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This study investigates the relationship between the WhatsApp group, an instant messenger application as a community of practice platform (knowledge management, regular interactions, ease of using technology, and sense of belonging) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) learners' leadership and higher-order thinking (HOT) skills. The current study also examines how participation in the community of practice through the WhatsApp group can enhance leadership and HOT skills for male and female learners. 197 ESP learners participated in the five-point Likert scale questionnaire. The SPSS-AMOS analysis showed that knowledge management, regular interaction, and a sense of belonging significantly enhance learners' leadership and HOT skills. The results also showed that male learners increased their leadership skills while female learners excelled in the HOT skills by the WhatsApp community of practice. This study has significant educational implications, particularly in emphasizing essential measures when developing an ESP curriculum to prepare learners for their future careers.

The usage of video conferencing tools in teaching and learning has become a norm in today's higher educational institutions, recognized across various academic settings. The experience gained by most educators in using video conferencing tools for teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic could be leveraged to enhance these tools. The study aims to capture the current practices and explore the issues of using video conferencing for teaching and learning in Malaysian higher educational institutions. It focuses on three target groups with hands-on experience: academicians, students, and e-learning consultants or information technology (IT) support staff. Interview and focus group protocols were developed based on the four elements of the PACT framework: People (P), Activities (A), Contexts (C), and Technologies (T). Data were gathered through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with the target groups. There were 24 participants involved in three focus group discussions and 28 participants in individual in-depth interviews. The PACT framework was employed to analyze the data, aiding in understanding the current situation, identifying areas for improvement, and envisioning future scenarios. Qualitative data were transcribed and categorized based on the four PACT elements. The study identified differences in the People element with four scenarios/practices on physical differences, six on psychological differences, three on mental models, and five on social differences. A total of twenty differences were identified under the Activities element, with six on temporal aspects, four each on cooperation, complexity, and safety-critical aspects, and two on the nature of the content. Under the Context element, one scenario/practice was identified for organizational circumstances, five for social circumstances, and three for physical circumstances. In the Technology element, five scenarios/practices were identified: two related to the input part of technologies and one each for the output, communication, and content parts of technologies. From the scenarios/practices of the responses, a total of fifty-two issues related to using video conferencing for teaching and learning were identified. These findings will serve as the basis for ideation in developing innovative video conferencing toolkits for teaching and learning.

In recent years, the role of information and communication technology (ICT) has increasingly impacted school instructional and leadership practices. With the assistance of ICT, interactions between school leaders and teachers have undergone tremendous changes that have reduced face-to-face contact. However, only a limited number of studies have evaluated the barriers and challenges to participating in ICT-based e-leadership in schools. Therefore, this sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was designed to examine these challenges and barriers to teachers' participation in e-leadership platforms. Feedback from samples of 260 current secondary school teachers was obtained via a survey using the convenience sampling method. The internal consistencies of the items were also checked using exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses. Parametric tests such as the independent t-test and ANOVA were conducted to determine the differences between teachers' perceptions based on their demographic factors: age, gender and years of teaching experience. In addition, regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between teachers' demographics and the challenges they encountered. Furthermore, 10 teachers were interviewed to obtain detailed explanations of the challenges and barriers they faced while participating in e-leadership systems. Thematic analysis was employed to assess the interview transcript data. The quantitative findings revealed that the challenges faced by teachers included ineffective ICT equipment in schools, ICT equipment in schools that needs to be updated, lack of understanding in using the ICT system, a lack of knowledge derived from limited support courses and workshops to assist educators, ineffective school's ICT system and disturbance of their free time. From interview sessions, teachers have mentioned significant issues related to internet networks, teachers' willingness to ignore certain issues, and perceived intrusions on privacy. In examining differences related to challenges and barriers to e-leadership based on teachers' demographics, the ANOVA and independent t-test analyses revealed that most of these differences were non-significant, except for teachers' gender and teaching experience. To conclude, principals and educational authorities must support teachers with the ongoing training, financial resources, and allocation that are critical in preparing teachers to participate in e-leadership systems.

This study employed a mixed-methods design to investigate the experiences of ESL students during their English language learning interactions through the WhatsApp platform. The primary objective was to examine the presence of social, cognitive, and teaching presences in the WhatsApp interactions using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model. A survey was administered to 349 undergraduate students in Malaysia to collect the quantitative data, which was then triangulated through interviews with 20 students. The interviews were categorized based on Braun and Clarke's reflective thematic analysis. The survey related to social presence indicates a strong interaction among students and a notable decrease in students' inclination for informal and humorous social interactions with their teachers. The findings related to teaching presence view instructors as actively engaging students in their learning process. However, they also pointed out that out less sharing of critical knowledge is taking place. On the other hand, the cognitive presence category was associated with the development of meaningful interaction The educational implications seek to provide guidance to educators and institutions on maximizing the utilization of WhatsApp, for the learning of English as a Second Language (ESL). This involves considering the social, cognitive, and teaching presences highlighted in the study.

Language pedagogy has recently shifted its focus to digital pedagogy, hence classroom tasks being modified has become an essential practice around the world. One challenging element of teaching in a digital classroom is keeping students interested and ensuring that they have genuine learning experiences. It was also discovered that digital language classrooms give students minimal exposure to real-world settings, especially in English for Professional Interaction digital classrooms as it lacks the tools that connect academics and industry players. This study's main objective is to conceptualise a framework that uses an educational research and development model that includes industry players as part of the classroom tasks and lesson plans for students' engagement in the digital language classroom. The study's research design is a 10-stage research and development methodology that includes both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The study was conducted over the course of four semesters from June 2020 until January 2022 in English for Professional Interaction classrooms. Professional speakers from various industries were invited for online class discussions and feedback was collected after each session. This interactive academia-industry framework in the digital language classroom serves as a methodological design that has the potential to affect students through authentic usage of content for realistic learning experiences.

