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Objective: To explore perceptions of medical students and faculty, regarding challenges of e-learning they faced, during COVID-19 pandemic. Study Design: Mixed method study (Quantitative and Qualitative - Phenomenological approach). Place and Duration of Study: Army Medical College Pakistan, from Apr 2020 to Sep 2020. Methodology: A self-made questionnaire, having both qualitative and quantitative elements, was developed after interviews of participants. It was pilot tested, finalized and sent via Google forms. Total 318 students and 6 faculty members responded, data was transcribed verbatim, themes were identified, and qualitative inductive content analysis of participants‟ reports was done. Results: Twenty-seven subthemes were identified by analyzing students‟ and faculty perceptions. They were grouped under five major themes, namely, communicational, technological, institutional, related to educators and students. Conclusion: Despite limiting factors like communication gap, digital refugee faculty teaching digital native students, limited technical support, digital divide and unplanned curricular delivery, e-learning was found to be beneficial in terms of flexibility in timings, improving learners‟ self-efficacy, faculty transformation and gradual acceptance. Moreover, it provided opportunity for hybrid e-curriculum development.

The quality of life of a child depends on the decision of parents about the allocation choices of their child's time between education and work. In particular, the mother of a child can play a significant role in enhancing the quality of life of her kids given that she has the right of participation in decision making in family life. This research is based on the belief that child labor is detrimental to human capital accumulation and women's decision-making power plays an important role in economic development by enhancing human capital of the future generation. This study contributes to the literature by addressing the question: How women take part in the decision making process and how women's decisions influence their children. Women's decision making power is gauged by using a set of different measures from Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey 2013-2014, which inquires directly who in the household makes decisions on some key matters, such as women's education and employment, uptake of fertility regulating methods, the number of children and purchase of household consumption items. Our study uses logistic regression technique to empirically test the relationship between women's decision making power and child labor. The findings of study suggest that empowering women by increasing their ability to make decisions on some key issues of the family matters decreases the probability of child labor in Pakistan. Among all the measures of women's decision making power, the participation of women in decisions of family size has a larger effect on child labor. Moreover, gender heterogeneity in the reduction of child labor also exists as women's decision making power leaves different impacts on boys and girls. The results are statistically significant across various specifications. Hence, empowering women through the decision-making process of the family life can help to reduce child labor in the society.

Objective: This study was done to evaluate the effectiveness of a 3-hour workshop in improving faculty competence in developing high quality test items. Methodology: The study took place in National University of Medical Sciences and its affiliated institutes in Pakistan, during a period of six months in year 2018. It was a descriptive, cross sectional study. A series of seven workshops on quality assurance in writing MCQs was conducted as part of faculty development program, emphasizing hand-on experience and prompt feedback. Participants’ satisfaction was evaluated with a post-workshop feedback questionnaire (Kirkpatrick 1). A self-made structured questionnaire was given as a pre-test and post-test, to check improvement in cognition, behaviour and item writing skills of faculty (Kirkpatrick 2). Paired t test was applied and difference in mean scores of responses was evaluated. Results: Total 141 faculty members were trained.  The training session led to high satisfaction in all elements of workshop, significant improvements in boosting confidence in item writing skills(p=0.000), recognizing parts of MCQs (p=0.000), identifying item writing flaws (p=0.000) and levels of Millers pyramid and blooms taxonomy (p=0.000). Conclusion: Training sessions of short duration are effective in improving the competence of faculty in writing quality test items, provided hands-on experience is built-in and effective feedback is provided.