The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural group counselling on anger and aggression among male prisoners in Malaysian prisons. A total of 40 male prisoners were involved in this study. Subjects were assigned into treatment group (N=20) and control group (N=20) through purposive sampling method. Subjects were then divided into small groups (two treatment groups) and (two control groups) which each group consisting of 10 prisoners. The treatment groups attended eight sessions of group counselling process. State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (STAXI-2) and Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) were used as questionnaires to measure anger emotion and aggression behaviour. Data were analysed by using the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 significant level. The results showed significant differences in the mean of pre-test and post-test on STAXI-2 scales such as state anger, trait anger and anger expression-out between the experimental group and control group. However, the results showed no significant differences for the scales of anger expression-in, anger control-out, and anger control-in between the groups. The results also showed significant differences in the mean of pre-test and post-test on aggression between the experimental group and control group. The implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.
This study aims to identify the relationship between personality traits and job performance among educator leaders in High Performance Schools (HPS). Two sets of questionnaires were used in this study, namely questionnaire Five-Factor Model of Personality (NEO PI-R) for measuring personality and instrument of job performance for measuring the performance of individual work. These questionnaires were distributed to 306 head teachers (89%) in 15 HPS in Malaysia. Pearson correlation analysis showed a significant positive correlation between personality traits such as Conscientiousness (r = .740, p
HIV /AIDS is a global epidemic problem that is faced by many countries. There is a drastic increase of infection cases in children, youths, adults and elderly. Among students, there is a low level of knowledge that affects the comprehension elasticity based on the educational level which contributes to the increasing stigma among students. The focus of this study is to examine the differences of HIV/AIDS knowledge levels and students' stigma according to their levels of education. This study used HIV Knowledge Questionnaires (HIV-K-Q) version of 45 items and The Berger HIV Stigma Scale version of 40 items. 130 students from UKM and GMI participated in the study. Results showed that there were significant differences in the knowledge levels and stigma of HIV/AIDS between students' educational levels (Diploma level, Bachelor and Masters). The findings can assist educational institutions to develop the awareness of HIV/AIDS knowledge by targeting all levels of students' education. The implementation of various campaigns, talks, and interventions of reducing the stigma should be refined and planned as an annual program.
The importance of education has long been identified as one of the main components in an effort to empower an individual or a community thus bringing them out of poverty. Therefore, motivation and encouragement in education is important in helping indigenous communities to empower their lives. This study aimed to explore the form of motivation in education towards empowering the Orang Sungai community in Paitan, Sabah. Respondents consisted of 38 heads of households. The study was conducted using a mixed method approach where a survey using the asset mapping form is combined with interviews to obtain detailed and accurate answers. The findings were analyzed by thematic analysis found the emergence of two main themes, namely intrinsic motivation (self attendance record, no money wager and children’s attendance record) and extrinsic (bag and stationery, experience learning from a teacher, foods and beverages, friends and siblings as well as experiences of mingling with outsiders). Overall the advocacy literacy programme has succeeded in raising awareness about the importance of education among adult learners. This awareness needs to be nurtured and given the attention so that the learning process can be continued to a higher level in the future.
The current study utilized a cross-sectional method among 153 employees in various marketing departments in Malaysia to investigate the influence of personality factors (i.e. extraversion and agreeableness) on person-job fit (P-J fit) and organizational commitment. It is hypothesized that organizational commitment mediates the relationship between P-J fit and intention to stay, and personality factors interact with P-J fit on organization commitment. Results showed that there were significant relationships between P-J fit, organizational commitment, and intention to stay. Both personality factors showed differences in one’s organizational commitment and intention to stay. The study highlighted the importance of fit and personality of an individual in a marketing department. Personality test is suggested to continue to be used as one of the assessment tools during hiring process for marketing department as it helps to select candidates whose personality is suitable for the job.
