As an academician, lecturers are tied to job scope that are related to teaching and learning, research, publication, consultancy, and community services. All these tasks have occasional loads and excessive load may cause stress to lecturers. This study was conducted to identify the level of Malaysian lecturers’ stress and the major prevalence causes of stress among them. In addition, the relationship between stressor factors to the lecturers’ stress was tested as well. A total of 609 lecturers from four Malaysian Public University were randomly selected as respondents. The findings showed that Malaysian lecturers experienced stress at low levels. Three main factors which included the university factor, social factor and individual factor had significant relationships to lecturers’ stress. In addition, work load, work environment, networking, health, and financial factors also were seen as major prevalences that contributed to the lecturers’ stress issue
This preliminary study was conducted to examine and verify the validity and reliability of the instrument on the Malaysian Academician Happiness Index (MAHI) on resilience. MAHI could be seen as a tool to measure the level of happiness and stress of academicians before determining how resilient the academicians were. Resilience can be defined as a mental ability of a person to recover quickly from illness or depression. MAHI instrument consisted of 66 items. The instrument was distributed to 40 academicians from three groups of universities which were the Focus University, Comprehensive University and Research University is using a survey technique. The instrument was developed to measure three main constructs which were the organization, individual and social that would affect the happiness and stress levels of academicians. This preliminary study employed the Rasch Measurement Model uses Winsteps software version 3.69.1.11. to examine the validity and reliability of the items. The results of the analysis of the MAHI instrument showed that the item reliability was 0.87, person reliability was 0.83 and value of Alpha Cronbach was 0.84. Meanwhile, misfit analysis showed that only there was one item with 1.46 logit that could be considered for dropping or needed improvement. Therefore, it highlighted that most of the items met the constructs’ need and can be used as a measurement indicator of MAHI. The implication of this instrument can help Malaysian academicians to be more resilient in facing challenges in the future.
Reading is an essential skill for students to perform effectively and successfully in any academic setting. This skill is vital for foreign language learners as it provides chances for students to be exposed to English in input-poor settings. English as a foreign language students’ reading skills in diverse contexts remain substandard due to the lack of necessary input and efficient instructional methodologies. Thus, we review the literature on three common reading instructional approaches: the intensive reading (IR) approach, the extensive reading (ER) approach, and the blended IR and ER approach. This review summarizes the existing literature on IR, ER, and blended IR and ER and provides the critical appraisal of existing scholarly literature from several aspects, including reading approach, research design, research context, data analysis method, and the results of various studies of reading approaches. Finally, we present several future research directions in the field of reading research.
There is an enormous literature in the Malaysian schools' context that reveals writing skills deficiency in English among the students. Hence, this study conducted a comparative analysis of the two popular writing approaches (product approach and process approach) practised widely as writing instructions in the educational settings. A case study was conducted on the selected teachers to study their writing instructions in ESL classrooms. The investigation revealed that language teachers largely practice product writing approach. In addition, the paper also provides some insights that as compared to product writing approach, process writing approach is more effective. Process approach provides students more opportunities for independent writing, creative writing and evaluative writing which lead towards developing higher order thinking skills. Hence, this paper recommends that Malaysian schools should adopt strategies of process writing approach to teach English in ESL classrooms to produce students who can write more competently in future.Keywords: writing instructions, Malaysian ESL classrooms, product versus process approach, comparative analysis Recommendations:The study would like to suggest several recommendations to make writing lessons for appealing and meaningful: Include free writing of product approach in writing lessons Inculcate drafting habits among students and involve several drafts before submitting the final draft. Involve students in the editing processes and redraft according to the corrections suggested Include more in-class writing activities rather than teachers' input 7.0 Sponsoring information -Acknowledgement: The funding for this publication was provided by UTHM TIER 1 Grant (H193)
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