The study investigates how working memory affects students' control of attention. A quasi-experimental research is conducted individually on 52 undergraduates of a public university in Malaysia, enrolled in various full-time undergraduate programmes, using Sternberg memory task and Task-switching tests. The reaction time is taken in milliseconds (ms) to differentiate the results for both tasks. The analysis revealed that when memory load was increased, reaction time also escalated. In the task-switching test, when one task was given at any one time, the reaction time was swift; however, when two or more tasks were integrated into one task, the reaction time would subsequently decelerated. Although the study also revealed that there is no significant difference between genders in terms of handling memory load and taskswitching. However, a significant relationship was observed in performances between memory load and task-switching. It is also evidenced in the study that when memory load increases, it compoundsthe reaction time for task-switching. Results from the study inform course instructors to be aware of cognitive load when chunking information and assigning tasks to students, as their decisions on content quantity bore an effect on what would be remembered when students learn.
Reading strategies are seldom taught to students despite their importance in aiding reading comprehension. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the think-aloud strategy and investigate primary school students' perception of using the think-aloud strategy in assisting their reading comprehension. Twenty-seven primary school students were introduced and trained to use the think-aloud strategy through teacher-modelling and reciprocal think-aloud with comprehension passages related to the relevant English curriculum. Questionnaires and interview sessions were conducted to gather information on how the students perceive the use of think-aloud in reading comprehension. Findings revealed that students have positive perceptions towards using think-aloud as a reading strategy in their reading comprehension and were keen on using the strategy in their future reading.
The benefit of exercise in inducing brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) functions in relation to cognition had been reported. Nevertheless, the ambiguity remains with regards to the types of exercise and the duration of exercise required for one to have beneficial effects. In this study, we aimed to analyse the effects of varying modes of exercises and the duration required to improve BDNF functions, specifically in the young adults. The types of exercises evaluated in the meta-analysis include (1) single bout of acute aerobic exercise, (2) repeated and frequent sessions of aerobic exercise (program exercise) over a course of several weeks, and (3) resistance training. Only a single bout of acute aerobic exercise (z=4.92, p=0.00001) is sufficient to cause an increase in BDNF following exercise intervention, while program exercise (z=1.02, p=0.31) and resistance training (z=0.92, p=0.36) demonstrated inconsistencies, some exhibited significant increase in BDNF levels while others exhibited similar results with the control groups.
The research was aimed to study the relationship between attachment styles and marital quality between spouses. A total number of 52 spouses representing teachers from Sekolah Menengah Agama Daeratul Ma'arifil Wataniah 1 (SMA DMW 1), in Peninsular Malaysia's northwest coast, participated in this study. There were two sets of questionnaires used in this study: Experience in Close Relationship (ECR) and Marital Adjustment Test (MAT). The results showed that there was a significant relationship between attachment styles and spouses' styles. However, there is no relationship between marital satisfaction among spouses, and there is also no relationship between attachment styles and marital satisfaction among spouses. Future research is suggested to enhance the research by moving beyond self-report instruments to develop alternative methods of assessment as some of the questions should be more specifically suitable in Malaysian culture.
This study aims to identify parental attachment's effects on trainee counsellors' personality traits in the Universiti of Malaysia Sarawak UNIMAS. This research adopted a correlational research design. The respondents were 209 trainee counsellors from the Counselling Program, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak UNIMAS. Two questionnaires were used in this study: The Inventory of Parents and Peer Attachment (IPPA) and the Big Five Personality. The findings indicated a significant relationship between Parents Communication, Attachment and Extraversion and the Agreeableness Trait of Personality. It also showed a significant relationship between Parents Communication Attachment and Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. We also found a significant relationship between Parents' Alienation Attachment and Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness. The study informs society about the need to increase awareness about the importance of knowing attachment styles and personality traits as both impact individuals' lives.