Previous researchers have shown that parents of children with physical disabilities have a higher risk of mental health problems that may be caused by significant challenges in raising children with disabilities. This challenge is compounded by the difficulty of living in rural areas. This study aimed to identify whether parents of children with physical disabilities experience Mixed Anxiety and Depression (MAD) and build a deep understanding of "why" parents experienced MAD. Material for this case study was obtained using the Kessler psychological stress scale (K-10) and in-depth interviews. Six parents who have MAD has been interviewed. Inductive content analysis with the help of computer program ATLAS.ti 7 has produced six symptoms of MAD among parents (sleep disturbance, irritable, anxious, easy crying, expecting something worse will happen, hopeless about the future) and five sources of MAD (lack of support, acceptance problems, lack of information and experience, the rural factor, child health problem). It can be concluded, this finding relates to the challenges faced by parents in raising children with physical disabilities in rural Sabah.
This research examined how managers in universities incorporate non-financial measures in their Learning Management Systems decision-making processes and particularly focused on the importance of the Human Capital perspective in LMS decision making processes. A mixed-methods approach to data collection was used involving both interviews and questionnaires. The qualitative data from the interviews were coded and analysed. A descriptive coding method using thematic analysis was used for the data coding. The qualitative data were analysed using an inductive approach where the categories of criteria and indicators were not determined before the interview. The participants in this research were five members of LMS decision-making teams at two different universities in Australia and 24 participants from different universities in Malaysia who were involved in LMS decision- making processes at their universities. The results of this research indicated that there was substantial support for using a multi-dimensional decision making model among IT decision makers at universities, particularly the Human Capital perspective and they believed that Human Capital measures are important and should be considered in a LMS decision making process.The research has both implications for theory and for practitioners where it contributes to the knowledge on LMS decision making in universities and IT decision making in general, and also in improving actual decision making practices.
Disaster is that which stimulates a pronounced effect on the one who experiences it. Not only does it result in a physical effect but also a significant psychological repercussion on the victim. The bulk of disaster management researches give too great an emphasis on the physical outlook such as property and health, relative to the psychological aftermath and its management aspect. This research has taken the qualitative approach through an extensive interview with five victims of the flash flood catastrophe in Kelantan to identify the sustained psychological effect as well as how the management of psychological support aspect can be of assistance for the victims. The acquisition of the research findings encompassed several themes namely sustained emotion theme, sustained psychological issue theme along with management of psychological victim aspect. The outcome of the resulting theme corroborated with the disaster management model via three stages namely, induction, identification and assessment, and finally, development and preservation.
In consistency with the aspiration of Ministry of Youth and Sports in developing youths who are united among each other, disciplined, and have high morals, some efforts have been taken by the National Youth Skills Institute (IKBN) to help in producing youths who have good morals and vision. This study focuses on psychological factors and mental health in order to establish a productive youth. Therefore, this research aims to determine the level of family functioning and cognitive distortion among IKBN students in Malaysia. A total of 1,200 students took part in this study. The instruments used were Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales III (FACES III) to measure family functioning, and Cognitive Distortion Scale (CDS) to measure cognitive distortion. Results indicate that students’ family functioning is at a moderate level, whilst students’ cognitive distortion is at a low level. The results also indicate that family functioning can prevent the problem of cognitive distortion among youths. The implications of this study can be contributed to the youth development by IKBN and the Ministry of Youth and Sports in Malaysia.
This study examines the relationship between loneliness, life events and depression among 178 adults in the disadvantage community of Malaysia and to determine predictors of depression. A set of standardized questionnaires was used to measure depression, loneliness and stressful life events. The results showed that loneliness and stressful life events were related to depression. Results also showed that loneliness was a predictor of depression. Implications of the study in terms of theory and practice are also discussed.