As COVID-19 took hold, online learning became the norm as universities and classrooms worldwide were forced to close their doors. Education institute closures impacted more than 1.2 billion students across 186 countries as of April 2020. This pandemic, too, has shifted our Malaysian education sector as well. Academicians and students are adopting online learning via open and distance learning platforms. Education 5.0 is the revolution of human intelligence and cognitive computing. When the world is moving towards this, the major challenge one will face is the challenges in this digitalisation era, the challenges on cyber security and the risk associated with it. This study uses a digital learning platform to examine the cyber security awareness among UiTM Terengganu Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences students. The study is significant to focus on the weakness and to educate the students about being cyber victims. The data was collected using a set of questionnaires among 110 students. Numbers and statistics from open-ended and closed-ended questions helped obtain data. Descriptive analysis shows that many students have awareness and knowledge of cyber security, cyber-attack, and cyberbullying.

Purpose: This study explored ESL learners' utilization of Online Discussion Forums (ODFs) in Interactive Reading for Academic Disciplines (iREAD) to assist reading of online scientific texts within an English for Specific Purposes course at a public university. Method: This qualitative research employed two data collection methods during lessons of a 14-week semester. The first was analysis of ODF threads in iREAD from 30 ESL learners of various engineering programs at a public university in the East coast of Malaysia. Twelve from 30 ESL students were purposively selected to participate in focus group interviews. Interactive Analysis Model was used to analyse the threads, whilst the interviews transcripts were analysed thematically. NVivo Pro 12 software was used to manage the data and the generated themes were later analysed using inter-rater reliability analysis. The Kappa values of the themes indicated near perfect scores, to verify the reliability of the identified themes. Findings: The findings revealed the positive capability of ODF as a tool in facilitating learners' reading comprehension of English for Science and Technical (EST) online materials. Analysis of the data on ODF threads confirm that students have the capabilities to engage in higher level of discussions and debate to aid their understanding. The themes that emerged from the interviews reflect positive impacts to facilitate reading of EST online materials, where learners were able to work collaboratively and increase knowledge and understand better. In addition, significance of EST materials was important in providing exposure to students' background knowledge of their content courses. The notion of social constructivism and connectivism were reflected as learners constructed knowledge, negotiated, and synthesized ideas using the language across networked learning communities. Significance: An implication from this study suggests that exposure to EST online materials through communication and collaboration via ODF has strengthened students' knowledge of the subject content. Additionally, learners' comprehension of reading online EST materials has been enhanced through ODF because of the tool's interactive heuristic approach to learning. This becomes significant for program developers and lecturers to combine both elements of ODF and material selection in lessons considering its positive impacts toward learning.

Few studies have investigated the detailed procedure of systematically delivering and teaching metacognitive strategies in higher education. This study investigates whether explicit training in metacognitive strategies could improve undergraduates' online reading comprehension over the pandemic. The results of this study contribute to teacher education programs to teach and apply regularly metacognitive reading strategies. In a quasi-experimental design, the experimental group and control group underwent 14 sessions of training. Semi-structured interviews and a Metacognitive Reading Awareness Strategy Assessment were conducted among experimental students. The data were collected using the reading test, Metacognitive Reading Awareness Strategy inventory, and semi-structured interviews in Malaysia. The results of Repeated Measure ANOVA showed the mean scores of students in the metacognitive group were significantly higher than the mean score of the students in the conventional reading group (F= 1.3,82.3) = 215.973. p <0.001). The results of the Metacognitive Reading Awareness Strategy Assessment showed that students had more awareness of global reading strategies (M= 3.511), followed by supporting reading strategies (M=3.468) and problem-solving strategies (M= 3.427). The thematic analysis result supported that students were moderate users of planning and monitoring strategies while evaluative ones were less frequent. The results also revealed that students perceived that lack of vocabulary knowledge, heavy dependence on their teachers, and lack of strategy training were the main causes of their reading difficulties. The findings implied that EFL teachers should introduce metacognitive reading strategies through appropriate and systematic instructions to enable the students to implement them in their academic reading.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the educational landscape of institutions of higher education, which were predominantly face-to-face. In Malaysia, many universities converted their courses into online courses to keep up with the challenges of working from home during the pandemic, using web technologies and blended learning approaches. However, there are challenges in ensuring students' attention and retention rates are maintained and enough support and scaffolding are provided to them when they are learning online. As such, the MERLIN Project was undertaken to develop a virtual learning assistant that would provide online support to students outside of their online classes. The project used Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology with Natural Language Processing (NLP) features to develop a chatbot that simulated humanlike conversation between chatbot and students. Content in the learning environment was media-rich and mapped to Mayer's 12 Multimedia Learning Principles. Data from 102 students was collected to gauge their perceptions and feedback. Results showed that students found the chatbot to be helpful in their learning process and improved their understanding of the course material. A conceptual learning framework for the use of AI chatbots as learning assistants is proposed to improve students' online learning experiences in the new normal.

