The Relationship between Natural Environment Relatedness and Emotional Well-Being: A Systematic Review and Proposed Conceptual Framework Experience

The influence of the natural environment on emotional well-being has been highlighted at the peak of the Covid 19 pandemic that saw most countries impose prolonged total lockdowns and movement restrictions on their citizens. While researchers have recently emphasized the need to focus not only on students’ academic achievement but also on their inner needs, which include their emotional well-being, studies have found nature connectedness has a positive effect on emotional well-being and physical health. Many studies on nature and well-being have focused on physiological and psychological experimental research to examine before and after exposure to nature. However, there is still a need for further investigation how emotional connection between nature environments in the aspect of restorativeness and spiritual values improve mental health. This paper systematically reviewed previous studies about the relationship between exposure to the natural environment and well-being focusing on key variables, underpinning theories, methodological processes and samples. As a result of the review, a conceptual framework is proposed for future studies on relationship between exposure to the natural environment and well-being. We hope that the proposed framework will be empirically tested in future studies.

The Influence of Urban Poverty on Students’ Academic Optimism: Does Government Assistance Play a Role?

The present study investigated the relationship between urban poor students’ perceptions of government assistance and poverty and their level of academic optimism. A survey was administered to 500 urban poor students in two major Malaysian cities, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. The students were identified and randomly selected for the study with the help of their respective schools. AMOS version 24 was used to test the hypothesised model using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings revealed a significant direct association between students’ perceptions of poverty and academic optimism. However, no significant indirect influence was found between students’ perceptions of poverty and their academic optimism through government assistance. These findings suggest that government assistance programmes are not necessarily a contributor to students’ academic optimism. The lack of any significant influence between students’ perceptions of poverty and academic optimism, through government assistance, may indicate a need to re-evaluate the existing assistance programmes rendered by the government to students in the urban poor category.

أسباب تقاعس الطلاب عن أداء الواجبات المنزلية

هدف البحث إلى الكشف عن أسباب تقاعس طلبات الحلقة الثانية من التعليم الأساسي في سلطنة عمان في المدرسة عن أداء الواجبات المنزلية واقتراح حلول لها. ولتحقيق أهداف الدراسة تم استخدام منهجية البحث الإجرائي، والاستعانة بالمجموعات المركزة كأداة لجمع البيانات. وتألفت عينة الدراسة من ثلاث فئات وهن أولياء الأمور والمعلمين والطلاب حيث تم تقسيمهم إلى ثلاث مجموعات مركزة وأجريت الجلسات لكل فئة على حدة، استغرقت كل جلسة ما بين 45 دقيقة للطالبات إلى ساعة لأولياء الأمور والمعلمين. وكانت أسئلة الدراسة محددة بسؤالين رئيسيين وهما: ما أسباب تقاعس الطلاب عن أداء الواجبات المدرسية؟ وما الحلول المقترحة لتحفيز الطلاب على أداء الواجبات المدرسية؟ وقد تم تحليل البيانات للمجموعات المركزة الثلاث والتوصل الى أهم القضايا التي تم طرحها من قبل المشتركين. تم تحليل كل سؤال على حدة للوصول إلى المعلومات المتعلقة بهذا السؤال وتعزيز هذه المعلومات بمقتطفات من أقوال المشاركات، ثم مناقشة النتائج في ضوء البيانات من المجموعات المركزة ونتائج الدراسات السابقة والأدب النظري. ومن أهم النتائج التي توصل إليها البحث في أسباب تقاعس الطلاب عن الواجبات المنزلية عدم مراعاة الأسئلة للفروق الفردية بين الطلاب، وعدم وضوح التعليمات الخاصة بهذه الواجبات، وكذلك وجود الكثير من الملهيات في المنزل، وقلة الدعم الأسري للطالب وكثرة الواجبات التي تأخذ وقت الطالب وتحرمها من ممارسة اللعب والترفيه، وتوصي الدراسة في تقنين الأسئلة وأن تكون ملائمة من حيث الكم والكيف لقدرات الطلاب. الكلمات المفتاحية: أسباب، تقاعس الطلاب، الواجبات المنزلية

