COVID-19 Effects on Students’ Teaching and Learning Perspectives in Malaysian Varsities

The COVID-19 pandemic has had dramatic effects on the socio-economic and well beings of Malaysians. The objective of the study is to find the effects of the pandemic on university students both on the technical side, such as the sufficiency of infrastructure and the internet to support online teaching and learning (T&L), as well as on the social side, such as stress level and focus on the study. The nationwide study on the effect of the pandemic on Malaysian varsities students was conducted at the end of 2020. There are many important issues uncovered in this study ranging from the technical side, such as internet-ready programs, socio-economic side, to the psychological perspectives. It shall provide invaluable insights to the related ministries while preparing appropriate reactions during the recovery period. The survey revealed that almost 74% of students highlighted that internet coverage and connectivity was the main issue in online T&L. Although statistics show that 90% of Malaysian households have access to the internet, 49% of students reported that their internet connections were poor. The effects of the pandemic are far-reaching, students belonging to the most vulnerable category find themselves in the most non-conducive place to learn, and they are disturbed by siblings. The socio-economics impacts brought about by the pandemic cause ripple effects onto their families. The government distribution of relief aids has lessened the burden of many people, including students; nevertheless, much improvement could be made, especially in the internet facility and coverage.

University Students’ Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) towards COVID-19 in Malaysia

Covid-19—associated with the human-to-human transmission is recent medical concern which also associated with public health concerns. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among clinical year veterinary and medical students studying in a university in Malaysia to determine the students’ knowledge, attitude, and practice towards COVID-19. The questionnaire consisted of 4 sections, namely, socio-demographic characteristics (6 items), knowledge (14 items), attitude (10 items), and practice (24 items) towards COVID-19. The collected data were subjected to descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis H, and Spearman’s correlation analysis. A total of 219 students participated in this study, and they consisted of 52.1% and 47.9% of veterinary and medical students, respectively. The total scores were categorised into poor (<60%), moderate (60-79%), and high (>80%) based on Bloom’s cut off point. Overall, the students acquired high knowledge (80%), moderate attitude (76%) and high practice (86%) against COVID-19. In the attitude section, the veterinary student scored significantly higher than medical students (U=3791, p= .001), and female students scored significantly higher than males (U=3183, p= .001). The analysis revealed a statistically significant association between attitude and practice (P< .05) despite no association between knowledge to attitude and practice variables. Overall, the results indicated that both veterinary and medical students had high knowledge with moderate to high attitudes towards COVID-19. Thus, they were practising good preventive measures in limiting the spread of the disease.

Adaptation of Asma’ul Husna in Existing Design Practice

Until now, industrial designers are solely educated with the epistemology of dialectical materialism; meanwhile, the spiritual aspect is often segregated from education affairs. Many kinds of literature highlighted that this segregation could lead to negative impacts. Supposedly as a Muslim, learning about our Creator through Asma’ul Husna is an essential trait to develop designers’ value, also known as sahsiah or characteristic of excellence. Therefore, this paper attempted to study the adaptation of Asma’ul Husna in the existing design practice among Muslim designers and at the same time devote the existent designer’s knowledge and awareness to this understanding. A set of questionnaires were distributed using stratified sampling. The result showed that the majority of the respondents did not adapt Asma’ul Husna in the existing design practice due to limited knowledge on ways to integrate Asma’ul Husna in the design process. Designers who claimed to use Asma’ul Husna in design are either still confused with the usage or only limits the usage to motif and zikr. As an overview, this paper highlights the general view of an adaptation of Asma’ul Husna’s among designers and emphasises the urgency to develop a guideline for designers to implement the values in their design process.

Rethinking Ecological Subalterns in Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist

This study explores the concept of subaltern and how its meaning has evolved over the years within the broader scope of postcolonial theory. The study shall trace the concept of subaltern from its anthropocentric meaning in Antonio Gramsci’s writings to Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Spivak’s ideological perspectives. We shall also trace its inroad into the ecocritical study in the works of Michael Egan and Sergio Ruiz Cayuela while maintaining its anthropocentric leaning. The study shall further attempt a redefinition of the subaltern concept to accommodate non-humans in the class of the subordinated social group. Bearing in mind the anthropocentric leaning of the concept of the subaltern, which excludes non-human members of the ecology, we shall redefine the term from its previous usage in environmental literary studies and expand it to include non-humans as a subordinated group. The study shall analyse the relationship between humans and non-humans to determine if non-humans are treated as subordinates or worse than subordinated humans. The study shall draw instances from Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist (2006) to justify the classification of non-humans as the ultimate ecological subalterns of the Niger Delta Environment. We shall consider human relationships with non-humans (land, air, water, animals, vegetation, sea lives) to determine their status as subalterns. The crux of the study is basically to expand the scope of the subaltern theory by analysing the environmental despoliation prevalent in the oil-rich Niger Delta environments of Nigeria.

Halal Tourism to Promote Community’s Economic Growth: A Model for Aceh, Indonesia

This study designs a halal economic model of tourism within the framework of Islamic sharia enforcement in Aceh to boost economic growth within community. This study used an expert system approach, which collects key data and information in the formulation of model design through interviews, questionnaires, direct observation, and synthesis of data in the field. A conceptual model of the development system included planning, analysis, design, verification, and validation; each was used to analyze the data. The present study suggests that the proposed formulation of the halal tourism model in Aceh must consider three key factors. First, the key principle of the halal tourism model industry is designed based on Islamic principles, the national legal foundations, and the local regulations. Second, the halal tourism industry is expected to address two important issues: halal certification in hospitality and gastronomy services and empowerment in amenity, human resources, and events. Third, it is also hoped that halal tourism management can focus on the object, marketing, industrial, and institutional developments. These three factors must be fully support by government policy and the Islamic finance industry. The present study is expected to provide essential, inclusive, and wide-ranging aspects for developing the halal tourism industry and encouraging community economic growth. This study also provides insights into how an inclusive conceptual framework can boost the halal tourism industry without defying its basic principles.