The importance of social networks has increased in recent decades, yet the use of social learning in higher education is nascent. Little is known how to foster high levels of social learning discourse among students in higher education classrooms. To address this gap, the present study analyses the use of a mobile application (Soqqle) for sharing student-generated content and peer-to-peer communication. Students from Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia uploaded videos linked to assessments and received feedback from their instructors and peers through social engagement features (e.g., comments, likes). The majority of students reported that the social learning experience promoted idea generation, increased creativity, and improved attention. These results indicate that integrating online platforms and mobile applications can promote social learning. The findings have important implications for educational practice because many educational institutions have adopted online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose: The world after the pandemic of COVID-19 is looking at a different environment in teaching and learning and primarily being influenced by general online learning readiness. Perception towards the measurement of online learning readiness would also need to change. This study seeks to determine whether Malaysian undergraduate students are ready to study online if the Movement Control Order (MCO) is reimposed. Design/methodology/approach: Using an online poll, this study analysed 299 undergraduate students from Malaysia's public and private universities. The collected data were then analysed using SmartPLS software to test the measurement model and structural equation modelling. Findings: The findings of this study indicate that computer self-efficacy and self-directed learning have a substantially positive link with online learning preparedness among Malaysian undergraduate students. Research limitations/implications: Findings in this study indicate that universities should draw comprehensive plans to enhance students' readiness in terms of indicators such as technology usage, technology availability, computer and internet efficacy, self-directed learning and attitude. One of the aspects that require change is online communication self-efficacy. Thus, there is a need for improvement, or this would affect undergraduates adversely, especially in the event of future MCO. Originality/value: The originality of this article lies in the time frame this study was conducted, where cases of coronavirus infection are seen to increase around the world and there is a possibility that movement restrictions will be re-enforced. The findings in this study are expected to give insight to the government in the effort of the national higher education plan. By not undervaluing previous research models, this research model should give a new perspective to the academic literature on online learning among undergraduate students.

This study examines the levels of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) among underprivileged communities, shedding light on their digital literacy and online behaviour. Rooted in the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy framework, focusing on specific dimensions of MIL, with an emphasis on assessing the ability to retrieve, critically evaluate, and manage information. 366 participants among the targeted community were involved, where survey instruments aligned with MIL principles were adopted in identifying the strength and areas for improvement for the targeted underprivileged community. Participants' awareness of data privacy was also assessed. The findings emphasize the critical role of targeted interventions and the need to enhance MIL among the community. Privacy awareness, cultivation of critical thinking skills, and effective online communication strategies were identified as the key factors. These observations offer insights into MIL within underprivileged communities, providing a guidance for policymakers, educators, and community organizations working towards narrowing the digital divide. Grounded in the context of Pahang, Malaysia, this research serves as a foundational resource for addressing information literacy challenges faced by underprivileged communities globally.

A notable deterioration in mental health, especially anxiety and depression, was seen among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, immediate preventive action is required to remedy this concern by using the online-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (e-ACT). The effectiveness of this e-ACT on psychological flexibility and mental wellbeing was assessed among 52 Malaysian undergraduate university students aged between 18 and 23 years old during the pandemic. Based on a small group approach, participants received two online e-ACT sessions (a total of 5 hours). The paired sample t-tests result showed a significant improvement on mindfulness, psychological flexibility, and wellbeing among the students. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test showed a significant decrease in depression, anxiety, and stress. These findings support the use of e-ACT mental health education to promote psychological wellbeing among university students. Further empirical studies are needed to test the effectiveness of e-ACT on psychological flexibility and mental wellbeing.

This study explores the factors affecting cyberbullying behaviour through their attitudes and intentions based on a model developed using Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Results from a survey of 428 Malaysian tertiary students were analysed using a two-step Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)--Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) approach. The SEM findings indicate that the intention to engage in cyberbullying is the most influential factor in cyberbullying behaviour, shaped by factors such as image (0.492), moral disengagement (0.211), perceived behavioural control (-0.141), university climate (-0.097), subjective norms (0.662), peer to peer relationships (0.108) and attitude (0.235) towards cyberbullying. The ANN results show that image is the biggest predictor (36.35%) of cyberbullying intention, followed by moral disengagement, cyberbullying attitude, PBC, and university climate. These insights provide a deeper understanding of the underlying factors behind cyberbullying among Malaysian tertiary students and offer guidance for reducing cyberbullying in the country.

Increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia forced the authority to enforce the Movement Control Order since March 2020. This order requires students in Malaysia to remain at home while learning via distance and online learning modes. This study aimed to assess the readiness of Foreign Language (FL) students in Malaysian private university in transition from face-to-face learning to online learning. This study employed quantitative research whereby the data was collected from 120 FL students using an online questionnaire. Computer/internet self-efficacy, self-directed learning, learner control, motivation of learning, and online communication self-efficacy are the five variables used to assess online learning readiness (OLR). The findings showed that most FL students are ready to learn online during the pandemic. Results show that the computer/internet self-efficacy the most significant OLR variable. According to the results, students were confident in obtaining any information on the internet and using the online learning platform in their studies. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the research adds to fundamental understanding of students' perceptions on shifting from face-to-face learning to online learning, as well as examining online learning readiness in language learning setting.

The rapid digital revolution in recent decades has transformed conventional Word-of-Mouth (WOM) into electronic WOM (eWOM). The significance of digital emotion in eWOM has been widely recognized due to its influential effect on consumer trust. There is increasing research on digital emotion contagion, which refers to exposure to emotions on digital platforms, which evokes internet users' emotions. Drawing on Spencer-Oatey's (2008) Rapport Management Model (RMM), this study investigates the stylistic domain of RMM, focusing on the affective lexical resources that express emotions used by Malaysian hotels when responding to positive online reviews on TripAdvisor. These affective lexical resources were analyzed using Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal Theory. The findings demonstrated that the five- and four-star hotels had higher frequencies of affective lexical variation than did the three-star hotels. From the perspective of RMM, the affective lexical choices used by the high-end Malaysian hotels appeared to reflect the cultural values of gratitude and respect in Asian hospitality in fostering virtual emotional connections with reviewers. This study enriches the work on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course design as digitally engaging via online business communication should be an integral part of business-related ESP courses.