The present study examines bullying in primary school children aged 7 to 12 years old who are estate settlers. BBQ Olweus Questionnaire was administered with a reliability Cronbach alpha of 0.899 towards n=110 primary school children. The study gives an indication of existing bullying behaviour of 37.3% from n-110 sample respondents with verbal bullying being the most prevalent (¯x=0.9873); relational bullying (¯x=0.8065) and physical bullying (¯x=4591). Consequently, the finding of this study pointed out recess was the peak time of bullying behaviour to occur (89% lining up; 80% lining up and taking up food, 69% in toilet and 46.4% journey to and from classes). Subsequently, this study shows strong relationships between bullying locations and type of bullying with relational (r=0.833,>0.05), verbal (r=0.704,>0.05) and physical (r=0.619,>0.05). Finally, there were strong relationships between the type of bully and type of bullying behaviours with verbal (r=0.692, p>0.05), relational (r=0.614, p>0.05) and physical (r=0.468, p>0.05).
Many students in Malaysia are affected by procrastination. This study examines the relationship between academic procrastination and the motivational aspects of self-regulation. A sample, consisting of 310 undergraduates from two Universities in Perak, Malaysia, was recruited to complete a modified version of the Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS) and the Academic Motivation Scale – College (AMS-C 28). Interviews and focus groups were conducted to obtain details of social environments that contributed to students’ procrastination in the engagement of academic activities. Results indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between academic procrastination and the intrinsic motivation. A significant positive correlation was found between academic procrastination and extrinsic motivation. The identified motivation style under the extrinsic categories was found to be most frequently used. The findings from qualitative data analysis gave explanations for the quantitative findings. Implication were discussed in the context of Malaysia where students always internalised parents’ and society’s expectations in their academic careers.
Percentage of pregnancy before marriage increases dramatically every year. This needs to be taken seriously by the authorities due to a negative impact in terms of psychology, which may ultimately affect the country's human capital. This study aims to identify factors of depression, loneliness and social support among women who got pregnant before marriage. The study uses quantitative methods to distribute the questionnaire to respondents. A total of 215 pregnant women before marriage were involved in this study. The results showed that levels of depression, loneliness and social support were at a moderate level. The study found a significant relationship between depression and loneliness (r = .500, p <0.05), there was no significant relationship between depression and social support. However, there is a negative and significant relationship between loneliness and social support (r = -.164, p <0.05). Linear Regression Test results show the predictive factors for depression is loneliness (R ² = 26.6, F (2,212) = 37,549, p <0.05), which predicts significantly more compared to social support (β = .111, r> 0.05). The results showed that lonely people are more likely to suffer from depression. In addition, individuals with poor social support from family, friends and also people around them are more likely to suffer more serious loneliness. Therefore, a good social support is able to prevent women who got pregnant before marriage to experience loneliness and depression
The construction of teenagers’ identity is very important to stimulate the excellence of nation building. This study aims to investigate the level of identity and its relationship with socio-emotional stress experienced by gifted and talented students in Malaysia. A total of 194 students from Pusat PERMATApintar™ Negara are randomly selected to respond to two questionnaires, namely Student’s Identity instrument which contains 72 items and Socio-Emotional Stress instrument with 60 items. These students give response using the 5-point Likert scale. Descriptive statistical analysis and inference are used to determine the mean score and correlation between variables (SPSS version 19.0). The results showed that the mean score of identity is high (3.86, sp value 6.41), and the issue of socioemotional stress is moderate (2.71, sp value: 7.39). From the five components of identity studied, spiritual identity obtained the highest mean score (4.13) while the component of leadership identity obtained the lowest mean score (4.13). For the issue of socio-emotional stress, the pressure in social justice and perfection obtained high mean scores (4.13 and 3.51), while the pressure in family relationship scored the lowest mean (2.09). Pearson r correlation analysis showed the existence of a significant negative relationship between identity and socio-emotional stress among gifted and talented learners. The implications on the importance of the Guidance and Counselling services as well as counsellor’s competency to provide support service in leading the gifted and talented students’ psychological well-being and holistic identity development are also discussed.