To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Malaysian government implemented a movement control order, an emergency policy that instructed all people in the country to stay home. Being confined in a building for a lengthy period exposes individuals to the risk of having a range of symptoms known as cabin fever. Considering the negative impact of cabin fever, it is crucial to assess cabin fever symptoms among Malaysians. However, there is a lack of validated instruments; hence, this study attempts to develop an instrument for Malaysian adults, named Cabin Fever Scale (CFS). A total of 124 adults (75% females; M = 29.3 years) were recruited via the snowball sampling method to participate in an online survey. Exploratory factor analyses showed that the CFS items were pooled into two factors: behavioural symptoms (six items) and emotional symptoms (four items). Findings show that Malaysians viewed cabin fever as both behavioural and emotional symptoms. The behavioural symptoms comprise food craving, decreased motivation, difficulty waking up, and frequent naps, while emotional symptoms include anxiety, lethargy, depression, impatience, hopelessness, and dissatisfaction. Both CFS subscales demonstrated good internal reliability with Cronbach’s Alpha values of .768 (behavioural symptom) and .908 (emotional symptom). The 10-item CFS is deemed a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring cabin fever in Malaysia.
In dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals are having difficulties in coping with stress and enhancing their happiness due to the lack of proper social support. The phenomenon is highly alarming as the mental health issues of Malaysians begin to surface during the period of adversity. The study aims to investigate the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between social support and happiness during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 104 Malaysian adults participated in the study through a convenience sampling method. They completed an online survey which measured levels of social support, resilience, and happiness. A Pearson correlation analysis showed that social support and resilience were positively associated with happiness. Besides that, resilience was evidenced as a partial mediator on the association between social support and happiness. The study concluded that individuals with a higher level of social support showed a higher level of resilience which eventually led to a higher level of happiness. In facing adversity, Malaysian adults with poor social support should improve their resiliency to boost their happiness.
The Malaysian Government has announced the Movement Control Order (MCO) starting 18th March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. This study attempts to assess the level of psychological distress among parents of university students stranded on campus and out campus during MCO; and to identify the stressors causing psychological distress among parents. It is a cross sectional study using an online self-administered questionnaire done at a public university in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Psychological distress was determined by using Kessler’s Psychological Distress Scale (K10). The study has shown significant associations between parents’ psychological distress with three stressors which consist of worrying about their child’s food supply, child’s future, and child’s mental health.
Discussion essay plays a crucial role in academic writing. It has been proven to enhance students' analytical and critical thinking skills effectively. However, students often struggle to compose a good writing due to their inability to use the language features. In that regard, this study aims to identify students’ weaknesses in the discussion essay and the changes seen after the intervention. The study used a purposive sample of 10 first-year students from the Computational Science Programme in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) who took Academic English 2 as an elective course. The study adapted the four stages of action research proposed by Mertler and Charles (2005). It administered a pre-test, post-test and an observation on the students. The findings indicate a significant decrease in the frequency of errors in the language features, namely verb, persuasive language and technical terms, after the two-month intervention. Students also exhibited positive learning behaviour throughout the intervention by participating actively in the learning activities.
The pandemic has caused the closure of educational institutions, which halted face-to-face teaching and learning. The unprecedented situation has left the institutions with no other choice other than implementing online learning to ensure the educational process's continuity. This study examines students' perceptions in Introduction to Drama and Theatre online classes. Three components of perceptions were investigated: the experience in learning the subject online, students' participation in the class, and the materials used in online classes. The quantitative data were collected from 38 first-year students enrolling in the Drama and Theatre programme at UNIMAS. The questionnaire was distributed online using Google Form. The findings showed a positive perception of learning Introduction to Drama and Theatre online, while moderate perception was identified in students' participation in the class. A positive perception was also seen in the materials and platforms used in online classes. Most of the students enjoyed the learning process due to the support from the lecturer. Moving forward, better infrastructure is needed in order to ensure the ability to conduct online learning without any obstacles. All stakeholders are responsible for playing their role to contribute to the online learning environment.
Measuring student readiness in online learning should also be of great concern to institutions, including all areas from their curricular development to the pedagogies they experience. Although there have been attempts at universities to develop online learning courses, students' readiness has yet to be investigated, particularly for engineering students who take a mix of theoretical and practical-based courses. This study evaluates the readiness of civil engineering students toward the implementation of online learning and their preferences and acceptance towards online instructional delivery and assessment methods. Ways for improvement are proposed in line with the students’ readiness to determine the best desirable practices and strategies for online pedagogy. Respondents are selected from first and final year students, to examine and compare their online learning perspectives. A survey questionnaire was used. Findings revealed that year one and year four students' readiness was relatively moderate for most of the components and relatively high for the components that involved hardware/software requirements and technology skills. Most respondents indicated a moderate acceptance level on online assessment, ranging from a mean score of 3.46 to 3.81. As online learning is gradually becoming another method for life-long and self-determined learning, findings from the study might help university educators to develop better online learning strategies, especially delivery methods and assessments, to help students cope with online teaching and learning.