Collaborative learning, social interdependence and computer mediated communication (CMC) have been broadly studied in higher education research. Collaborative learning has often been associated with a social interdependence understanding. However, this study explores the relationship from an exclusively student motivation perspective in order to gain insight over the factors that encourage students' positive interdependence in small peer groups. Moreover, due to the COVID-19 pandemic which, has shifted student learning to online platforms learners have found themselves engaging in computer mediated communication more than ever. Therefore, the study aims to explore CMC's influence over student motivations towards achieving mutual-interest in their small groups. Besides that, past studies concerning these areas have been mostly quantitative in nature, thus, this study used a qualitative approach by conducting semi-structured interviews with 9 participants from the Communications programme of a private higher educational institution in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The interview findings identified few factors that transformed their self-interest motivation to mutual-interest motivation. These being: accountability, quality of work outcome, type of coursework & group size. Additionally, CMC was not directly influential in encouraging students to grow mutual interest in their small group. Besides that, there were no significant difference between the roles of synchronous or asynchronous communication in specifically motivating students towards achieving positive social interdependence. The findings prove beneficial for educators and educational administrators when designing collaborative tasks and relevant policies or guidelines.

Purpose: Given that students were out of school in response to the COVID-19 pandemic public health measures, traditional teaching practices have been forced to switch to online mediated learning environments. This study represents the first research effort to capture the experience of Malaysian mathematics teachers about their teaching during the pandemic. This includes investigating digital education tools mathematics teachers used, issues they encountered, and the knowledge and skills they need to improve during the enforced online teaching situation. Methodology: This study employed a survey design and qualitative data were collected using an online questionnaire. A total of 202 primary and secondary mathematics teachers from Malaysia participated in the study. The data were analysed through thematic analysis and descriptive statistics. Findings: First, it was found that the mathematics teachers employed a variety of digital education tools during the pandemic and the most commonly used tool was WhatsApp. Second, the top two issues faced by the teacher respondents were due to internet problems and students' engagement during the online learning. A particular striking finding revealed that three-fifths of the teacher respondents who were concerned about the issue of students' engagement were secondary mathematics teachers. Third, findings of the study further clarified that most of the teacher respondents wanted to improve their technological skills. Significance: This study supports mathematics teachers in making informed decisions about their teaching during school closures. The findings of this study also serve to alert the education sector about the issues related to the implementation of online education in times of the pandemic. In general, this study necessitates in developing preparedness for future pandemics.

Literature instruction may serve multiple functions. This case study aimed at investigating the perceptions on the use of online literature circles among 62 first year Teaching English as a Second Language pre-service teachers in a literature course at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The participants were assigned to read and participate in online literature circles about the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Based on cooperative learning, the participants rotated in playing the roles of the Discussion Director, Device Detective, Imaginative Illustrator, Creative Connector, and Passage Picker in each group. Data from a survey were analyzed in descriptive statistics, while data from the role sheets based on the five roles and the online video of 3 literature circle discussions were analyzed thematically. The findings are significant for teacher training institutions and in-service teachers. This study was able to show that online literature circles were perceived as interesting, engaging, challenging, and fun. The participants engaged in different learning processes involving cognitive, affective, and language skills. Though this study identified some challenges, online literature circles have many benefits and are recommended for literature instruction for pre-service teacher training.

Open and distance learning (ODL) has become an alternative in teaching and learning (T&L) while the COVID-19 pandemic crisis struck the world globally in December 2019. However, the preferred tool and platform to be chosen in the transition period among students remain uncertain. The purpose of this study was to assess and investigate the effect of T&L preference techniques and technologies chosen by employing ODL in universities during the pandemic. This research adopted a descriptive approach and a quantitative survey was used to collect the necessary data. The questionnaire consisted of 14 questions and was separated into two parts: demographic information and undergraduate students' preference towards online class technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four themes and 16 sub-themes were identified in the set of questions in the survey. The results of the analysis revealed that ODL is the preferred method with WhatsApp social media platform as the medium for communication between educators and learners. Educators might consider devoting additional attention to improving teaching and learning practices in open and distance learning in choosing the right approaches and platform to be used through online and offline classes.

The COVID-19 crisis has dramatically impacted university education as well as created new challenges for tertiary learning institutions. The pandemic has exacerbated graduate unemployment and increased student dropout rates. In response to these unprecedented challenges, universities are formulating more student development initiatives to support new students to transition into university and produce holistic graduates with essential soft skills. Student engagement evaluation can help inform and enhance the implementation of student development programs. In this study, seven domains of first year university students' engagement were evaluated namely Academic Engagement (AE), Beyondclass Engagement (BE), Intellectual Engagement (IE), Online Engagement (OE), Peer Engagement (PE), Student-staff Engagement (SE) and Transition Engagement (TE). This study found that university freshmen's Online Engagement (OE) was the strongest while their Academic Engagement (AE) was the weakest. This study also discovered that first year university students' engagement were weakest with regard to reading of textbooks before attending class, asking questions in class and borrowing books from the university library. Future student development programs targeted at first year university students could be enhanced by increasing the use of ICT in teaching and learning as well as increasing efforts in assisting new students to transition from school to university learning environments by inculcating good reading habits and encouraging active class participation.

Cyber aggression has become a growing problem in today's society. It offers convenient opportunities to humiliate, bully, or harass others online. Global studies on cyber aggression found that youths who were aggressed online reported feeling depressed, anxious and afraid. They showed poor academic performance, and experienced eating disorders, alcohol, drugs and substance abuse. Therefore the study aimed to investigate the interrelationships between predictive factors namely peer attachment, parental attachment, exposure to the Internet and cyber aggression-victimization among youths. The renowned general aggression model (GAM) was applied to understand the phenomenon. A sample of 430 urban youths aged between 13 and 18 years living within Klang Valley area were randomly selected to participate in the study. Data were gathered through self-report questionnaires and later analyzed using SPSS and AMOS. The results revealed several noteworthy findings; most of respondents made use of the Internet for approximately 7 to 21 hours per day during weekends mainly for surfing social media, followed by entertainment and online games. A relatively significant number of youths were engaged with cyber victimization through written-verbal and online exclusion. Finally, the structural path analysis indicates that Internet exposure is the strongest predictor associated with cyber aggression-victimization. Based on these findings, the implications and recommendations for future investigations with reference to the current theoretical framework and empirical findings on cyber aggression-victimization are thoroughly discussed.