Schutte et al. (1998) developed a 33-item emotional intelligence scale which they claimed to be unidimensional. Petrides and Furnham (2006) conducted factor analysis on the same scale and found 4 factors underlying the scale. Studies on emotional intelligence had been conducted in Malaysia with scales that were adopted, adapted, and developed. The dimensionality of the scales needed to be clearly demonstrated to better put the findings within the local context. This study examined the factor structure of the bilingual version of the scale (Malay translation by Abd Hamid and Kimin, 2004) using principal axis factoring with a varimax orthogonal rotation, in a Malaysian sample. The scale was administered to 187 Malaysian employees in a government agency and a college community. The analysis revealed four factors underlying the scale that matched Petrides and Furnham’s findings. Reliability was found to be good for three factors and unacceptable for one. The issues in the factor structure were discussed.
The study investigated the behaviours of critical thinking skills among UKM students. This study involved 200 UKM students as research participants. Respondents were from Bachelor students (Year 1 to Year 4), and Master students. The location of this study is in Bangi Campus, UKM that includes seven faculties. Those are Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Islamic Study, Faculty of Management and Economics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of Science and Information Technology and Faculty of Engineering. The students’ age range is between 19 to 46 years old. The instrument used to measure the attitude of critical thinking skills is California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST), that was translated by the researcher into Malay language. In addition, this research also employed descriptive and inference statistics analyses in the form of mean score, standard deviation, percentage, frequency, Pearson Correlation, non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis and T-Test. The result showed that the behaviour of critical thinking skills was not related significantly with UKM students’ academic performances. Cognitive maturity behaviour influenced their academic levels from low and moderate to high performance. Finally, male and female students also differ in their open-mindedness, objectivity, readiness to face challenges and desire to seek the truth.
Studies on the organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is still new in Malaysia, especially among teachers. The importance of OCB in an organisation has been proven to improve individual performance and productivity. Meanwhile, personality plays an important role in influencing OCB. Therefore, this study will identify whether a teacher's personality influences OCB. This quantitative study was carried out by collecting data from a questionnaire distributed to 287 people that consists of teachers from SBT (High Performance Schools) and daily schools in primary schools around Putrajaya. The Big Five Inventory Instrument by John and Srivastava (1999) is used to measure the five-factor personality and the measurement scale of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) by Podsakoff et al. (1990) to measure OCB. Data was analysed by multiple regression using Statistical Package for Social Science version 23. The results showed that neuroticism, agreeableness and openness influenced OCB among teachers as a whole. The impact of this study can help the MOE identify the characteristics of the candidate teachers who match the OCB required in the selection and placement of teachers. The MOE can also devise self-awareness intervention modules to maintain and improve OCB among teachers. Future studies need to examine the influence of personality upon the more specific OCBs so that the performance of teachers is always maintained at its peak.
Emotional intelligence is usually used in order to measure an individual’s effectiveness. One of the instruments that is used to measure emotional intelligence is Schutte’s Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Survey (SREIS). The main objective of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of SREIS. A set of SREIS was distributed to 152 undergraduate psychology students from a public university in Malaysia. Other than SREIS, Life Satisfaction Scale (LSS) by Krapu (2006) was also used in this study. In evaluating reliability, Cronbach’s alpha was used, and criterion and construct validity methods were used to test its validity. Results obtained showed that Schutte’s SREIS was valid to be used in Malaysia and using principle component analysis, six components were extracted with 49% variance. The SREIS also showed good criterion validity from the significant correlations with the Life Satisfaction Scale. In addition to that, the results of reliability were satisfactory with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.55 to 0.85 for all the dimensions.
Education is one of the most important aspects for every individual including people with visual impairments. Visually impaired students also have the right to a good educational opportunity to higher education. In this regard, this article explores the issues and challenges of visually impaired students in higher learning institution. This study uses a full qualitative approach, a case study in the Klang Valley. In-depth interviews were used in data collection involving 5 students with visual impairment: four males and one female. The findings showed that among the major issues faced by visually impaired students pursuing higher education in tertiary institution were self-esteem, financial and public stigma. In addition, visually impaired students also faced challenges in accessibility, peer-to-peer acceptance and difficulties in learning at the university. In conclusion, this study emphasises on issues and challenges often faced by students with visual impairments at higher learning institution so that appropriate supports and facilities can be effectively provided by the university.