Search

Much attention is now given on producing quality graduates. Therefore, outcome-based education (OBE) in teaching and learning is now being implemented in Malaysia at all levels of education especially at higher education institutions. For implementing OBE, the design of curriculum and courses should be based on specified outcomes. Thus, the challenge for the assessment is that it should be capable of measuring whether intended outcomes have been achieved or not. Likely, by assisting lecturer in preparing examination paper that aligns with the specified outcomes is something that can help to ensure the implementation of OBE. Hence, this paper describes the development of a tool for generating question examination paper based on learning outcomes, called Learning Outcome-based Question Examination paper Tool (LoQET). LoQET is proposed for assisting lecturer in Universiti Putra Malaysia for preparing examination paper based on programme outcomes and learning outcomes set in the teaching plan and assessment entries.

This paper attempts to explore and identify the characteristics of an effective teacher who teaches English as a second language to 10 year old students from different ethnics, various social economic background and multi-level language ability, at a private primary school in Malaysia. The study focused on classroom management using a case study methodology where data was collected using both interviews and classroom observations. The findings concur with previous literature reviews on effective teacher models whilst providing in-depth details on what transpires during classroom activities, thus clarifying further the meaning of effective classroom management. The implications of this study suggest the need to include six new classroom management behaviours of an effective teacher. Further research is warranted to help policy makers and school administrators in identifying the significance of these behaviours for the selection and training of future teachers.

This paper deals with a case study of Management Development (MD) practices at Malaysian Assurance Alliance (MAA). The aim of this research is to investigate how a large Malaysian insurance corporation developed and integrated MD initiatives with current organizational needs and tasks. Attempts were made to map and categorize the MD initiatives according to position and course content both for the staff and agency. Analysis of historical records and semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify the organizational MD needs as a result of context and task. Findings show that a company-wide development system for staff and agency was effectively integrated to provide a direct support to competence management endeavour. The company's MD initiatives have also resulted in managerial implications including (1) increased effectiveness of MD initiatives through emphasis on needs and participation; (2) mutually conceived and aligned development system has formed a learning culture in Malaysian Assurance Alliance; and (3) effective MD initiative audit has ensured customer-oriented competence development in the organization.

The rapid advancement of emergent learning technologies has led to the introduction of massive open online courses (MOOCs) which offer open-based online learning courses to a large number of students. In line with the advancement, the Malaysia Ministry of Education has recently initiated Malaysia MOOCs via collaboration with four public universities. This paper proposes factors that could be used in development of MOOC learning content, which are: (i) type of MOOC, (ii) type of video lectures, (iii) integration of cultural aspects in video lectures, (iv) communication style in video lectures; and (v) humor effect in video lectures. The paper also proposes factors in developing MOOC learning tasks, namely: (i) structure of learning tasks; (ii) dialog in learning tasks; (iii) learner autonomy in learning tasks; (iv) social settings of learning tasks; and (v) transactional distance of learning tasks. The factors are based on experiences during development of MOOC for ethnic relations and are aligned with learning concepts and strategies such as the transactional distance theory and the theory of the computer model of a sense of humor. Future directions on the development and research on MOOCs are also proposed.

Entrepreneurship and education play a role in enhancing the country's economic state. Entrepreneurship helps the economy by providing job opportunities. The lack of job opportunities has caused unemployment rates to increase tremendously throughout the years making the development rate of a country slow down. One way for the economy to improve is by providing jobs for the unemployed. With technology improving day by day, the need for human labor decreases over time, this is where entrepreneurship comes in. The entrepreneur taking on the challenge of unemployment and provides an occupation for him and for others by being innovative is the act of entrepreneurship. Education is used to inspire entrepreneurship among young graduates in order for them to be able to produce job opportunities for themselves and their peers. Education is also seen as a method to eradicate poverty. Hand in hand, entrepreneurship and education plays a vital role and has been an interest of researchers. Entrepreneurship education is used to educate people with the skills and knowledge needed to be able to seize the opportunity presented. This paper discusses entrepreneurship and economic growth followed by entrepreneurship education along with the efforts and obstacles faced by Europe, China, Malaysia and Nigeria in enhancing entrepreneurship education. The paper intends to provide an understanding on entrepreneurship and its role in economic growth and entrepreneurship education.

As a very controversial issue in Islam, polygamy allows Muslim men to marry up to four wives. It has been told that the Quran encourages polygamy; thus, it is a part of Islamic "Sharia." Many Muslim men practice it at their whim and they contend that they do so to follow the "Sunnah." Amongst Muslim countries, Malaysia is one of those countries where polygamy is rife. To make it as an acceptable Islamic practice and a more common phenomenon, polygamy is favoritized and advocated through the mass media such as TV shows and newspapers. Although suffering agonizing experiences of being a co-wife, many Malay Muslim women cannot resist polygamy as they think it would be a rebuttal of religion. As a counter-argument of the seemingly happy images of polygamous marriages in Malaysia, this paper exhibits the vicissitudes of it through analyzing a documentary entitled "Four Wives--One Man" and it demonstrates that the traditional interpretation of the Quran as regards to polygamy is in favor of patriarchy and cannot be appropriate. Utilizing the Contextualist interpretation of the Quran, this paper tries to educate the silenced women that polygamy is, indeed, not encouraged and questioning it would not mean disobeying the Quran.

