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Background and Purpose: Recently, flipped learning has become prevalent as a teaching and learning approach in international educational settings. A commonly cited advantage is to do self-study at home and to spend valuable classroom time on meaningful interactive learning activities. After the start of Covid-19 pandemic, the sudden transition to online teaching required many institutions to adopt a flipped learning approach. The current study was conducted at one of such institutions, namely Dhofar University in Oman. The aim of this paper is to identify the challenges met by both teachers and students using flipped learning during this transition as well as the solutions they developed to cope with them. Methodology: This study implemented a mixed methods design for which the data were collected from two questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. One questionnaire was for teachers with 14 responses while the other was for students and could obtain responses from 68 students from the target population. From the list of teacher respondents, 10 were interviewed for deeper discussion of flipped learning context. The Questionnaires results were statistically calculated and descriptively analysed, whereas the interviews were thematically scrutinized. Findings: The researchers found several major challenges including increased workload, lack of training, resistance to change, lacking IT skills, technical issues, non-completion of homework tasks and non-participation in live sessions. Teachers' resilience in the face of these challenges was noteworthy; especially in the form of peer support groups. The suggestions made by the teaching faculty for solutions are reported and discussed in the relevant sections of the article with reference to various research studies from different contexts. Contributions: Despite the small scale and the specific context of the study, the results and discussion provide useful food for thought to educational practitioners and decision makers in wider international contexts when it comes to flipped learning challenges and coping mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: Gamification is a teaching and learning approach that is gaining popularity among teachers as a way to make classroom learning more enjoyable and engaging with the use of rewards to celebrate accomplishments. With the rise of online learning in Malaysian educational institutions, gamification is viewed as an interactive method of teaching and learning. Due to the fact that limited studies have been conducted to investigate the challenges in implementing gamification approaches among vocational instructors, it is the aim of this paper; therefore, to examine the challenges. Methodology: This study employed a quantitative research method. The respondents include 55 vocational lecturers from several vocational colleges in Malaysia. A set of questionnaires was used to examine the challenges faced by the lecturers in the implementation of gamification at their institutions. Four constructs were used to differentiate the differences of the challenges, which include support, access, competency, and applicability. Data collected from this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean score and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent sample t-test) to identify the differences between gender. Findings: The findings of this study indicated that the majority of vocational lecturers have moderate challenges when implementing gamification approaches in their teaching and learning based on the findings related to the constructs. In addition, it was found that there were no significant gender differences in terms of the difficulties associated with implementing gamification approaches. This study also showed that most vocational lecturers have the potential to apply gamification in their teaching based on their high competencies with adequate support and enough access given to them. Contributions: The findings of the study can contribute to vocational lecturers to promote gamification approach during the learning process to increase students' motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the landscape of human life all over the world, including the conventional face-to-face teaching method, which has been replaced with online classes. The drastic changes without a holistic planning makes online teaching prone to various shortcomings. Thus, this article aims to address two research objectives. The first objective is to determine Malay Literature students 'online learning experiences, and the second objective is to analyse the demographic factors influencing students' perceptions of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: This descriptive study employed a survey questionnaire to gather data. A sample consisting of 67 undergraduate students majoring in Malay Literature at a public university were recruited as respondents in the present study using a simple random sampling method. After following 14 weeks of online lessons, a questionnaire form was distributed to the students. The research instrument is a questionnaire, which has been adapted and modified from a study by Baczek et al. (2020). The questionnaire form consists of two sections. Section A contains eight items related to respondents' demographic background. Section B contains items related to students' perceptions of online learning, in which six items are related to the benefits of online learning, five items are based on the disadvantages of online learning, and four items on students' general perceptions of online learning. The responses from the questionnaire were analysed using Statistical Package for the Sosial Science 22.0 for descriptive analysis. Findings: The study found that online learning is perceived by students as being more disadvantageous than beneficial. Respondents concluded that the advantage of online learning is that they could learn from their own homes according to the suitability of their time. They also acknowledged that they could access learning resources better in online classes. One of the factors influencing students' perceptions of online learning is the speed of Internet connection. Contributions: The study highlights the need for lecturers to be adequately prepared and to consider factors such as quality of Internet access, home location, students' readiness and constraints faced by students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]