Identifying Predictors of Academic Success for Part-Time Students at Polytechnic Institutes in Malaysia

A central challenge for higher education today is to understand the diversity and complexity of nontraditional students’ life experiences and how these factors influence their academic success. To better understand these issues, this study explored the role of demographic characteristics and employment variables in predicting the academic success of part-time students at four polytechnic institutes in Malaysia. Demographic characteristics studied included respondent’s age, gender, marital status, number of children, parent’s educational level, and financial resources. Employment variables assessed were number of years working, job relatedness to the program, job satisfaction, and monthly salary. A total of 614 part-time students completed the survey. Results indicated that being an older student, being female, paying for their own education, and having high job satisfaction were statistically significant predictors of part-time students’ academic success. Understanding the effects of demographic characteristics and employment variables on students’ academic success might help administrators and educators to develop teaching and learning processes, support services, and policies to enhance part-time students’ academic success

Continuance intention of Learning Management System (LMS) among lecturers in northern polytechnic, Malaysia

This study aims to determine the factors influencing continuance intention of LMS among lecturers in northern polytechnic, Malaysia. This study use four elements of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT): Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence and Facilitating Condition to determine the impact of continuance intention of LMS. One element, Self-Efficacy was also added to identify the continuance intention of LMS among lecturers in northern polytechnic, Malaysia. Furthermore, this study is intended to examine the relationship and effect between continuance intention of LMS and factors influencing the usage of LMS. A total of 248 polytechnic lecturers from three Northern Polytechnic have participated in this study. Self-administrated survey questionnaire has been used to collect all variables data. The result of Multiple Regression analysis indicated that social influence, facilitating condition, and self-efficacy significantly affect the continuance intention to use LMS among lecturers in northern polytechnic. However, performance expectancy and effort expectancy showed insignificant influence towards the continuance intention. Among all predictors, facilitating condition has the strongest influence on the continuance intention to use LMS among lecturers in northern polytechnic. This study concludes with a discussion of the research findings, theoretical and practical contribution, limitation of the study and suggestion for future research

Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intention Among Students of Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi Uku, Delta State of Nigeria

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether the course, entrepreneurship education is yielding the desired result of enhancing the capabilities of Nigerian graduates by creating in them the right mindset towards creating their own businesses rather than looking for non existing jobs. This is achieved through the analysis of relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention among students of Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi Uku. This study made use of survey research design and was centered on only the final year students of the department of business administration. Data were collected for the study through the administration of structured questionnaires from three hundred and fifty (350) students of which three hundred and forty (340) were retrieved. Data analysis made use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results from the regression analysis revealed that entrepreneurship education has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions of students with R squared value of 0.751, p-value = 0.000 which implies that 75 percent of the variation in entrepreneurial intentions is explained by variation in entrepreneurship education of students. From the studies, it was also discovered that personality has strong influence on students’ intention to venture into businesses after their graduation from school, with an R squared value of 0.737 and a p-value of 0.000. This informed the rejection of the null hypothesis that personality has no significant influence on entrepreneurship intention of students of Delta state polytechnic to venture into their own businesses after their education. It is therefore a matter of further research to investigate the reasons why graduates find it difficult to complete the AIDA cycle of Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. Entrepreneurial education has greatly helped to create attention and stimulate both their interest and desire to venture into businesses. What is left is therefore the final push to put into practice what they have learnt. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-20-09 Publication date:July 31st 201

Identifying of the fuel-air mixing, mixture formation, ignition and combustion characteristic in the combustion chamber

The area within the cylinder where the fuel/air mix is ignited is known as combustion chamber. As the piston compresses the fuel/air mixture and makes contact with the spark plug, the mixture is combusted in the form of energy and pushed out of the combustion chamber. The purpose of this technical paper is basically discussing about the combustion chamber which is more specific to injection fuel. This paper represents the identifying of the fuel-air mixing, mixture formation, ignition and combustion characteristic in the combustion chamber. The methodology used were by choosing the best article with the outcome related to this study and related to this research parameter. There are included the ignition system which are ignition system in combustion system (plasma) and ignition system in combustion system (laser) plasma is a new compact generator of high-voltage nanosecond pulses on the basis of the drift step recovery diodes combined with a control unit. Laser ignition is considered to be one of the most promising future ignition concepts for internal combustion engines. It not only combines requirement of reduction of pollutant emissions but also improves engine efficiencies