Arabic Language Phoneme Pronunciation Difficulties Among Upper Basic Hausa-Speaking Students in Kano State, Nigeria

In the process of learning a foreign language, there are some indispensable learning problems, especially in the pronunciation aspect. Therefore, this study investigated Arabic Language phoneme pronunciation difficulties among Upper Basic Hausa-speaking Arabic Language students in Kano State, Nigeria. The total population for the study was all Upper Basic Hausa-speaking students of Arabic in Kano State, Nigeria. Two hundred (200) Hausa-speaking Arabic students were sampled from the 3 senatorial districts in the state involving 9 Local Government Areas using multistage sampling procedure. A Pronunciation Test adapted from Adebayo (2010) with a reliability coefficient of 0.75 was used for data collection. Only 180 Pronunciation test that were properly filled and returned were subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. The percentage was used to answer the research questions while Chi-square was employed to test the hypotheses postulated at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings of this study revealed that a number of Arabic consonants constitute pronunciation difficulty for the students due to the presence of their corresponding consonant sounds in Hausa language, while all Arabic vowels did not constitute much pronunciation difficulty for students. The findings also revealed that there was no significant difference in the Arabic consonant and vowel sounds that constitute pronunciation difficulties for male and female Upper Basic Hausa-speaking students of Arabic from both public and private schools in Kano State. In the light of these findings, it was recommended among others that, teachers of Arabic language should pay more attention to the various Arabic consonant and vowel phonemes as well as the Arabic syllable patterns that constitute pronunciation difficulties for the Hausa-speaking students of Arabic. The attention of Hausa-speaking students of Arabic should also be drawn to the semantic implications of phonemic replacement, reduction or prolongation.

Influence of Participatory Decision Making on Job Satisfaction: The Moderating Effect of Staff Experience

The relationship between participatory decision-making (PDM) and job satisfaction (JS) has attracted the attention of researchers not only in the field of business industries but also education sector. However, the issue has not been given noteworthy priority in educational administration research let alone in Islamic tertiary institution context. Thus, the purpose of this study is threefold: 1) to validate the psychometric properties of administrative staff’s PDM and JS constructs, 2) to examine the degree of influence of administrative staff’s PDM on their JS, and 3) test the moderating role of staff’s working experience on the influence of PDM on JS. Using a quantitative survey approach, data were collected from 255 administrative staff working in different faculties, divisions, and centers of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). The study employed co-variance-based SEM by using AMOS version 24 in order to achieve the objectives. First, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was employed to test the psychometric properties (such as convergent validity, divergent validity, and reliability) for both PDM and JS. Second, a Full-Fledged SEM was conducted to test the influence of PDM on JS. Finally, to examine the moderating effect of the staff working experience in the relationship between PDM and JST, a multi-group analysis (MGA) was applied. The results confirmed that the multidimensional hypothesized model of PDM and JS were empirically valid and reliable. The results also revealed a statistically significant impact for PDM on JS. Besides, the working experience was found to have a moderating role in the effect of PDM on JS. The study suggests that administrative staff involvement in decision making process is highly required as it increases their job satisfaction.

The Impact of Future Economic Stability and Family Influence on Students’ Motivation for Higher Education: A Study on IIUM Students

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between future economic stability (FES), family influence (FI) and students’ motivation for higher education (MFHE) based on the perceptions of undergraduate students in IIUM. The questionnaire used was self-developed and piloted with 263 undergraduate students, who were sampled purposely. Content validity, construct validity and – the Cronbach’s alpha for reliability were conducted to validate the instrument. SPSS V25 was used to analyze the data by manipulating the descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings from data analysis indicated that IIUM students held positive perception towards FES, FI and MFHE. The results also revealed a positive and significant relationship between FES, FI and MFHE, and that FES and FI were found to be significant predictors of MFHE. As an implication, higher education institutions as well as parents are urged to support their wards in terms of employment opportunities and continuous parental support, as the impact of future economic stability and family influence have been confirmed in this study as part of the reasons behind students’ motivation for higher education learning.