Purpose: This study explored English for Specific Purpose (ESP) students' utilisation of an online discussion forum (ODF) via the university Learning Management System to assist them in executing their group project task of constructing a Company Profile. Methodology: A case study was employed, guided by Socio-Constructivism theory and the Partnership for 21st Century Learning framework. A total of 26 undergraduates participated voluntarily in the ODF. The group project was carried out virtually among group members in three online sessions. Prior to the project, students were briefed by the instructor, who posted questions to students via the portal in stages to carry out the discussion online. Besides the online postings, students wrote about the ODF experience in their reflective journals and took part in interviews. The data were qualitatively analysed. Findings: Students valued the learning experience and perceived the ODF as beneficial in facilitating English language learning as well as fostering 21st century skills. The positive impact on English language learning was realised in students' "linguistic attainment." Meanwhile, "flexibility trait," "reference for documentation," "confidence increase" and "attentiveness provision" were identified as factors that influenced the students' optimistic views on the use of the ODF. The students also saw the online environment as an inclusive venue for developing "critical thinking," "leadership," "discipline," "time management" and "digital skills." Significance: The study demonstrated the potential of ODF as a convenient and flexible platform that is able to promote linguistic improvement among students through discussions and knowledge sharing relative to the assigned group task. The non-threatening learning and the conducive atmosphere of their group discussion experience also supported active participation, giving passive students more opportunities to express their opinions confidently.

Speech acts are a way to conceptualize speech as an action. Speech act of flaming is an utterance that expresses insults; swearing; and hateful; intense language in hostile online interaction. Flaming is an expressive speech act and often leads to the trading of insults between members within a certain conversation. Social media is one of the platforms that has been used to express, comment and voice out emotions. In this study, the speech act of flaming in a Twitter status will be analysed based on the Malaysian context. The data of this study is a compilation of Twitter statuses consisting of 2.5 million words and is labelled as Malaysian Twitter Status Context corpus (MTSC). The tweets were analysed based on 14 subcategories of flaming (Bansal, Nittin, Siddhartha, Kapil, Anuj, Sheenu, Kanika, Kunal, Kunal, Manav, 2012 and Revathy & Norizah, 2017). This study adopted the qualitative approach through contextual analysis. Findings of this study showed that flaming in Malaysian context can be direct or intentional; and indirect based on the intentions (illocutionary force) to offend other tweeters. Findings of this study show that language usage among youngsters specifically the tweeters are not in line with the values and ethics that have been practiced in our culture and society.

Studies show that social networking sites (SNS) are convenient for older adults to bond with friends and family without traveling and provide new opportunities for communication that can help older adults to avoid loneliness and social isolation. However, the numbers of SNS usage among older adults are fewer in less developed nations, which can be because only a small number of older adults know how to use SNS, and difficulties such as fears and insecurities while trying to use SNS. To increase the number of older adults using SNS in Malaysia, this study explored the experiences that could affect the intention to learn SNS in older adults in using SNS. Phenomenology approaches using semi-structured one-to-one interviews were used to explore the factors that could affect the intention to learn SNS among older Malaysian adults. This study employed a qualitative approach to explore the intention to learn SNS of twelve older adults aged 60 to 73, residing in different regions of Malaysia. Thematic analysis was used to identify the themes and interpret the data after the data saturation was reached. The themes that emerged from the data were the 'perceived usefulness,' 'unrealistic dependency,' and 'ignorant.' The results of this study can be used to come up with policies and strategies to encourage the learning of SNS among older adults. Program developers and trainers can also use the results of this study to develop modules that are more suited for older adults.

In March 2020, the World Health Organization announced that the new Corona virus is a global pandemic. The World Health Organization and the public health authority of various countries are working to contain the spread of the virus through quarantine. But these crises raise the level of stress and psychological tension on individuals and society. As well as Algeria is not an exception and this research will be on the extent of the impact of the pandemic on the conduct of lessons at the universities level in Algeria, which were not equipped for such situations during the outbreak of the emerging corona virus, and try to analyze the situation and then proposing some solutions that can work if it hurts humanity and the Algerians, especially an epidemic like the Corona virus pandemic (COVID-19).

Speaking ability is one of the integral language components in English language acquisition. This ability is a challenging one to master for ESL learners, as it involves several linguistic and nonlinguistic features in presenting ideas and it is frequently associated with anxiety. Public speaking anxiety is a common issue faced by students learning a second language. Feelings such as stage fright and nervousness could contribute to their anxiety in communicating using the target language. Additionally, the classroom environment, the presence of the instructor and peer pressure could also be factors which pose a threat for students, particularly in public speaking settings. The present study aims to investigate whether public speaking anxiety can be alleviated through the use of online platforms and/ or video blogs. The creation of personal video blogs could potentially help learners by providing a safe and non-threatening learning environment in which to practise their public speaking skills. This study also aims to identify the factors that influence the use of video blogs as a public speaking platform. A mixed-method approach is designed to examine the effects of using video blogs. A set of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were applied to groups of tertiary level ESL learners. Quantitative and qualitative approaches to data analysis were carried out and the results indicate that the use of video blogs does bring significant positive outcomes in reducing public speaking anxiety among ESL learners.