In the Malaysian context, all educational processes at the national level are envisioned by the National Education Philosophy (NEP). The NEP was formed in 1988 in line with the National Principles (Rukun Negara) with the ultimate aims of building a united and progressive society (Ministry of Education, 2001). However, there is uncertainty whether the NEP has been actualized in the educational processes, transmitted successfully by teachers to students and further personalized by students. This paper aims to report findings of study which analyzed the actualization of the NEP in government and private secondary schools based on student and teacher perspectives. The research followed a survey design through two sets of questionnaires; one for teachers and the other for students. The Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient value for the teacher and student questionnaire was 0.96 and 0.98 respectively. A total of 185 Form 4 students and 45 teachers from both private and government secondary schools in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia participated in this research. 77.3% of students and 64.4% of teachers rated the level of actualization of the NEP as high, with a mean score of 7.67 and 7.28 out of 10 as rated by the students and teachers respectively. The paper further discusses the finding of the study from both teacher and student perspectives. It also provides a brief discussion on the limitations of this study and on its implications. It concludes with general implications of the study to the educational processes in the country in general and to the national education system in specific.

This paper intends to describe and analyse the process of education reform that has taken place in Malaysia. Islamisation plays a major role in such reform. The approach is innovative and novel in nature. Historically, Malaysia was under the British colony and the British left a strong impact in the education system. Naturally the position of Islam was not in the priority list. The post-Independent era witnessed a strong demand by the Muslims that Islam should be embedded firmly in the Malaysian education system. This paper also analyse some of the foundational issues relevant to the reform. The concept and methodology of this reform was finally translated in the form of learning institutions. It seeks to harmonise between the western and the Islamic traditions of knowledge. The success is far reaching and has a strong impact on human capital as well as knowledge society developments.

This paper investigates the use of discourse markers among Form Four second language learner (SLL) students in essay writing. The objectives of this study are to discover how Form Four SLL students use discourse markers in their essay writing and to identify the teachers' perception about the usage of discourse markers among students. 30 intermediate semi urban school students were chosen where all of the student's essays writing were analyzed. The researchers analyzed the use of discourse markers in each paper and stated the usage of discourse marker under its own theme. Then, an interview was conducted with four English teachers who taught those students and it was transcribed before being analyzed. The result involved three categories of discourse markers in terms of misused, overused and advanced used.

A Learning Management System (LMS) can be a singularly critical platform to report on students' learning progress and to monitor students' learning engagement. At the only defence university in Malaysia, the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM) adopts the LMS as a supplementary learning and teaching tool. Nonetheless, the aspiration of Malaysia to ensure that higher learning institutions actively participate in the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has further emphasised the need for the NDUM to provide an effective LMS to the students. This paper aims at examining the perceptions of students at the Defence University on the use of the LMS. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is used as the basis for generating hypotheses and conceptual framework for the paper. Five classes of students were involved in the data collection resulting in 100 returned questionnaires. Preliminary findings highlight students' positive attitudes towards the use of the LMS; however, there are technical issues that must be addressed to ensure that the LMS can function effectively.

Today's global economy and dependency on technology has led to educational reforms in Malaysia, which includes language policies; namely the Upholding the Malay Language, and Strengthening the English Language ("MBMMBI") policy. This policy underpins the project presented and discussed in this paper; on the development of a bilingual education and assessment framework for higher education providers (HEP). This paper discusses the analysis of documents on the language planning and its implementation policies at three HEPs; namely Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universtiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) as well as the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025. Findings of the comparative analysis indicate that each university interprets bilingual policy differently thus implement it differently which in return resulted in different language abilities among their graduates. This also implies the vital need for a clear framework on bilingual education as well as its assessment in order for the education reform to be successful in its aim to strengthen the English language competency and at the same time uphold the Malay language among its nation.

This paper reports part of a bigger project aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies on students' performance in essay writing. The aspects of metacognitive strategies considered in this study include the use of declarative knowledge, conditional knowledge, and procedural knowledge. The focus of this paper is on the use of metacognitive strategies during the writing activity. Before the intervention process, the participants were given a task to write an essay and after that they were asked to do metacognitive reflection. Data were analyzed using content analysis procedure. The respondents consisted of 18 secondary school students from poor urban community. The data revealed that ten participants did not use declarative knowledge namely: i) did not make the outline of the essay before writing, ii) did not identify keywords that represent the requirement of the question, and iii) how to expand ideas. These results indicate that students did not possess enough declarative knowledge about writing. The study also found that 11 respondents did not use declarative knowledge in the attempt to expand ideas. In terms of conditional knowledge, nine of the respondents still could not identify when and why certain strategies should be used. Whereas in terms of procedural knowledge, the study showed that all the participants did not show the use of important steps needed in writing a good essay. In conclusion, this study provides evidence on the need of an intervention or teaching modules to help improve students writing skills.

This paper describes a qualitative case study that investigated the aspirations and decision-making process of first-generation students concerning university education. The participants comprised of 16 first-generation students at a research university. Data were obtained through interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis method. The analyses centered on extracting meaning from factors behind students' university decisions. The student accounts highlight five factors in the process of negotiating their decision to enter the university: personal motivation i.e. individual perceptions of their intellectual ability to meet their expectation of entering university; family-based motivation particularly the parents' socio-economic status and involvement in students education; the role played by siblings and extended family; characteristics and context of the school attended; social networks as a medium where the information of university was transferred. The paper suggests that students' decisions on university education are contextualized as part of a web of complex interactions. Decisions about university education involved interaction between an individual's agency and strong influences of third parties which provide suggestions for the school and higher education institutions to consider the best medium by which they can help to increase students' awareness of university education.

