The use of critical thinking skills among university ESL students

This research was undertaken to measure the critical thinking ability of university ESL students and to determine the relationship between critical thinking ability and the (1) English language ability; (2) fields of study (or major); and (3) academic performance. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (CCTTX) developed by Ennis and Millman (1985) was used to determine the students’ critical thinking level and a questionnaire was administered to obtain other relevant data i.e. students’ English language ability, fields of study and academic performance. The respondents involved in the study were two hundred and sixty-one public university students in Pahang. The students’ CCTTX were marked and scores were given. Association between students’ critical thinking ability and English language ability, fields of study and academic performance were analysed via one-way analysis of variance using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version X (SPSS-X). The findings revealed that the overall scores obtained by the students in CCTTX test were low. There was a significant difference in the critical thinking scores with the students’ language ability. However, there were no significant differences recorded between the students’ CCTTX scores and their fields of study and academic performance. The implications of the findings for the English Language Curriculum were elaborated and relevant recommendations were made

Hand related injury accident trend in metal fabrication industry

The aim of this paper is to obtain the trend of accident related to hand injury in the Production Department of Metal Fabrication Process company located in south peninsular Malaysia. Accident data being obtained from year 2008 until 2012 showed an increment numbers of accident involving hand. In year 2008 the rate is 36.3%, year 2009 is 30%, year 2010 is 37.5%, year 2011 is 33.3% and year 2012 is 37.5%. Site survey has been conducted to assess the hazards contributed to hand injury from the metal fabrication activities being carried out. The hazards to be assessed were categorized into two factors which is Safety Factor and Ergonomic Risk Factor. The overall data results are discussed and compiled to obtain the hand related injury accident trend in metal fabrication process

Effectiveness of wetland interpretation in affecting school children's attitude towards scratching of trees

Scratching or carving on trees by visitors is a common depreciative behaviour in most recreational forest. Besides spoiling the tree's beauty, damaging its wood, causing infection, thwarting tree's growth or even causing its death, scratch marks on trees will potentially make visitors feel angry and uneasy. Wetlands Environmental Interpretation Program (WEIP) was designed by the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) to tackle this problem. About 72 fifth graders of two approximately similar classes from a National Primary School in FRIM were participants of an experiment. The effects of WEIP on the children's attitude towards depreciative behaviour were investigated. A self-administered questionnaire was given in situ to both the intervention and control groups. The respondents' behaviours were monitored for depreciative behaviours. The results revealed that interpretive learning experiences positively affected the school children's attitude towards scratching on trees. The message conveyed through environmental interpretative learning experiences could help resource managers in curtailing depreciative behaviours by influencing human attitude on the negative acts on flora, fauna, human and the environment

The use of interactional metadiscourse in the construction of gender identities among Malaysian ESL learners

The study investigates how interactional metadiscourse resources are used to articulate and construct gender identity among ESL learners in Malaysia. The main purpose of the study is to provide language practitioners with empirical data of how gender is projected in the academic writings of ESL learners and to what extent learners’ writings are affected by their gender. The data can then be utilised for the design and development of more effective academic writing courses in Malaysia. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed on the similarities and differences in the use of interactional metadiscourse resources, namely; hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers and self mentions between male and female ESL learners involved in the study. The findings of the quantitative analyses show no obvious differences in the writing style of female and male writers in the study, while the qualitative findings reveal slight differences in the way writers position themselves in the reader/writer interaction and in the expression of agreement statement

Effectiveness of using Listening Media Software (LMS) in teaching listening in EFL in Indonesia / Pegiawan Basopi ... [et al.]

The study seeks (1) to examine the effectiveness of using Listening Media Software (LMS) in improving different listening skills tested in the National Examination Listening Test (NELT) among third-grade students from a private senior high school in Indonesia and (2) to determine the effectiveness of LMS in improving the students’ overall listening comprehension. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design, involving 64 third-grade students of Madrasah Aliyah Muhammadiyah Al-Furqon Tasikmalaya, Indonesia, who were divided equally into a control group and an experimental group. Data were collected by means of a pre-test and a post-test. The results of the analysis indicate that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group in different sections of the National Examination Listening Test (NELT). Paired sample t-test of the means of the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group, obtained a p value of α=0.000, thus, the null hypothesis (H0) was rejected, and the alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted. The study concludes that the use of LMS was effective in improving students’ overall listening comprehension of the third-grade students involved in this study

Improving Environmental Performance of the Muslim World: Evidence from Affluent Countries

Both the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds have a shared commitment to mitigate environmental degradation and repair already degraded areas. However, not much has been said about the good environmental performance of the affluent states of the Muslim world. This study uses the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by the University of Yale to analyse how to design better strategies for the upper-middle income (UMIE) and high-income Muslim countries (HIE) when dealing with their environmental performance. This study proposes that the choice of strategy should depend on the environmental and political economy of the countries, the status and ranking of their environmental performance, and an openness to learning from the successes of the environmental foreign policy successes of other affluent Muslim countries. Keywords: Environmental performance, Environmental degradation, Environmental foreign policy, Energy JEL Classifications: O13, Q, Q56 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.778

Petunjuk prestasi utama: ke arah pemantapan kualiti di UiTM Pahang / Sa'diah Sahat, Roslina Abdul Aziz dan Mazlina Suhaimi

Petunjuk Prestasi Utama atau Key Performance Indicators (KPI) perlu dilaksanakan di organisasi sebagaimana kehendak Pekeliling Kemajuan Pentadbiran Awam (PKPA) Bilangan 2 tahun 2005 dengan keperluan pengukuran dilaksanakan sekurang-kurangnya sekali pada setiap suku tahun. Garispanduan yang ditetapkan menyatakan bagi setiap KPI yang telah diwujudkan, sasaran prestasi yang "SMART" perlu ditetapkan bagi membolehkan KPI berkenaan diukur. Kaplan Norton Balance Score Card (BSC) menjadi asas pembentukan petunjuk prestasi utama di fakulti/ unit bagi pemantapan dan penambahbaikan kualiti di UiTM Pahang dengan menggabungkan 7 kriteria di dalam Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) dan 4 perspektif BSC