In modern times, social media platforms have become veritable tools of communication and interaction amongst young adults in the university environment as well as the larger society. As important as it is, the platform has continued to cause serious psychological and emotional trauma to users through cyberbullying activities. This study examined the relationship between demographic factors and undergraduates' cyberbullying experiences in public universities in Malaysia. It was a quantitative study which adopted survey design. Self-designed questionnaire entitled Demographic factors and undergraduates' cyberbullying experiences was used for data collection. The instrument yielded coefficient of 0.92 using the Cronbach's alpha reliability. A total of 400 undergraduates were purposively selected at public university in west Malaysia, Johor. One research question was raised and three hypotheses were tested. Data collected were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling Partial Least Squares 3 (SEM-PLS3. The findings revealed that there was significant relationship between the demographic factors: gender and programme of study but no significance for race. Hence, gender and programme of study significantly predict cyberbullying experiences of undergraduates than racial affiliations. It was recommended that effective counselling be introduced in order to assist victims of cyber assaults overcome the trauma suffered, and also stem the wave of cyberbullying among undergraduates.

The advancement of educational technology enables universities to provide various online courses to fit the needs of different learners. However, the question is -- how do adult learners learn in this digital age, especially for those who had learned and developed their digital skills through experience and by self-exploring at their workplace? As such, a case study in Malaysia was conducted to examine learning experiences exhibited by middle-aged learners, also known as digital immigrants, in an e-learning environment. Fourteen new students from the first semester of a first-year programme in a private university, with ages ranging from 40-55 years, participated in the study. Face-to-face interviews were conducted and observations were performed in Learning Management System (LMS) and WhatsApp groups for a semester. This study has pointed out that the digital immigrants require human-to-human interaction in elearning. The forming of virtual groups using the WhatsApp application is also very important to digital immigrants. Conclusively, blended learning mode in the e-learning environment which still allows interaction between humans is still the best choice for these digital immigrants, while technology is an alternative tool for the learners to complete their studies.

Online counseling is a delivery of therapeutic interventions in cyberspace where there are communication between trained professional counselors and clients using electronic communication technologies such as telephone, computer, email, internet as mediators in separate places. The provision of counseling services via telephone (also known as tele-counseling) is relatively new and the guiding policies are still being drafted by the local governing body of counseling profession. Hence, the main objective of this qualitative study is to explore expert perceptions of the feasibility of counseling provision via telephone, also known as tele-counseling. A total of five local experts in the field of counseling were involved as the respondents of this study. Based on the thematic analysis of the data, there were three main themes generated from the objectives of this study: (i) acceptance of tele-counseling services, (ii) advantages of tele-counseling services and (iii) limitations of tele-counseling services. The findings suggest that tele-counseling should be considered as an alternative to the conventional face-to-face counseling services in Malaysia. However, despite all the advantages it may offer, counselors who intend to engage in providing this service must also consider the potential limitations of its implementation.

Students' satisfaction plays a vital role in ensuring effective online learning. This study investigated the association between social presence and students' satisfaction toward online discussions in Learning Management System (LMS) platform conducted at a private university in Malaysia. Both correlation and two-step hierarchical linear regression were performed to analyze the online survey data. The instruments used to measure the summated scores of social presence and satisfaction were Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework and satisfaction scale, respectively. The results revealed that the correlation between both variables was significantly positive. Students who declared relatively high level of satisfaction were more likely to report high level of interaction with their peers in online conversation and high level of social presence. Essentially, social presence seemed to contribute the most in predicting the level of course satisfaction amongst the students.

Social media is widely used by university students in modern times, although, serious psychological damage is caused to users through cyberbullying activities. This study examined the relationship between social media use and students' cyberbullying behaviors in a west Malaysian public university. Correlational survey was adopted, while 400 undergraduates purposively selected from three faculties participated in the study. Questionnaire entitled "Engagement on Social Media Use (ESMU)" was used for data collection. Two hypotheses were tested using SEM-PLS3. Results indicated that social media use and gender significantly related to cyberbullying behaviors. Counseling is recommended to assist in stemming cyberbullying behaviors among undergraduates.

Social networking web sites is not a new medium for users. The growth of this media helps students communicate and socialize with their friends or followers and used for education. The retention number of students is an issue or real problem in higher educational institutions since it is related to institution overall performance. This research focused on how students' involvement in social network web site for educational purposes can have a positive effect to their studies and can help institution to retain number of students in the institution. During the research study, students did give full cooperation and involvement in the group that created and dedicated to their collaborative learning. Facebook is the social networking website that used to support learning. The research method applied was survey and the questionnaires distributed to 40 students who got probations result (the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) was below 2.00) from various academic programs. The result showed that social network website plays an important role in education. The finding also showed that the probation students improve their CGPA and status, while the institution able to maintain their student retention number.

Critical thinking (CT) is being recognized as an essential skill for students to master in the 21st century. Previous studies have suggested that teaching CT through asynchronous online discussions (AODs) can be one of the effective ways to equip students with such 21st skill in the educational settings. The purpose of this article is to review of the empirical literature related to the use of AOD forums for development of CT. Forty-seven articles published from 2000 to the present day are included in the review. The content of the individual study was analysed through the lens of revised Community of Inquiry framework in order to get an up-to-date understanding of the issues pertaining to using AODs as a method for developing CT. By drawing on the review of the existing literature, the research on how social presence could serve a critical role in affecting the development of students' CT is relatively few as compared to teaching presence. Therefore, the dearth of empirical evidence needs more research to make the social presence more dominant in the future studies. This article closes with a discussion on current research gaps and possible areas for future research in this field of study.

This study explored the use of WhatsApp chat group as a platform for extending learning in a blended learning classroom with a small group of undergraduates in the Malaysian context. The aim was to provide learners with the opportunity to reflect the strengths and challenges of using the WhatsApp as an extended learning platform. The students' reflections were further supported by the online interaction archives. Findings revealed that the majority of the students expressed the preference for WhatsApp in their reflections. However, certain problems were also identified in this study. Based on the findings the study has outlined certain pedagogical implications that can be a guide for the future use of apps in teaching and learning activities.