Health promotional campaign as the practice of encouraging people to improve health has increased over the last decades in response to various health problems. This paper highlights strategies used by students to develop persuasive promotional campaign posters regarding the dengue health problem. Communication and media studies students were involved to show the combined results between the knowledge of health communication and the effective use of media in constructing an effective and persuasive health messages. A total of 56 students from two cohorts, i.e. twenty-five master's students and thirty-one undergraduates were selected. Kurt Lewin's model of action research was used to set the tasks: campaign objectives, information on dengue, themes/slogans to write the posters either by drawing or designing using a computer. The students were divided into groups where each group was monitored to record, check and evaluate their message writing performances. This study uses the Health Message Review Tool for data analysis which is grounded in the theories of Extended Parallel Process Model and Persuasion Hierarchy Effect. The findings revealed that the participants were able to construct, identify and evaluate major multi modal features in the dengue posters and persuasive elements which included: verbal texts, images, colours, graphic designs, metaphors, 1-sided and 2-sided message, firm conclusion and frames with more effective appeals. It was concluded that similar strategies may well be used in producing other campaign materials such as brochures, pamphlets, and billboards. The linguistic and pedagogic implications are also discussed at the end.

This brief paper examines the issues of awareness and application of a Learning Management System (LMS) used at the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM), Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. The paper argues that due to the discouraging responses from academics at the university on using the LMS, proactive measures must be taken immediately in order to arrest the situation. While most academics at the defence university can be categorised as Digital Natives, the reality does not reflect the enthusiasm of them to utilise new technologies. The discussion in this paper revolves around the concerns that stop academics to include the LMS in their teaching and learning repertoire. Data were obtained from observations on the use of the LMS and the number of participants who enrolled for the training of the LMS. This paper argues that due to the lack of organisational and structural support, academics at the NDUM may have reservations about using the LMS.

This paper attempts to show the use of lexical borrowings in ten teaching materials used by the English as Second Language (ESL) teachers in the ESL classrooms in the National Secondary Schools in the Klang district in Selangor, Malaysia. It also discusses the general and pedagogical implications involved in using lexical borrowings. This paper reveals that teaching materials with local context are found to be appealing and interesting to students because of their familiarity and local flavour. Students can instantly recognise the cultural context and respond to the situations and settings. As such they are able to interact with teaching materials in a more meaningful way.

The student-centered learning (SCL) approach is an approach to education that focuses on learners and their needs, rather than relying upon the input of the teacher's. The present paper examines how the SCL approach is integrated as a learner-centered paradigm into finance courses offered at a business school in a research university in Malaysia. Specifically, this paper identifies how a learner-centered environment is integrated into teaching methods, learning activities and evaluation tools. Since the adoption of the SCL approach is partly to cater for the needs of the research university, the analysis of the courses is supported with responses from the respective lecturers. This study finds that the lecturers of the five courses examined have used active/interactive learning and group project approaches as standard teaching methods under the SCL approach which includes projects, class discussion and presentation. Alongside these standard methods, some of the courses use additional methods under the SCL approach, including real life experiential learning and case studies. For example, students of the Investment and Portfolio Analysis course are exposed to the real world investment decision making by investing funds in selected stocks listed on Bursa Malaysia. In terms of course evaluations, the courses place greater weight on continuous assessment based on group projects and presentations, while reduce the emphasis on examinations. Overall, implementing the SCL approach requires a careful design of the learning process, which includes the classroom setting; flexibility of the curriculum; teaching methods; evaluation policies; and course content. In general, the study demonstrates that SCL has great potential to function as an effective learning tool in an environment where the labor market demands generically skilled job candidates and in which universities are demanding further resources to be devoted to efforts relating to research and publications.

The outbreak of information in a borderless world has prompted lecturers to move forward together with the technological innovation and erudition of knowledge in performing his/her responsibility to educate the young generations to be able to stand above the crowd at the global scene. Teaching and Learning through web-based learning platform is a complementary method of conventional teaching and learning approaches which has a lot of potential to produce a more meaningful learning experience. In the School of Mathematical Sciences of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, courses such as Basis Accounting and Finance have begun to employ web-based learning website known as "Connect" provided by the book publisher "McGraw-Hill." This paper discusses the importance of cultivating teaching and learning through such formal website as a useful tool of providing learning experiences to students in the process of enhancing students' knowledge retention thus improve their academic performances. In this paper, students' performances in the academic session prior to introduction of web-based learning where only traditional and e-learning approaches are used is investigated and compared to performances of students employing web-based learning in addition to the traditional and e-learning methods. Findings of this paper found that students' performances, specifically students whom are considered as "weak", improve when web-based learning is introduced.