This study aims to describe the grammatical errors in an analysis of a Malay language course assignment. It focuses on several local students who enrolled on MPU3312 Malay Language course at a public university in Semester 1, 2020/2021 session. The study was conducted on 250 students, using scripts from their group assignment, namely Text Error Analysis Task (Tugasan Analisis Kesalahan Teks). A total of 25 samples of student assignments were analysed and described using Corder Error Analysis Theory. Findings show that students committed 79 types of grammatical errors. Errors in the orthographic (ortografi) aspect are the most common. Preposition (Kata sendi nama) errors and redundancy (kelewahan) were also distinctively found in the writing samples. There were also other types of grammatical errors identified, such as copular verb (kata pemeri), "ianya", abbreviation (singkatan), affix (imbuhan), and word choice (pemilihan kata). The study has brought an understanding of the nature of typical grammatical errors in Malay language writing at the university.
This paper presents a case study of a 22-year-old female client who came for counselling sessions for the purpose of overcoming her pedaphobia. Symptoms, such as, dizziness, nausea, arousal, sweating palm and body shaking were noticed to be visible not only by the presence of a real child, but also by pictures, stories and imaginations of infants. Systematic desensitization technique, a form of Exposure Therapy, was applied to treat the client. It involved relaxation and breathing techniques, and supported by the application of live modelling guided participation. Along with the interventions, Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy techniques were also applied, such as, thought recording, irrational thoughts identification and disputation, Rational Emotive Imagery (REI), coping self-statement, and forceful self-statement. By the end of the therapy, the client reported to have experienced a decline in the occurrences of symptoms and demonstrated the ability to overcome her phobia.
This study aims to identify the use of external support systems by counsellors located at the Council within the Islamic Religious Department in Malaysia. Data for this research was collected using a case study. The case study included an interview of five (5) registered counsellors in Islamic Organization in Malaysia. This study was based on a qualitative approach and data were analyzed using N’Vivo 7.0. The data were developed into appropriate themes and sub-themes. The study revealed that the external support system (community support, peer counsellor, Islamic law and Islamic organization) should be applied to Muslim counsellors and Muslim converts. This research could be used as a guide for a counsellor to be more robust in providing guidance and counselling services to specific clients, such as, new Muslim converts.
Influx of women in the paid labor force had been identified as one of the important factors in raising awareness about work-family balance in organizations in developed countries in the west. The same phenomenon also occurs in Malaysia. Malaysia is considered as having traditional gender role ideology, whereby men and women have separate role in the workplace and in the family. Specifically, this study aims to identify whether there are differences in perception between men and women in public sector towards factors associated with work-life balance. Work-life balance factors examined in this study are work demands, supervisor support, organization’s family-friendly policies, family demands, work-family conflict (WFC) and family-work conflict (FWC). Sixty questionnaires were administered to employees in a government health training institution in Sarawak, Malaysia. Data were analyzed using SPPS version 17 and independent t-Test was employed in testing the hypotheses. The study found that men and women are significantly different in terms of supervisor support, work-family conflict and family demands. However, there was no significant difference between men and women employees with regard to work demands, family-work conflict and utilization of family-friendly policies. In line with previous Western findings, women experienced higher level of work to family conflict (WFC) than men employees. In addition, women also reported higher family demands than men. These findings strengthened the traditional gender role ideology ascribed by majority of Malaysians and lend support to the gender role theory. Therefore, the organization could provide relevant training, such as, time and stress management. Supervisors could be trained to be more aware of work-family balance issues faced by their employees and assist them accordingly.