The purpose of this study is to explore close friendships and intimacy practices of Malaysian students in the context of living abroad. Some of the new close friends, specifically co-national friends in the UK, are perceived as "family" although some of them have not yet acquired family-like qualities in their relationships. Due to the situation of living abroad, the students acquired the "familiarity as a family" relationship--a new concept introduced in this study to explain this complicated relationship, with co-national friends in the Malaysian community in the UK. A sense of belonging and homophily, and shared physical space and activities are two key factors that influenced these practices of intimacy, which will foreground the discussion in this paper.

Wawasan Open University (WOU) provides working Malaysians access to quality higher education via Open Distance Learning (ODL). As admission of students involves students from diverse backgrounds, including diversity of ability, age groups and educational backgrounds, WOU faces the real challenge of effectively engaging and supporting these students so that they are retained in the system and are successful in their studies. Krause (2005) explains that when students are not receiving targeted assistance, they may fail to engage, ultimately resulting in failure to persist and succeed. Engagement is closely aligned with student dissatisfaction and potential to withdraw from study. The purpose of this paper is to share the efforts made by Wawasan Open University to enhance the levels of student engagement in five factors in terms of participation in Tutorial classes, Learning Management System (LMS), WhatsApp Groups, and Communication with the tutor through mails and telephone, and motivation and Interest in learning activities. This intervention was carried out for a starter (enabler) course called Learning Skills for University Studies. About 600 students enroll in this course every semester. The tutors who are the first contact persons in Open Distance Learning were oriented about the student engagement process and the process of rating the students on a 10-point scale on the 5 factors stated above. The findings indicate that three factors (Students' participation in tutorial classes, participation in the Learning Management System and motivation and Interest) out of the five factors had significant relationships with all the three components of assessment.

Rapid development of communication tools has brought about contentious issues in communication management in distance learning (DL) programs. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between communication management indicators, namely, communication practices, communication tools, and students' cognitive engagement in distance learning programs. A conceptual framework for communication management was developed from Moore's Transactional Distance Learning Theory (TDLT) and other existing literature. This study was conducted using quantitative research design. A questionnaire (a survey method) was used to elicit responses from 450 randomly selected in-service teachers from three Malaysian Public universities that offer blended mode distance-learning programs. Data analysis was conducted using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) software to test the structural path of communication practices, communication tools, and students' cognitive engagement. Tests of hypotheses provided evidence of measures of fit statistics. The findings provide evidences that effective communication practices and communication tools have strong positive influence on distance students' cognitive engagement.

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has compelled educational institutions to explore alternatives to face-to-face instruction. The primary objective of this study is to identify the teacher's role in the English argumentative writing performance of low proficiency university students via WhatsApp. In this case study, data were collected from multiple resources including WhatsApp discussions, interviews and students' argumentative writing on thirteen undergraduate students from Universiti Sains Malaysia, chosen based on their Malaysian University English Test (MUET) results. The argumentative writing essays that the students sent every week for eight weeks after three days of discussion in WhatsApp with the teachers based on eight topics. The students' writing scores revealed that teacher's role helped students' improved in their writing skills and the students' attitudes. The findings suggest that WhatsApp is recommended to support the students in writing, highlight the importance of teacher's role in the students' motivation, engagement and effective learning.

Teacher feedback has been reported to be challenging for learners to understand and use productively in revising their writing, especially when it is provided in a monologic manner. There have thus been calls for teachers to ensure feedback is more 'dialogic' or 'interactive', encouraging students to become active respondents to feedback rather than mere receivers of it. However, teacher dialogic/interactive feedback in face-to-face settings may be time-consuming and demanding for teachers. This motivated us to think of how electronic (e-)feedback practices could be made more interactive through the use of technological tools. This study, based on the instructor's written feedback on 10 undergraduates' L2 academic writing for a course in language and linguistics in a Malaysian public university, identifies several factors clustered under three dimensions: teacher-related, task-related and learner-related factors that promote teacher-learner interactions in teacher e-feedback in Google Docs. Interactive feedback also contributed to students' discussion of issues in their writing, engagement in accurate text revisions and negotiation of feedback. The study discusses pedagogical implications for instructors in promoting interactive feedback practices in writing courses.

Social media (SM) provide new opportunities to foster collaboration and engagement between students. However, the moderating effect of cyberstalking and cyberbullying on the relationship between students' academic performance and collaborative learning has not yet been addressed. Therefore, this study aims to bridge the literature gap concerning the use of SM and explore its effect on student performance through Cyberstalking and cyberbullying. A questionnaire was designed based on both the Technology Acceptance Model and Constructivism Theory for data collection. It was handed to 538 university students. This study found a significant relationship between social presence, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment with SM use. As shown by the use of communication and communication indicated by the results, SM is a powerful tool for developing and enhancing educational settings. However, this study found a negative relationship between student interactions and SM use. A positive relationship was found from SM use on collaborative learning and student performance that was dampened by Cyberstalking, which is considered a dampening factor and a moderator. Moreover, collaborative learning was reported to be negatively influenced by perceived usefulness as Cyberbullying was found to dampen the relationship between student performance and collaborative learning.

This study aims at examining the relationship between teacher computer-mediated communication (CMC) competence and teacher attitude toward using Frog VLE, a virtual learning platform. This is a non-experimental research using a cross-sectional survey technique through the administration of a set of questionnaires that comprised teacher demographic variables, teacher CMC competence, and teacher attitude toward using Frog VLE. The participants in this study are 351 secondary school teachers from Klang District, Selangor. The results indicated that teachers showed a medium level of attitude and a medium level of CMC competence toward using Frog VLE. Results showed that there is statistically significant direct causal relationship between teacher CMC competence and teacher attitude toward using Frog VLE. CMC motivation and CMC knowledge are the two direct factors of teachers' affective and behavioural attitude toward using Frog VLE, and CMC motivation predict teachers' cognitive attitudes toward using Frog VLE.

