Role of Teachers in Building the Concept of Sustainable Development: Success or Failure

Sustainable Development (SD) is a rich, challenging and thought-provoking construct in social sciences. The main purpose of this paper was to identify and explore the role played by primary school teachers in building up the idea of sustainable development (SD) among students. This paper was intended to identify that how a teacher can successfully execute the concept of SD by influencing students’ minds at the primary level. Quantitative survey technique were utilized for data collection. All the primary school teachers of Lahore division comprised the population of the study. Through multistage sampling technique, 352 primary school teachers were selected as participants of the study. A self-developed SD questionnaire incorporating four major factors (teachers’ awareness, pedagogy, curricular and co-curricular activities) with Cronbach’s alpha value = .93 was used to measure the role of teachers in building the sustainability concept among students at primary level. The results indicated a significant mean score difference among SD scores of teachers, sector wise (private and public). Furthermore, the results also reconnoitered the significant difference (p=.04) between the mean scores of female and male teachers in building up the SD concept in students’ minds.

The Impact of Meaningful Work on Employee Identity and the Mediating Role of Employee Resilience

The current study focused on the impact of meaningful work on employee identity with a mediating role for employee resilience. Data was collected from a sample of 154 employees currently working in the service sector (call centers) of Lahore, Pakistan. The study was quantitative and the data was analyzed using AMOS software. For this purpose, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to check the model fit statistics and the mediation effect of employee resilience was analyzed using Preacher and Hayes’ (2004) median analysis. Convergent validity was measured through factor loading and AVE value verification of indices; whereas reliability was approved through Cronbach’s alpha. The findings of the current study revealed that meaningful work plays a significant role in enhancing employee resilience, which enables them to cope with challenging situations and thus maintaining their identity. In the service sector, where employees continuously deal with customers, resilience becomes the key to attract and retain potential customers, which allows them to deliver exceptional client service with confidence. This research is among a limited number of studies available on this topic and it will be an important addition to research literature highlighting the impact of meaningful work and employee resilience on employee performance in the context of call centers employees working in Lahore, Pakistan.

Automatic Generation of Teachers’ Course Preferences Using Document Clustering

The current study examined the automated course preferences of teachers using document clustering. Data regarding teachers’ course preferences and course outlines were collected and preprocessed for further analysis. Two separate clustering solutions were generated for teachers and courses datasets. The clustering solution for teachers contained clusters of similar faculty members grouped together on the basis of their course preferences and courses taught by them in previous years. The clustering solution generated for courses contained the list of course outlines of assigned courses. Good quality clusters for both teachers and courses were generated using K-means clustering method in CLUTO software package. The generated clustering solutions were mapped for automated generation of course preferences for each teacher in the dataset. Precision, Recall and F-measure values were also reported and they indicated promising results.

Conflict Management Styles Used by Teachers at Public and Private Sector Universities of Lahore

This study aimed to investigate the most prevalent Conflict Management Styles (CMSs) among teachers at public and private sector universities of Lahore. For this purpose, a survey was conducted using Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory Roci-II form C. This inventory was pilot tested and its reliability was found to be 0.86. The sample comprised 446 teachers selected using two-stage random sampling technique from six public and private sector universities of Lahore. The findings revealed that managing conflicts through accommodating and collaborating styles were practiced by university teachers and these particular styles mostly prevailed among them. There was no meaningful difference found between teachers from public and private universities; however, some differences were found on the basis of other demographic variables such as gender, designation, age, and qualification of respondents.

The Impact of Agricultural Mechanization Development Project on the Yield of Wheat Crop: A Case Study of Punjab, Pakistan

A traditional method known as iron triangle (time, cost, quality) was used to evaluate the success of projects in the past. A project was assumed to be successful if it had been completed within time, did not overrun its allocated budget and its outcomes satisfied the predetermined criteria. However, to evaluate the impact of any project considering merely its success is not enough, the impact of its product should also be appraised. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the program “Agricultural Mechanization Development Project” recently implemented in Punjab, Pakistan. For this purpose, Punjab province was categorized into three zones on the basis of agro-climatic conditions. Two districts were randomly selected from each zone. Face to face structured interviews were conducted to collect primary data from beneficiary farmers (n=210). Regression analysis was applied to evaluate the significance of mechanization. The research findings revealed that improvement in technical efficiency through the use of agriculture mechanization program has a significant effect on the production of wheat crop. It is suggested here that ‘Agricultural Mechanization’ and other such programs ought to be considered efficient tools to fight poverty, bring mprovement in socioeconomic conditions and promote income generating activities among rural communities.