Occupational stress is caused by various reasons, such as, workload and long working hours. This leads to occurrence of trend in using wellness activities to treat physical and psychological illness that is known as complementary therapy, which is Yoga, Aromatherapy, Qi gong, and Islamic Medical Practices (Ruqyah). Therefore, this research offered a perspective on the use of complementary therapies as a tool in improving and maintaining mental health condition of employees located in Penang, Malaysia. Qualitative method was used where 5 complementary therapy practitioners were interviewed to identify the perceptions towards the use of complementary therapy and to identify the type of therapy that can be practiced to reduce stress, as well as, discuss the benefits of complementary therapies. It was found that complementary therapy is very beneficial as it acts as a holistic treatment, natural way of healing and more empowering, as it helps to improve employee’s mental, emotional and physical health
There has been only limited research focused on the assumption of leader stress and affective well-being. Hence, this study aims to determine the relationship between leadership style and employee stress level at workplace. This study primarily took a quantitative approach for data collection and analysis. Questionnaires were distributed at three branches of banks located in Kuching, Sarawak and to their employees. The findings show that there is a relationship between autocratic leadership style and employee stress level at workplace. The strength of the relationship is weak due to r = .461, p = .002. The findings also show that democratic leadership and transformational leadership have no relationship with the employee stress level at workplace.
The purpose of this study is threefold, that is, to examine discrete emotion and how it could contribute to the crossover phenomena in organizations, to examine how crossover affect employees’ burnout and engagement, to develop a theoretical framework of discrete emotion as mediator and its crossover in the relationship between job demand, resource and employees’ wellbeing. This paper examined past studies from Proquest, SAGE, Springer, JStor and Emerald online Database that are related to discrete emotion, spillover-crossover model, burnout and engagement. Fifty papers were reviewed from the online databases within the year 2004 to 2015. Findings show that discrete emotion has some effect on employees’ wellbeing through crossover phenomena process. Positive emotions, such as, joy and happiness can accelerate a person’s recovery from the physiological effects of negative emotions. Employees react to the antecedent and possess a discrete emotion. Employees’ discrete emotion makes crossover towards colleagues and triggers the intensity of their psychological state (engage, burnout). Practical intervention for human resource development professionals were suggested to assist employees and organizations on making it known about knowledge on discrete emotion and how it can affect employees’ wellbeing. This research produces a theoretical concept to examine the predictive potential of discrete emotion that leads to crossover phenomena in determining employees’ burnout and engagement.
This study aimed to investigate the reliability (psychometric properties) of the metacognitive strategies questionnaire piloted on Pakistani engineering students of QUEST, Nawabshah. The questionnaire had four parts including demographic, reading comprehension, metacognition, and scaffolding having 53 questions that were tested on 37 first year engineering students. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability was measured through SPSS 17. The results showed that the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability concerning reading comprehension ranged from .826-.842, metacognitive strategies ranged from.830-.839, and the reliability of scaffolding ranged from .829-.837. Therefore, the results from the pilot study showed that the questionnaire needed to be used without any modification in the actual study.
This qualitative study explored the differences in the interpretation of “negative life
events” and the coping style among male and female young adults aged 21-25 in a
highly collective community of Borneo. In-depth interviews were deployed, and pattern
saturated at 5 males and 5 females. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Finding
shows that both gender, males and females, were most affected by self-image and
identity crisis, implicating sensitivity for social acceptance/rejection, academic bullying,
and friendship, family and and financial issues. Females were significantly affected by
friendship problems and tended to deal with it using emotional-focused coping, such as,
emotional release, whereas males reported rejection/one-sided love problems and tended
to cope using action-focused coping style, such as, confronting, as well as action-focused
release, such as, playing games. While the findings support the universal findings in
the male-female differences in coping with negative events, this study found a unique
difference in the coping style of the males to those of the lesser cohesive community -
males in this community were found to be celebrating sharing of problems and emotional
discomfort with close friends and family, as much as the females. This study suggests
that careful considerations need to be given when generalizing the theory of emotional
and social disconnectedness, in males in crisis in the highly cohesive community. Future
research using mixed methodology can further explain the nature and generalizability
of in-crisis males’ emotional and social connectedness in cohesive community, using a
larger sample. Findings from this research would be useful to understand how our male
and female youngsters in highly collective communities perceive life issues, and the
pattern they choose in coping, and further assist in designing effective youth assistance
and development programs.