo, Christian Vanessa B. Olea, Alluidin B. Panara-ag, Nomer A. Felismino, Alexander Justine Valera, and Ricardo R. Villas Jr., p. 60-66]<br/><br/>Abstract: The study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of zumba in improving speed, flexibility and endurance of people with developmental disabilities. Specifically, the study aims to determine the level of performance of PWD before and after being exposed to zumba. This quantitative study used quasi-experimental design. Data were gathered using the 20 meter sprint to measure the speed, V-sit reach and shoulder flexibility to measure the flexibility and YMCA 3-minute step test to measure endurance. The data were subjected to statistical analysis using the mean and standard deviation and paired sample t-test. Results revealed that there is a significant improvement in the speed, flexibility and endurance of people with disabilities after being exposed to zumba. This study concludes that zumba is an effective wellness activity that can be used to develop the speed, flexibility and endurance of people with disabilities. Larger scale experimental studies focus on determining the effectiveness of zumba in developing other areas of physical fitness among different disability categories is highly recommended.

[Article Title: Current Principles and Concepts in the Teaching of Macroskills/ Jessie S. Barrot, p. 67-78]<br/><br/>Abstract: Many approaches have been proposed in teaching language macroskills. Some of these approaches include communicative language teaching, task-based approach, integrated approach and sociocognitive-transformative approach. Despite the effort of improving learners’ macroskills and the extensive literature available about these skills, many novice teachers and researchers remain to have limited or naive perspective of what these skills are. Moreover, many language teachers are still not aware that there are already six language macroskills as a result of the proliferation of information technology. As such, this article discusses the fundamentals of language macroskills. Specifically, the paper defines and describes the six macroskills which include both the productive skills (i.e., speaking, writing, and representing) and receptive skills (i.e., listening, reading, and viewing).Some ways on how these skills can be taught are also presented.