Teaching is the foundation of our educational system. As such teachers are privileged with the responsibility of nurturing the young and inadvertently, shaping the future. To this end, the Malaysian government is fully cognizant that our future is dependent on the development of a highly skilled and innovative workforce serving as the critical enabling factor for economic growth. Hence, several initiatives were introduced in the education sector, and one of them is the "Skim Guru Cemerlang" or Excellent Teacher Scheme. The premise is that these Master Teachers comprise the "crème de la crème" of the Malaysian teaching profession and their teaching practices will be different from the general, non-master teachers. This paper reports on a study that investigated the best practices of three Master Teachers of the English language in two secondary schools in Malaysia. As these master teachers were selected by the Ministry of Education based on very stringent prerequisites, the question is, how different are master teachers from "normal" teachers? Further, in terms of classroom discourse, how is this difference manifested? Based on a research design that incorporated ethnography and applied discourse analysis, three master teachers were selected and observed during formal teaching hours as well as outside the classroom. Interviews were then conducted with the teachers as well as other stakeholders, namely the students and school administrators to triangulate the data. Additionally, documents were then collected and perused. The data went through a four-step analysis. Several key findings will then be revealed and the paper ends with suggestions for further work.

Internationalization of higher education has witnessed a growing number of students from Southeast Asian countries moving within the region in search of a degree. There is a common tendency among these international students to assume that study will be easier within the region and this has led to issues that need to be addressed. This paper explores one such issue, the academic literacy socialization of mainland China undergraduates in a Malaysian tertiary institution. Specifically this paper will discuss these students' experiences and the literacy practices they employed during a fourteen-week semester doing two reading courses--Academic Reading and Selected Literary Works. Data were collected using background and literacy experience interviews, literacy logs and analytical field notes. The findings suggest while these students think they are prepared to assimilate into the new environment they encounter difficulties and have to negotiate their literacy practices within those of the host country. The paper proposes the need for better preparedness on the part of both study abroad and host country students to enable them to socialize into the new environment and employ appropriate strategies to renegotiate their literacy practices. Teachers should also help these students adjust to their new environment by adapting better inclusive classroom practices.

This paper discusses the roles of professional engineers (PEs) who are attached to the Institutions of Higher Learning (IHLs) and how their contributions are as important as their counterparts in the industry. This paper highlights the roles for PEs at IHLs based on a survey conducted at selected IHLs in Malaysia. Academician-professional engineers have crucial responsibilities to develop graduates who later promote safer and cutting-edge engineering solutions. These new technologies will make Malaysia an environmentally healthier place and further prepare Malaysia towards a developed nation at the end of the decade. From the survey, we conclude that PEs at IHLs make use of their professional qualifications to enhance their knowledge therefore provide better work quality. We also found that lecturers with these qualifications have higher confidence in their own ability to success in their careers and to face and help the public.

This paper analyses the discourse of science through the study of collocational patterns of high frequency noun keywords in science textbooks used by upper secondary students in Malaysia. Research has shown that one of the areas of difficulty in science discourse concerns lexis, especially that of collocations. This paper describes a corpus-based analysis of the lexical collocations, specifically the noun/noun (NN), noun/adjective(AN) and verb/noun(VN) combinations, of high-frequency noun keywords in this science corpus. The study found that the NN and AN syntactic combinations were the more predominant combination type among the collocations of the noun keywords. Most of the collocations have been found to fall into the category between free and restricted combinations. In addition, the analysis have also uncovered clusters of overlapping collocations which show a tendency towards the free end of the restricted category of combinations.

This paper considers the use of spreadsheet for introducing students to a variety of quantitative models covered in an introductory Operations Research (OR) course at the University of Malaya, Malaysia. This approach allows students to develop skills in modeling as they learn to apply the various quantitative models in a spreadsheet. Indeed, imparting spreadsheet and modeling skills with OR skills will make students highly sought after in the modern workplace. This paper goes on to report on the experience in using spreadsheet in the Introductory OR course and students evaluations.

Emulation by example is an old adage that has been a pragmatic initiative in great endeavors. To create a dynamic research culture too requires revisiting eminent personality and renowned organization by which one can copy in order to establish credibility. This paper explores the practicality of the emulation activities that help to establish this dynamic research culture. Here, the writers address the American Ivy League universities as the exemplary institutions of knowledge that have been long established and that Malaysian institutions of higher education can continue to learn and adapt in order to continue achieving academic excellence, particularly in research practices. Pertinent areas covered are the current research and innovation taking place in the US tertiary education, nurturing academic entrepreneurship, the need for effective research leaders, creating talent pool for researchers' succession planning and internationalization, just to state a few. Simultaneously, establishing the research infrastructure and capacity is also another exploration that provides insights into the pertinent scope of academic establishment. This needs undivided attention by the leadership in the university. Through this sharing which is part of the experience acquired by the first author being an associate of an Ivy League institution, invaluable information in the paper can assist readers in understanding what is needed to establish a dynamic research culture for tertiary community.

This paper, employing a qualitative approach, is based on an interview of an indigenous community leader's life-long learning encounter with a view to garner information that would shed more light to both practice and theory of adult learning. A variety of themes were drawn from the information derived and these were related to theories of learning in adulthood. The findings of the paper identify key concerns and assumptions in adult education based on the theory of Andragogy developed by Malcolm Knowles which attempts to describe how adults learn. His hypothesis was that adult learning could not follow the traditional Pedagogy in which teachers were responsible for making decisions about what should be learned, how, where, when and why it should be learned. In a nutshell, it can be generally assumed that adults are more self-directed and therefore, should take full control and accountability of their learning.