Digital Leadership is relatively a new field of leadership study which focuses on leveraging the technology and Internet in support of one's leadership practice. Currently, very little is known how Malaysian school principals practice Digital Leadership particularly in support of their communication practice. Therefore, this qualitative study was undertaken with the aim of understanding Digital Leadership among principals from four High Performing Schools (HPS) in Malaysia. Semi structured interviews were employed involving four exemplar school principals as the main respondents and 12 school staff as secondary respondents to the study. Findings of the study indicate that social media have become the contemporary communication conduit among exemplar Malaysian school principals and this medium has become more prominent than face-to-face interaction. Findings have also suggested that it may have a positive relation with job performance and productivity. The aforesaid findings have meaningful implications for all school principals to better integrate social media in their communication practice within members of the schools and those outside the school, including the stakeholders.

Purpose: This paper aims to highlight a multidimensional model of sustainability practices that are considered meaningful and practical for implementation by higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach: The Concept System® Global MAX© software facilitated the bottom-up approach of this study, where 32 staff and students of a private HEI were prompted with the question, "What design features or facilities should the university building have for you to consider the building sustainable?" Their opinions were collected as statements via online brainstorming and the process was followed through with the sorting and rating of reduced statements. The software was also used to perform multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analysis to generate the findings of this study. Findings: An eight-cluster solution was proposed based on the themes within respective clusters. Respondents rated the importance of sustainability resource usage and sustainability and technology highly. Whilst sustainable campus facilities appeal to students, education for sustainable development were more important to staff. Originality/value: The community-based participatory research recommends activities that enhance the adoption of sustainable development in making universities a "living lab" for sustainability.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effects of second language (L2) motivation, willingness to communicate (WTC), and international posture on the relationship between L2 Self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) and L2 frequency of communication (L2 FC) in online informal English learning contexts among tertiary students in Malaysia. The predictor variables were drawn from Gardner's (1985) socio-educational model of language learning and MacIntyre and Charos' (1996) WTC model and adapted to examine the frequency of communication in online contexts. A total of 296 valid responses were collected from university students in Malaysia. The data were collected using online survey and were analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique. The findings suggested that higher level of L2 SPCC would lead to more frequent L2 use in online contexts. Furthermore, the mediating roles of L2 WTC and international posture were found to be statistically significant. However, the mediating effect of L2 motivation on the relationship between L2 SPCC and communication frequency was not supported in this study. Implications of the research findings for understanding the relationship among the study's variables are also discussed.

Peer moderation has been used as a beneficial strategy in asynchronous online discussions to assist student learning performance. However, most studies in peer-moderated asynchronous online discussions (PMAOD) have focused only on learning effectiveness and perceptions of students rather than on students' knowledge dimensions and cognitive processing patterns. This study combined quantitative content analysis (QCA) and lag sequential analysis (LSA) to explore student knowledge dimensions and cognitive processing patterns in PMAOD. The participants were 84 students in an undergraduate blended course from University Putra Malaysia (UPM), Malaysia. The Revised Bloom Taxonomy (RBT) was used as the codification scheme to code the discussion transcripts of participants assigned the role of peer moderators in a reciprocal manner over seven weeks. Behavioural distributions and patterns of high- and low-quality discussion groups were compared. Results showed that students were primarily sharing knowledge dimensions and cognitive processes of metacognition and understanding, respectively. Additionally, it was found that there was a modest proportion of off-topic discussions. Nonetheless, by means of LSA, it was found that PMAOD exhibited a certain degree of self-sustainability in knowledge and cognitive process behaviours, with the exceptions of "procedural knowledge" and the cognitive process of "applying" and, in terms of diversity in knowledge dimension and cognitive processing, high-quality discussion groups outperformed low-quality groups.

The study is a qualitative case study that investigated the patterns of interactions among ESL students during their online interactions to complete their narrative essays. The study found that students were engaged in interactions related to language related assistance, using partner as a resource and providing encouragement as suggested by Golonka et al. (2017). Nevertheless, these interactions were only focused on aspect related to sentence fluency and word choice. Interactions related to organizations and ideas were minimal. The findings implied that the presence of a teacher is pertinent for students to construct knowledge in a more meaningful way in the virtual classrooms. A number of pedagogical implications were suggested in this study

Facebook has now become the most popular social networking tool among university-aged youth. Its popularity has transformed it into an acceptable platform for educational purposes. The use of Facebook is currently more suited to facilitate online interaction among learning participants. The purpose of this study is to investigate students' perception towards the use of Facebook for course-related online interaction and its effect on academic performance. The data were collected using a survey method of data collection. A quantitative data analysis process was employed using SPSS statistics software. The findings of the study revealed that students had positive views towards the use of Facebook for online interaction with peers. Additionally, the findings reveal that there is a relationship between students' perceived online interaction via Facebook and academic performance.

According to our experience, facilitating online reflective writing via Facebook motivates students to improve their writing skills and reflective thinking. Six students and a teacher from an urban school in the northern region of Malaysia were involved in this study. The qualitative data in the form of online archives were categorized as "reflection-in-action" (feedback and self-correction) based on Garrison et al.'s (2000) cognitive presence. Additionally, "reflection-on-action" which comprised the students' reflective journal demonstrated their thoughts and feelings while engaged in the Facebook environment. Data suggested that feedback only related to grammar and sentence structures (micro aspects). There was no feedback relating to organization and content (macro aspects). The reflective journal revealed that Facebook can be considered as a successful platform to enhance students' narrative writing. The findings of this study have implications for teaching and learning activities in web-based environments.