The 21st Century learning deems various transformative skills learners in order to equip the fresh graduates for the demand of the fast changing industry. One of the ways to ensure an effective learning environment is by establishing strong student engagement in the classrooms. Student engagement can be observed in several dimensions; behavioral, affective and cognitive. The present study uncovered the levels of student engagement in these three dimensions and their relationship with each other in an ESL course in a public university in Malaysia. The population was 180 undergraduates of the second semester and 120 undergraduates were randomly selected by cluster sampling. The researchers adopted a mixed-method approach that focused more on the quantitative approach. A questionnaire with 5-Likert scale items and open-ended questions were utilized. The analysis revealed a moderate level of engagement during instruction and affective engagement as the highest form of engagement among the students in the classroom. Pearson Correlation analysis presented moderate to strong, significant and positive relationships among the three dimensions. This study proves the importance of student engagement in higher education learning as an element that demands to be considered in the teaching instruction, and program administration planning.
Non-native English learners often face challenges to articulate their ideas while speaking in the target language. Because of this, it was far more difficult for them to get their thoughts over to the audience. To overcome this issue, the learners employ various communication strategies to promote their audience's understanding. Hence, this research aims to determine the factors that contribute to fear of oral presentations and the communication strategies (CS) used by undergraduate students. The study employs a quantitative survey in which 201 participants in a public university in Pahang were conveniently selected to answer a threesectioned survey; Section A elicits demographic background of the participants, Section B investigates their communication strategies used and Section C probes on the causes of fear of oral presentation. The findings show that students dread oral presentations both due to internal and external forces. They commonly employ Social-affective strategies and Message reduction, orientation and non-verbal strategies to cope with their fears. Additionally, the usage of CS has a slight impact in reducing their fear of oral presentation. Future research on alternative strategies to reduce students' fear of oral presentation are therefore recommended in order to tackle the issue.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.