Content-based reading texts play a vital role in the acquisition of knowledge and information in various fields of studies. Reading these texts at higher institution demands a great deal of effort from the students who are learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). These students who are generally school leavers, whose level or reading exposure is confined to Bahasa Malaysia-based text in their primary and secondary education, have to tackle on their own the tremendous demand of reading and comprehending the English content-based texts. These texts are derived from reference books or lecture notes, which are in English and may pose language barriers for the ESL learners. These are also ESL learners when first enter tertiary level; have met a minimum requirement of at least a credit in English as a second language at secondary school level. These reading materials pose comprehension difficulties when they are streamlined into specific field of studies. This paper attempts to look into the training of selected comprehension skills that language lecturers, particularly new ones in the teaching field, can apply the teaching skills to help learners to alleviate the comprehension challenges when reading content-based texts. This paper is also intended to assist new language lecturers who are embarking in ESL teaching of reading comprehension using content-based texts.

Researchers have theorized that cultural emphasis on education plays a major role in explaining Asian students' achievement. While Asian parents often view education as the main vehicle for upward social mobility, the social and cultural make-up of Asian societies and the context within which education is conducted in Asia often clash with the modern approaches and methodologies adopted into Asian classrooms. Contemporary approaches to education especially in relation to autonomous, learner-centred and online philosophies though theoretically supported and statistically proven successful in the west have been slow to capture Asian learners' interest and engagement. This paper discusses some of the reasons for the problems and challenges that need to be confronted prior to the introduction and effective implementation of autonomous online learning programmes. It further describes an attempt at confronting the above issues through a research project conducted by group of academics from the National University of Malaysia. The paper concludes by featuring some of the principles and strategies employed in the online programme developed for the research and the implication of their use on learner engagement to online autonomous learning programmes.

Gaining and understanding of the motivation which drives adults to commit to, and complete, higher education through distance learning is an important requirement for the design and the delivery of adult programs for educational institutions in Malaysia and abroad. Through an in-depth empirical examination, this paper provides the insight of one individual and his commitment to, and motivation to complete a Masters program through distance learning. The paper supports the empirical findings with a theoretical overview, discussing contemporary research in the field of adult education. Various factors that relate to adult participation in distance learning program are discussed in this paper.

At least historically, undergraduate research supervision has predominantly been seen as part of the basic research function of academic staff. In many fields of study, success in research requires not only sophisticated experimental and analytical skills, but good mentoring and managerial skills as well. This paper presents an observational case study and perception based on the author's true experiences exploring the most effective supervision of undergraduate students in the Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Due to the need of a highly calibre first class honours undergraduates for the future pool of postgraduates and top notch academia in the Faculty and in UPM, the aim of this paper is therefore to provide a good practice guideline for supervision of undergraduates final year project reports/theses to ensure consistency of approach for staff and students across the faculty and university. Key topics covered include building an effective undergraduate final year project/theses supervisory relationship, negotiating expectations, providing good communication and feedback and providing motivation and guidance to them. Personal interviews of undergraduates' perceptions of their supervision as they undertake their final year research projects were presented. Students reported that only a select few of their supervisors were supportive and sympathetic to their needs. Only a few of the Faculty supervisors adopted the role of resource person, directing undergraduates to references and contacts, discussing ideas and work undertaken. Only a few students had considerable freedom in the conduct of their final year project work. They were not able to choose their own research topic and supervisor but most determined the pace at which they worked. Some appeared to cope well with the autonomous role of a junior researcher while some commented on difficulties. Though the majority of students were given considerable freedom in their research the results of the observation indicated some differences amongst supervisors.

Realizing the importance of education in developing a country, many governments had begun to pay more attention in improving the education quality in their country. However whether the desired level of education quality is equally distributed is still debated on. On top of that, current literature on which level of education, either basic or tertiary education, brings greater return to the society is still inconclusive. It is not the objective of this paper to answer or add on the debate. On the other hand this paper would like to explore the relationship between school quality, namely at primary education and secondary education, and economic growth. Educational inequality at primary and secondary education would be measured with using the concept of education Gini. Using GDP as the dependent variable and regressing it with Gini coefficient of primary education and secondary education, would be able to show which level of education inequality is significant in explaining the economic growth of a country. Using Malaysian data, for the last 20 years, the relationship between education inequality of different level of education and the economic growth would be postulated.

Instructor is granted with some basic forms of power to influence student behaviors. Students tend to perceive themselves in an inferior position due to the power imbalance between instructors and students. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the interrelationships between perceived instructor power, student dissatisfaction and complaint behaviors in the context of higher education. The present study employed quantitative research methodology using survey questionnaire to collect data. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that students are more likely to engage in private complaining behavior and third party complaining behavior when instructor exhibited legitimate power, while perceived referent power is more associated with voice and third party complaining behavior. It was also noticeable that the student dissatisfaction can mediate the power-complaining behavior link. This research can be practically applied in the higher education institutions on how certain power bases can lead to student dissatisfaction and modes of complaining.