Modeling Humanizing Education Through Newly Reviewed Materials Engineering Curriculum

In line with the current global focus on sustainability and the well-being of the planet, becoming a professional engineer nowadays requires more than simple mastery of technical skills. Considering that engineers are required to have a deep sense of responsibility not only for humankind but also for the environment, engineering education and practices must be reformed substantially to prepare engineers that will contribute to sustainable development. This necessitates updating conventional engineering programs (CEE) to incorporate Humanizing Engineering Education (HEE). Although HEE is an old practice of individual engineers and other organizations outside the academic field, it is relatively new in academic engineering. While the definition of what truly merits being considered HEE remains debatable, many engineers believe that their work involves a humanitarian aspect. To streamline the development of HEE, there is a need for developing guidelines and frameworks for a comprehensive model. Ideally, that framework should integrate humanizing pedagogy in the new curriculum design. The objective of the paper is to share the experience of the authors in designing a new curriculum for a Materials Engineering Programme (MEP) that is embedded with Humanitarian Engineering (HE), which is among the main elements of HEE. Data collection was through interviews, qualitative surveys, reports from the stakeholders, accreditation bodies and benchmarking with other Higher Learning Institutions (HLI). An extensive scholarly literature review was executed to identify shortcomings in CEE and how it could be reformed by integrating it with HEE. The Sejahtera Academic Framework (SAF); a strategic framework for academic programmes developed by the university, was used as a reference to customize MEP to better meet students’ needs. Since the proposed model applies a new emerging concept, it inevitably raises challenges related to different levels of understanding among course implementers and perceptions of external stakeholders. Moreover, the developers had to consider the limitations imposed by the university's policies and structures while acknowledging the availability of finite resources (i.e. time, money, equipment, and expertise).

Teaching Lab-based Courses Remotely: Approaches, Technologies, Challenges, and Ethical Issues

Online learning has gained substantial traction since the popularization of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) over the last decade. After the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic, online learning has become an indispensable mode of modern-day education. All educational institutions around the world are now compelled to switch to online classes as a physically safer and more flexible option for teaching and learning during the pandemic. Although many studies have examined the effectiveness of this online T&L mode, almost no attention has been paid to the use of virtual laboratories, which are an important means of teaching practical skills and complicated theories for science and engineering subjects. Like other online methods that have their particular advantages and disadvantages, the utility of virtual laboratories is detracted by the fact that they lack some of the qualities present in the actual experiments seen in traditional learning classrooms. In particular, virtual labs are not as effective as authentic lab experiments in developing soft skills that are typically acquired from students’ teamwork activities, in addition to lacking the ability to assess the various levels of knowledge acquisition, content mastery and student attention in class. Hence, the aim of this paper is to address these issues about the utility and drawbacks of virtual labs in achieving the long-term goals and learning outcomes of STEM education. In addressing these issues, the paper highlights the varying technologies, such as gaming and virtual reality, used by different educational institutions as substitutes for physical engineering laboratories. The final section of the paper discusses some of the ethical issues related to online learning for science and engineering subjects.

The Counseling Challenges Facing Muslim Clients across the World

This systematic review is conducted with the major aim of highlighting the need for a comprehensive and modern Islamic counselling Model, due to the psychological challenges facing Muslim clients across the world. The main source of data collection in the research is past empirical studies related to the field of counselling as it affects Muslim countries. The study found, from the extant literature reviewed, that there is a high incidence of psychological problems among Muslim populated countries, especially the crises-ridden and turbulent regions such as Syria, Yemen, Palestine and others, as well as among the Muslim minority groups in some countries, such as the US, the UK and other European countries. It was discovered from the literature that the major causes of mental health problems are: lack of the fear of God, wars, poverty, natural disasters, political unrest, discrimination and Islamophobic tendencies. In this regard, the study highlights the need for research and action plans that focus on the well-being of Muslims in the entire global community. It is imperative that Muslims require professional assistance from specially trained counsellors equipped with culturally and Islamically-relevant skills for the mitigation of mental distress and depression. The need for a comprehensive Islamic counselling model that matches and competes with the western-oriented counselling models, is proposed. For precisely this purpose, therefore, the Al-Ghazali counselling model has been recently developed, which is compatible and commensurate with modern scientific therapeutic techniques, and is found to be a highly promising intervention for clients with mental and psychological challenges.