A review of influencing factors for selection of engineering pathway for women: A case study of females studying engineering at Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), New Zealand

Females are underrepresented in engineering cohorts in New Zealand. The lack of female participation in engineering fields at the tertiary education level has been a barrier for diversity and equality in both the industry and academic professions. A recent study by Docherty et al. [11] noted girls coming to engineering at Canterbury University, New Zealand are more likely to be from a single sex school and this phenomenon can be due to cultural reasons. They identified that future work is needed to look at the cultural changes in New Zealand which could potentially mitigate the gender bias. However, we first need to identify a range of contributing factors (including cultural issues) for the lack of diversity in engineering schools in New Zealand. By identifying these factors, we can then propose and implement necessary remediation actions to address the lack of female participation in engineering. Common influencing factors for female participation in STEM and selection of engineering pathways were found during a review of literature and included parental and teacher influences, self-efficacy, perception and attitude, gender stereotypes, and peer and media influences. We believe that New Zealand context in terms of how it influences female study and career pathway to engineering has not been well studied and documented to date. The objective of this research is to identify the main factors and cultural issues that contribute to low female participation in engineering studies in New Zealand. We carried out individual and focus group interviews on both domestic and international female students at Wintec enrolled in the Diploma, Bachelor of Engineering Technology and Graduate Diploma programmes in Civil Engineering. The interviews helped us to understand our students’ perspectives around the factors that influenced their study decisions. We used the collected data to identify patterns and generate themes

The Factors of Influence towards Knowledge Sharing Among TVET Educators: A Study on TVET Educators within Hulu Langat District

Similar to other higher education institutions, knowledge sharing among highly skilled instructors and other instructors is important in improving the quality of training and skills development in the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions. In this borderless world, information technology enables knowledge sharing activities to be carried out more efficiently, quickly and widely. Understanding the influencing factors of knowledge sharing activities in TVET institutions is important since a number of failures have been reported due to the lack of awareness in contributing new knowledge. Therefore, this study is conducted to identify the factors that influence knowledge sharing activities among instructors in TVET institutions and to propose a framework to the knowledge sharing activities. A quantitative study involving 96 respondents was conducted and the data that was analysed using multiple regression analysis found that there are four (4) factors that contribute to knowledge sharing activities in TVET institutions: organizational, content, cooperation and technological. The proposed framework is expected to assist in the development of a repository of knowledge sharing among instructors in TVET institutions

A PERCEPTION-BASED VIEW OF EMPLOYEES AND STRATEGIC PLAN IMPLEMENTATION IN PUBLIC TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION TRAINING INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA

Despite the existence of strategic plans in public Technical and Vocational Education training institutions in Kenya, there seems to be a problem in the implementation process. This study therefore sought to investigate the influence of employees’ perception on strategic plan implementation in public Technical and Vocational Education training institutions (TVET) within Rift valley region, Kenya. The study was guided by the following hypothesis: Ho: There is no statistically significant difference between employee’s perception and strategy implementation in public TVET within Rift valley region, Kenya. Change Management theory supported the specific objectives of the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design using both qualitative and quantitative approach. The target population was 1255 employees in selected public TVET institutions; while a sample size of two hundred ninety four (294) respondents was drawn using purposive and stratified random sampling. Primary data were collected using questionnaires and interviews and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that employees perception based on their level of management and implementation of strategic plan were strongly positively related and significant. It accounted for 94.5% of the total variations in strategic plan implementation. The findings are expected to be of value to the management and decision makers to form a basis for improving implementation of strategic plans in higher education. The study revealed that there was a diversity in opinion between the top management and lower management on strategic plan implementation and thus calls for special attention to all employees so as to ensure successful implementation.   Article visualizations

Academic Credentials, Students’ Characteristics, Decision Making Behaviour Of Malaysian Polytechnics Students And Their Educational Choice

An understanding of the decision making process of post secondary education by students is needed for administrators to successfully recruit and retain students. This study seeks to provide research findings on Malaysian polytechnics’ students educational choices regarding Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) in terms of enrolment programme with students’ characteristics, academic credentials and decision making behaviour. Student characteristics, academic credentials and decision making behaviour were assessed via a self-report questionnaire; data included socioeconomic status (SES), educational aspirations, performance in secondary school, availability of desired programmes, employment opportunities, satisficing, decision difficulty and alternative search