No abstract

Realising the clear dichotomy between schools and homes, the Malaysia government has now turned its attention to stakeholders and called for an increase involvement of parents, who are critical in transforming the education system. However, a clear line of demarcation continues to exist between the two prime educators of young children. Schools have yet to fully embrace the concept of active parental involvement, particularly in academic matters and have yet to design formalised programmes that provide avenues for active parental involvement. The six month Smart Partnership in Reading in English (SPIRE) formalised programme, which created a platform for non-native parents to play a more active role in developing early literacy skills in young children, particularly, reading skills in English language, was explored as an option. 25 non-native five year old children, 25 parents and the class teacher were involved in the programme. A rich ESL literacy environment was created both at school and homes by making a wide range of English storybooks and multimedia materials available for the children to be taken home. The parent-teacher partnership scaffold the children's reading development. The teacher reads storybooks in school and the parents at home. Qualitative data gathered via interviews, home visits, meetings and informal conference provided evidence for parents' positive attitudes towards reading English storybooks and towards being involved in their child's reading development, a positive link between levels of parental involvement and reading development, and the plausibility of involving non-native parents through a formalised reading programme. The SPIRE programme explored in the Malaysian context can also be adopted in non English speaking countries for similar purposes.

Multiethnic groups coexist in a typical Malaysian university setting. Cultural patterns are expressed through communication facilitating better understanding between diverse cultural groups. Intercultural communication competence based on ethnicity is explained by employing structural equation modelling using Barrett and colleagues' (2013) indicators of attitude, knowledge and skills. These three constructs are hypothesized to explain intercultural communication competence and its effect on well-being and performance. Purposive sampling via a self-administered survey involved 288 Malaysian educators from higher education. The findings confirm that both endogenous constructs -- well-being and team performance -- can be used as predictive factors to assess intercultural communication competence.

Cultural diversity, which poses both challenges and opportunities in a multicultural education setting, necessitates recognising factors that promote multicultural identities of educators to maximise multicultural attitudes for their wellbeing and performance. This study employs structural equation modelling to examine the determinants of multicultural identities from the perspective of the cognitive-developmental model of social identity integration (CDMII) framework. Categorisation, compartmentalisation, and integration were hypothesised to explain multicultural identity and its effect on well-being and performance. Purposive sampling via survey method involved 288 educators from Malaysian Universities. The findings confirmed that multicultural identity constructs have direct and significant relationship with well-being and well-being has direct and positive relationship with the performance of multicultural team.

Flipped learning is considered as an active and constructivist teaching and learning approach to enhance the learning experience of both students and teachers. This research, conducted within the framework proposed by Jonathan Bergmann, explores the students' as well as teachers' perception of flipped learning. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data from the respondents. Separate questionnaires were used to collect the information from teachers and students, and a structured interview was conducted with teachers. Total of 56 students and 14 teachers from an undergraduate business program participated in this study, and all the respondents had experience in flipped learning. Results show both the students and teachers hold a positive perception towards flipped approach, and they consider this approach as an innovative way of teaching and learning. Study also identified the factors affecting the effectiveness of flipped classrooms and provides necessary recommendations for its successful implementation.

Malaysia government has called for schools and parents to collaborate in nurturing the culture of reading among children, as there is no formalised programme for a more active involvement of parents in academic matters. Based on the positive results of school-home partnership of past studies, this study proposed a formalised partnership, i.e. the Smart Partnership in Reading in English (SPIRE) project. The six month project aimed to foster a partnership among the teacher, parents and children in an English storybook reading programme. It involved 25 multiracial five year old children, 25 parents and a class teacher. The parents, in partnership, with the teacher scaffold the children's reading development by reading storybooks to the children at home. Qualitative data gathered via interviews, teacher journals and home visits showed the children largely benefited from the teacher and parents collaboration. The outcome of the study was the formation of two levels of partnerships, firstly, the formation of a teacher-parent partnership, where the teacher scaffolds the parents, who in turn scaffold the children's development of reading skills at home. Secondly, the family partnership, where all family members, including extended family members were involved in scaffolding the children's reading development. This partnership also positively influenced the other children and teachers beyond the participating group. Another pertinent outcome was a clear link between the levels of partnership and the children's reading progress. The closer the parents worked with the teacher, the better was the children's reading progress. Similar partnership can also leave conventional splits in EFL context in the past and genuine sharing of responsibilities for EFL literacy development in the future.

In a culturally varied context where managing and coordinating communication with people from various backgrounds is the greatest challenge, effective intercultural communication is even more important. It is critical for professionals and practitioners to comprehend the nuances and complexity of communication and develop competencies in this area. As a result, the importance of intercultural communication styles cannot be more emphasised, as it is a critical component of the current global and dynamic phenomenon in Malaysian workplaces. However, studies in this field are scarce, particularly in a multicultural country like Malaysia. The interaction between the determinants of cultural dimensions on intercultural communication styles variables among employees in Malaysian workplaces from various cultures and social demography is investigated in this study. The data analysis will be undertaken using SMART-PLS for generating the structural equation modelling employing data obtained from 400 practitioners via a self-administered survey questionnaire. The probability sampling technique of simple random sampling will be used for data analysis. The findings will provide insight into industry expectations and the professional skills needed to equip them for careers in typical culturally diverse situations. The findings will reveal if cultural dimension factors have a direct and statistically significant impact on intercultural communication styles. Theoretical and practical significance on the stakeholders is discussed.

Background: Excessive gestational weight gain is associated with negative maternal and infant health outcomes. Digital health approaches may help overcome barriers to participating in lifestyle interventions requiring in-person visits. The purpose of this study was to develop and examine the feasibility of a webbased gestational weight gain intervention.Methods: Intervention development included feedback and input from pregnant women. We conducted a 12-week one-arm pilot study during which participants engaged in an online discussion board with coaches and other pregnant women, tracked their weight gain with an interactive graph, and accessed a list of online resources for pregnancy health. Feasibility outcomes were recruitment, retention, engagement and sustained participation, intervention acceptability, and website usability. Gestational weight gain was an exploratory outcome.Results: Participants (n=12) were on average 16.8 (SD: 2.0) weeks gestation with average pre-pregnancy body mass index of 30.5 (SD: 4.8) kg/m 2 . Participant retention was 92% (n=11). Participants logged into the website a median of 21 times (IQR, 8-37; range, 2-98) over 12 weeks, and 58% (n=7) logged into the website during the last week of the intervention. All participants said they would be very likely or likely to participate again, and 100% said they would be very likely or likely to recommend the intervention to a pregnant friend. In post-intervention interviews, 64% (n=7) explicitly said that the website was easy to use, but 100% (n=11) mentioned usability issues. When asked their preferred intervention platform, 18% (n=2) somewhat or strongly preferred a private website, 18% (n=2) had no preference, and 64% (n=7) somewhat or strongly preferred Facebook. Seventy percent (n=7) had excessive gestational weight gain, 10% (n=1) inadequate gestational weight gain, and 20% (n=2) gained within recommended ranges.Conclusions: Additional development work is needed before moving to efficacy testing. Most notably, usability issues with the investigator-developed website and participant preference suggest a switch to a commercial social media platform.