Mother tongue rhetoric transfer is unavoidable in ESL writings, especially for Iranian ESL learners, since Persian and English language is quite different. The paper discusses the negative transfer of mother tongue rhetoric in Iranian undergraduate ESL learners' writings from the perspectives of choosing rhetorical structure in English and Persian writing. In this regard, 50 intermediate undergraduate Iranian students who are a bachelor in engineering fields at two private higher education institutions located in Malaysia, are selected as participants to give their opinion about which style they prefer to use for both English and Persian writing. Statistical analysis of the participants' performance indicates that Iranian undergraduate students use the same rhetorical pattern for their both Persian and English writing and there is no consideration regarding the knowledge of L1 and L2 differences. The results also state that above 70% of the participants prefer to give a general comment about the topic and encourage readers at the end of the writing in their English and Persian essays.

This paper compares the oral reading errors between the contextual sentences and random words among schoolchildren. Two sets of reading materials were developed to test the oral reading errors in 30 schoolchildren (10.00±1.44 years). Set A was comprised contextual sentences while Set B encompassed random words. The schoolchildren were asked to read both contextual sentences and random words reading charts at random order, loudly at normal reading speed. The reading errors were quantified based on the number of mistakes made during reading. The errors were classified into 6 categories; mispronunciations, substitutions, refusals, additions, omissions, and reversals. The results indicated the mean number of errors made by schoolchildren in reading sentence of Set A and Set B were 1.30±0.23 words and 2.70±0.41 words respectively. Random words, Set B, gave a significantly higher number of reading errors compared to contextual sentences, Set A, (U=287, z=-2.46, p=0.01). Reading the random words gave higher number of errors compared to reading the contextual sentences. Mispronunciations and substitutions were the most possible types of errors made when reading Set B (U=234, z=-3.60, p=<0.01 and U=325, z=-2.00, p=0.04 respectively). Schoolchildren tended to mispronounce and substitute some words during reading the random words. In comparing the number of oral reading errors made between schoolchildren and young adults, there was no significant difference. A similar pattern of the type of errors was also found in oral reading errors in both schoolchildren and young adults. Overall findings could be linked to the existence of comprehension during reading the contextual sentences compared to reading the random words.

This paper discusses the association between online students' interaction through the Learning Management System (LMS) discussion forum and their reported course satisfaction. The participants in the study reported here were selected from several faculties in one university in Malaysia who were enrolled in at least one hybrid or fully online course. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, its instrument and satisfaction scale were employed in this study via a Qualtrics online survey. Teaching presence in the CoI was used to find out how strong it correlated with students' course satisfaction. The results showed that both variables were significantly positively associated with each other; indicating that students who enjoyed a relatively high teaching presence in online discussions were very likely to report higher course satisfaction.

In line with the new trend of using computer-mediated communication (CMC) as an innovative technique in teaching and learning at higher institutions, Facebook as a channel of CMC was employed in carrying out a project work in an Academic Communication Course. For this project, students worked in groups to discuss their work and share information using both CMC and face-to-face interactions. An open ended questions survey was administered to these undergraduate students who were assigned to investigate a specific community issue involving a non-governmental organization (NGO) and to produce a report on the findings of the issue identified. This paper presents findings of an action research that aims to investigate the effectiveness of using CMC channel, Facebook, in the project work. It also aims to find out the challenges faced by students in using CMC. The content analysis of students' responses to the survey indicates the effectiveness of using CMC over face-to-face interactions in the completion of the project work despite the problems and challenges they faced.

This paper reports a study on the perception of the people toward the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics using English. Altogether, 641 respondents obtained randomly from all over Malaysia participated in the study. The respondents, male and female from the age of 20 to 55 were given a set of questionnaire, containing statements on various issues of Science and Mathematics. Each statement is accompanied with five choices of responses in the form of Likert type scale ranging from 1. Strongly disagree, 2. Disagree, 3. Not sure, 4. Agree, and 5. Strongly agree. One of the statement of the questionnaire analysed was "It is easier to learn science and mathematics in English". The raw data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and also ANOVA. The result of the study shows that 45.7% of the respondents rejected the statement, 24.4% accepted the statement and 29.3% were not sure. There is significant difference of means between the respondents with academic background in science compared to respondents with non-science academic background.

Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) in Malaysia are recognized as the core of new innovation development. This paper empirically studies one of IHLs in Malaysia with the objectives to gauge the perceived important level of success factors for innovation management, and to examine the relationship between innovation management success factors versus innovation performance. Descriptive statistical analysis and Pearson correlation test are used to validate the preliminary research framework. Finding from the study presents an interesting managerial implication where success factor that perceived as the most important is not strongly correlated with innovation performance. Suggestions to enhance the innovation performance are proposed, which comprising securement of greater research funding, expanding number and scope of collaboration or cooperation with external parties as well as continuously upgrading and enhancing the level of expertise. Finally, a revised framework of innovation performance management for Research University is proposed bases on literature review and complemented by the result of this study.

A strong, systematic and well-executed management system will be able to minimize and coordinate workload. A number of committees need to be developed, which are joined by the department staffs to achieve the objectives that have been set. Another important aspect is the monitoring department in order to ensure that the work done is correct and in line with the Washington Accord's requirements. A strong academic management system consists of four main sections namely activities organization and evaluation, documentation system, ongoing improvement and information sharing. This paper focuses on the importance of the third aspect, which is the documentation system. It is crucial to establish a systematic and efficient documentation system that reflects all the efforts that have been done in the program courses. The Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia ("The National University of Malaysia") has taken a number of measures in upgrading its document management. The performance of teaching folder submission has increased significantly for all departments.