University Students’ Perceptions of Motivation, Attitude, and Self-Efficacy in Online English Language Learning

The study examines university students’ perceptions of their motivation, attitude, and self-efficacy in online English proficiency classes. Existing research indicate that these individual differences directly affect learning especially during the period of online instructions; as students may suffer from the feeling of isolation and loneliness, being far away from an immediate learning community. A set of questionnaire score was created from the adaptation of five existing surveys to measure the individual differences. It was distributed to 270 participants via convenient sampling at a university in Malaysia. The results of this study demonstrate the students’ perception of a strong self-efficacy of their digital and technical ability in managing, completing, and submitting English language tasks via online medium. Relatedly, students perceive a high positive attitude and decent motivation for online English learning. Furthermore, the students demonstrate a preference for a synchronous session, which is linked to forming a community of learners as an academic support system. The findings are discussed in relation to human factors and pedagogy. It considers students’ needs for engaging sessions, and teachers’ limitations in creating content while emphasising creative and fun language activities.

The Partnership of Patriarchy and Capitalism in Cho Nam-joo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Socialist feminism, which emerged in the 1970s, aims to solve female oppression and make a comprehensive and innovative understanding of gender, class, capitalism, and male domination. As the mainstay of the socialist feminist school, the ideas of Hartmann and Young make significant contributions to the development of the theory. Hartmann first proposed dual systems theory, and Young published her single system response shortly after. To a certain extent, Young’s new thinking and questioning of dual systems theory also supplement and go into some of the arguments by Hartmann that are not clear enough. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is an English-translated novel written by contemporary South Korean writer and screenwriter Cho Nam-joo. The novel was translated into English by award-winning translator Jamie Chang in 2020. The plight of women highlighted in this novel caused widespread controversy in the international community, especially in East Asian countries. This article examines the oppression of women in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, by the long-term interaction between patriarchy and capitalism. This study adopts a research method combining theoretical interpretation and close reading of the text. It addresses the research gap by focusing on a new perspective on the causes of Cho’s female characters’ oppression through the dual systems theory by Hartmann.

The Role of Religiosity, Ethnicity and Gender Identification in Individual’s Moral Judgments; The Mediation Effect of Self-transcendence

Most recently, corporate financial scandals, and unethical behaviour cast doubt on investors and raised public concern globally. It is due to the weak corporate governance structure and low ethic awareness amongst the people. The purpose of this research is therefore to justify the factors that influence an individual’s moral judgement. This study also seeks to provide practical recommendations to corporations and different associations. As such, to evaluate the proposed hypotheses, 300 self-administered questionnaires were distributed in five universities in Malaysia using a non-probability sampling approach. As a result, the findings demonstrate that ethnicity has the highest impact on self-transcendence and moral judgement, followed by religiosity and gender identification (gender difference). The contribution of this research is to evaluate the relationships between religiosity, ethnicity, and gender identification towards moral judgement with the intervention of mediating variable (self-transcendence). In essence, ethical values and moral obligations should be highlighted in corporations, and these values should be practised and embraced into the organisational culture. Thus, organisational decision-makers should highly emphasise the role of ethicality and morality in corporations because ethical competence aligns with an employee’s responsibility as a whole.

A Systematic Review to Comprehend the Cultural Representation in L2 Mandarin Textbooks

Cultural representation in foreign/second language textbooks has received considerable research attention in recent years. This diachronic study reviews previous studies’ methodological trends and research foci on cultural representation in L2 Mandarin textbooks from 2005–2020. It systematically searched all relevant publications in three accessible databases: Web of Science, Scopus, and CNKI. A total number of 48 relevant publications were collected and analyzed. The review indicates that most publications are empirical studies, covering qualitative, quantitative, and mixed studies and most sampled textbooks are elementary textbooks from China. It also reveals that the main source for collecting data is documented, and the commonly used data analysis methods are comparative, content, discourse, and semiotic analysis. Besides that, examining cultural elements in textbooks seems to be a key research focus among the publications, followed by analyzing cultural orientation, unconventional culture phenomenon, and ideology behind cultural representation in textbooks. The current study contributes to the literature by providing a detailed review of cultural representation in L2 Mandarin textbooks and identifying the research gaps. Accordingly, it concludes with recommendations for future research to study cultural representation in textbooks.

‘Music in Film’ for Gifted Students: The Effect of Differentiated Learning on Students’ Motivation

Music is not only an important subject in general education, but it particularly serves gifted students who face various psychological issues not encountered by their ‘normal’ peers. Nonetheless, it is found that not all schools are implementing proper music lessons due to the focus on STEM subjects. This paper provides an overview of developing music enrichment activities as an approach to meet gifted students’ needs. Differentiated instruction was used as the main approach to developing a comprehensive music enrichment activity, namely ‘Music in Film’, in which gifted students integrated music and computer skills in completing a given task. Furthermore, a research survey was conducted involving 36 gifted students. The MUSIC Inventory was used to measure their motivation and engagement towards the activity to measure the methods. Five domains—empowerment, usefulness, success, interest and caring—were measured on a 6-point Likert scale. Results revealed that all five domains were rated from moderate to high by the gifted students with a minimum 4.5 mean. Although it can be concluded that this enrichment activity is apt and effective for implementation in gifted education, future studies could look at participants with different backgrounds and demographics. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to designing more enrichment activities with a differentiated instruction approach as gifted students possess high potential in various talents that need to be nurtured.