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This paper report part of a bigger project aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies on students' performance in essay writing. The aspects of metacognitive strategies considered in this study include the use of declarative knowledge, conditional knowledge, and procedural knowledge. The focus of this paper is on the use of metacognitive strategies during the writing activity. Before the intervention process, the participants were given a task to write an essay and after that they were asked to do metacognitive reflection. Data were analyzed using content analysis procedure. The respondents consisted of 18 secondary school students from poor urban community. The data revealed that ten participants did not use declarative knowledge namely: i) did not make the outline of the essay before writing, ii) did not identify keywords that represent the requirement of the question, and iii) how to expand ideas. These results indicate that students did not possess enough declarative knowledge about writing. The study also found that 11 respondents did not use declarative knowledge in the attempt to expand ideas. In terms of conditional knowledge, nine of the respondents still could not identify when and why certain strategies should be used. Whereas in terms of procedural knowledge, the study showed that all the participants did not show the use of important steps needed in writing a good essay. In conclusion, this study provides evidence on the need of an intervention or teaching modules to help improve students writing skills.

BackgroundThe Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a screening questionnaire that measures children’s emotional and behavioural problems. This study examines the reliability and validity of the Malay parent-report version of the SDQ.MethodsThe Malay adult-report version of the SDQ was administered to 495 parents and 432 teachers, respectively. At the same time, a newly translated Malay child-report version of the SDQ was also administered to 150 children aged 13 to 14 years old in this community study. W e measured internal reliability using Cronbach’s Alpha for all reported data. Construct validity of the parent-report data was assessed using factor analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was also subsequently perform on parent-report data to explain the model fit indices of this questionnaire.ResultCronbach’s Alpha was acceptable for all parent, teacher and child-report data with values of 0.74, 0.77 and 0.78, respectively. Factor analysis of the parent’s report showed a five-factor solution, which was consistent with other psychometric evaluations of the SDQ in other languages. CFA showed good model fit of the original five factor model which consists of Emotional, Conduct, Hyperactivity, Peer problem and Pro-social scale.ConclusionThis study shows that the psychometric properties of the Malay parent-report version of the SDQ were similar to other parent-report version of the SDQ questionnaires in other languages, although cross-cultural differences may still exist.

Malaysia had launched the National Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015-2025 aimed to improve higher education. There are six learner's aspirations that have been identified to promote excellence in higher education. The blueprint aimed to develop the attributes of students and graduates in line with the world of 21 st century education. One of the attributes that have been emphasized is Creative Problem-Solving (CPS) skills. CPS skills refer to the ability of individuals to solve problems through the development of creative and brilliant ideas. Thus, this paper will present the concept of creative problem-solving skills among university students. Furthermore, this paper will describe the issues and challenges in creative problem solving and the factors that influence this skill. Additionally, a review of creative problem solving (CPS) skills theory is proposed to understand the information processing in order to approach the problem creatively among students and university lecturers. Therefore, this paper will provide inputs to empowering students and higher institution for creative problem-solving skills.

This study aims to reexamine the reliability and validity of three sub-constructs in measuring the level of teaching presence from one of the essential elements in the Community of Inquiry model. The measurement consists of 13 items which are online instructor capability; design and organization, facilitation, and direct instruction. A total of 1938 respondents from a faculty in a public university in Malaysia were selected in the data collection. A cross-sectional survey was applied via online survey and partial least technique was used in analyzing the data. All items were found loaded (0.746 or higher) and all constructs measuring teaching presence had high composite reliability (0.876 or higher) and average variance extracted (0.640 or higher). Thus, a multivariate statistical analysis confirmed the validity and reliability of all items.