The objective of this paper is to analyze written reflections on learning log of among the third and final year students undertaking an entrepreneurship module. Data was collected in the form of written reflection taken from the learning log of 140 students from 3 classes. At the end of the collection only 136 students' responses were managed to be collected given 4 students failed to hand in the learning log. A thematic approach was utilized to present the reflections of the students and all data was recorded in a verbatim format. Findings show that most students have never written a reflective log or essay in the formative assessment. As a consequence, they had difficulty in writing the reflection when being requested to do so. This has resulted in their reflection being written descriptively which lacks in critical analysis and deep thinking. The results of this investigation have strongly suggested the need to urgently develop among the students the skills in writing reflectively as they go through the process of higher education which be useful in molding their future professional and entrepreneurial behavior as when they entered the job market which requires a critical reasoning ability. The limitation and future were discussed.

Verbal questioning is a technique used by teachers in the teaching and learning process. Research in Malaysia related to teachers' questioning in the chemistry teaching and learning process is more focused on the level of the questions asked rather than the content to ensure that students understand. Thus, the research discussed in this paper is intended to explore in-depth the types of questions posed by teachers when teaching electrochemistry. This topic was chosen as it is categorized as a difficult topic by both students and teachers. This research employed qualitative techniques in exploring teachers' verbal questioning during the teaching process. Participants included five teachers teaching Chemistry Form 4 (Grade 10). The data were collected through non-participant observations and verbatim recordings during the teaching and learning process. The findings indicate that the types of teachers' verbal questions when teaching electrochemistry can be categorized in two main areas: content and management questions. Content questions could be sub-divided into five sub-categories: linking questions, questions based on process, comparison questions, questions based on students' observations, and questions based on terminology. As for the management questions, they consisted of four sub-categories: questions for probing, monitoring, and motivation as well as bilingual questions. The data analysis also showed that the content and management questions are complementary as both types are needed in the verbal questioning process during the teaching and learning of electrochemistry.

Beyond policy, this paper investigates the actual practice related to the integration of new media in schools. Despite continuous government effort to integrate new media in schools, the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning in the classroom remains limited. This study suggests that, apart from the issue related to the state of technological infrastructure, other related factors, including school's leadership and policy, and teachers' attitude and knowledge of new media, can also influence the integration of digital technologies into the classroom. Hence, it is important for schools to develop a comprehensive policy of new media, to ensure that the technological infrastructure is carefully managed and maintained. Schools also should provide teachers with continuous professional development opportunities, to ensure that their knowledge and skills of new media remain relevant in the constantly changing digital environment.

This paper intends to highlight the issues in thinking skills development and efforts made in addressing these issues in Malaysia. The education system in Malaysia has undergone a huge transformational progress particularly in the field related to the development of thinking skill. Traditionally, thinking skill was not specifically cultivated in the education syllabus. What moved as a global agenda in the realm of education, thinking skill was embraced as an important subject matter that needs a specific attention. It was later embedded in the teachers' training activities and translated into many forms, curricular and extra-curricular activities alike. Students are trained right from school up to tertiary levels. The move is ongoing and continuosly progressing.

This paper reports a qualitative study which examines the challenges faced by six international undergraduate students in their socialisation of oral academic discourse in a Malaysian public university. Data were collected employing interviews. Students' presentations were also collected. Semi-structured interviews were transcribed verbatim and qualitative content analysis was employed to examine the challenges faced by international undergraduate students in their socialisation of oral academic discourse. The results reveal that the major difficulties international undergraduate students face in their oral academic discourse socialisation are related to linguistic knowledge, presentation skills and content-related difficulties. Linguistic difficulties constrain students to express complex concepts and ideas while engaged in oral presentations. Difficulties related to presentation skills are associated with how to prepare PowerPoint slides and how to organise the content of the presentations. This study also reveals that content difficulties may be related to the specific topics the students are asked to prepare presentations on. In this study I argue that understanding the challenges faced by undergraduate international students in their oral academic discourse socialisation can be one of the essential steps to help them overcome the challenges they face.

The purpose of this action research was to investigate the use of YouTube videos and interactive activities in stimulating critical thinking among students from a public university in Malaysia. There were 50 students of mixed background, comprised of local and foreign students who participated in this study which lasted for one semester. Data was collected using a few approaches which included video recording of the lessons, students' and researcher's reflections and role play. In this paper, we specifically focus on the students' reflections of their experience while using YouTube videos. Thematic analysis was conducted to examine the themes that emerged in their reflections. Using Lewin's Action research model supported by Constructivism Theory, a-four stage action research consisted of planning, acting, observing and reflecting were conducted. We found that YouTube Videos were fun and interesting, increased students' participation and engagement and enhanced their critical thinking skills. The students were able to participate actively and demonstrated strong interest in the learning process as they were able to understand lectures better by visualizing the content and relating it to real workplace. Our study revealed the potential of YouTube video as a tool for stimulating students' learning and enhancing their critical thinking.

This paper examines the relationship between human resource development (HRD) practices and employees' job satisfaction. This study is conducted at a public university in Malaysia. A total of 95 questionnaires were collected out of 1110 distributed, indicating an 8.5% rate of return. All respondents were academic staff of the university. Four HRD practices which are examined, including i) Training and development, ii) Organization development, iii) Career development and iv) Performance management. The results show that all HRD practices are significantly related to job satisfaction.

In its effort to provide solid religious foundation for Muslim students, the Ministry of Education Malaysia has launched a national religious literacy initiative known as the j-QAF Programme in 2004. This programme has since been implemented in public primary schools throughout the country and incorporated as a part of the curriculum of studies. The programme includes a wide range of basic religious skills including recitation of the Quran, the learning of the "Jawi" script and Arabic language as well as the basics of worship. After several years of its implementation, much concern is raised on the effectiveness of this programme in achieving its objectives. Thus, this preliminary paper aims to shed some light on this matter. Specifically, it focuses on analyzing the aspect of Quranic recitation skill, which constitutes one of the core subjects of the programme. A Quran reading test was administered to selected respondents in one of the schools, and the results were analyzed through descriptive statistical methods. The findings indicate the level of proficiency of the students in mastering the skill of Quranic recitation and its possible implication and reflection on the overall effectiveness of the programme.

Most postgraduate programmes, that have research components, require students to take at least one course of research statistics. Not all postgraduate programmes are science based, there are a significant number of postgraduate students who are from the social sciences that will be taking statistics courses, as they try to complete their postgraduate studies. As postgraduate students come from varied backgrounds, from those who have left school for more than a decade, to those who just completed their undergraduate studies, postgraduate statistics course may be one of the toughest to teach. These students come into the course with preconceived thoughts and attitude, which would either increase their anxiety towards statistics, or decrease their anxiety. Previous studies have shown that students reported high level of statistics anxiety during a statistics course. Unfortunately, there are limited studies on statistics anxiety in the Malaysian postgraduate population. Therefore, this study aims to determine the level of anxiety towards statistics among postgraduate student. This study also aims to explore factors that are associated with statistics anxiety among postgraduate students at the Faculty of Education, UKM. As a secondary outcome, this study explores the type of evaluation preferred by postgraduate students in relation to a statistics course. All postgraduate students who registered for the Research Statistics course at the Faculty of Education, National University of Malaysia, during the study period were invited to participate in the study. A total of 141 students completed the questionnaire and was included in this paper. This study found that a significant (21.7%) of the students surveyed have anxiety in at least one of the statistics anxiety domain, either in anxiety towards class activities, attitude towards class, attitude towards Mathematics or self-perception of ability to perform in statistics. This study found that ethnicity was associated with higher anxiety towards class activities, with the Malays being more anxious compared to the non-Malays. Both ethnicity and bachelor's degree were associated with attitude towards class and attitude towards Mathematics. For these two domains, the male students and students from non-science based bachelor's degree, showed more anxiety compared to female students. Self-perception of ability to perform in statistics was not associated with any socio-demographic factors included in this study. Students in this study overwhelmingly preferred individual assignment as an evaluation method, followed by mid-semester examination, and the final semester examination. Least preferred were online participation and presentation.

Lesson study is a study of teaching to provide learning opportunities for teachers to enhance teachers' professional development. Advantages of this approach have been recommended by the Ministry of Education and implemented in stages in selected schools. Thus, students at the pre-service level should be given the exposure about lesson study. Lesson study was implemented by integrating the micro teaching training for the course curriculum and pedagogy. Students perform simulations in micro teaching for seven weeks. This article discusses the proposed model of lesson study integration in a micro teaching class. In addition, this paper also discusses the reflection of students at each element in this model. The implication of this study is the need for students to be given early exposure to lesson study so that they can apply it directly to their teaching practices.

The use of an online learning community is one possible approach to teachers' professional development that can enhance the opportunity for collaboration. Discussions in online learning communities not only allow community members to share resources, ideas and expertise, but also contribute to the fulfilment of teachers' needs in terms of continuous learning and professional development. This paper reports the findings of a study that aimed to explore the factors that influence the way teachers behave in online communities. The research participants were 16 teachers from five secondary schools in Malaysia who were teaching English, science and mathematics. These teachers were involved in online learning communities via blogs in which they exchanged stories and experiences related to their teaching and learning activities. Data were generated through one-to-one interviews. Based on thematic analysis, the overall findings indicate that teachers' levels of participation in their online learning communities were largely influenced by cultural issues. Other factors that impacted upon their engagement were time, enforcement by school administrators and their need for an online community.

The Malaysian government is continuously striving to develop the country to become a regional education hub. Hence, higher learning institutions, especially universities, are becoming the centre of attention in order for Malaysia to achieve its desired status. Although the number of international postgraduate students in Malaysia has progressively increased, the country still needs an annual growth of 13.5 per cent to attain the target of 150,000 international students by 2015. Previous studies have reported that student satisfaction can lead to attracting new students and retaining the existing ones. Hence, it is essential for Malaysian universities to understand the factors that influence the satisfaction of students. Despite its importance, less attention has been given to the experiences and satisfaction of students in higher learning institutions in Malaysia. The key objective of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature and develop a conceptual model that integrates several antecedents that are theoretically linked to student satisfaction. The proposed conceptual model suggests that the internal and external environment of a university, and the feedback of research supervisors are the key factors that influence the level of satisfaction among international postgraduate students. Finally, recommendations for future studies are proposed.