Exploring the relationship between role overload and intention to leave the profession among elementary school teachers

Teacher role overload has vibrantly been of a considerable concern for school administrators since the birth of formal education. The phenomenon often leads to teacher early departure from the profession due to uncontrolled stressors. This study investigates the relationship between role overload and intention to leave the profession among teachers in three Chinese medium elementary schools in Malaysia. It also explores whether or not role overload exists in the sampled schools. The study uses a convenience sampling technique and distributed 65 survey questionnaires to the sampled school teachers. The findings reveal that role overload had moderately correlated with intention to leave the profession among teachers in the sampled schools. Furthermore, the findings also disclose that aspects role overload moderately existed in the settings of the sampled schools. The practical and theoretical implications of the study for teachers, school administrators, and further research on the teachers? role overload related issues were also addressed

The effect of Young's modulus on the neuronal differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells

There is substantial evidence that cells produce a diverse response to changes in ECM stiffness depending on their identity. Our aim was to understand how stiffness impacts neuronal differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESC's), and how this varies at three specific stages of the differentiation process. In this investigation, three effects of stiffness on cells were considered; attachment, expansion and phenotypic changes during differentiation. Stiffness was varied from 2 kPa to 18 kPa to finally 35 kPa. Attachment was found to decrease with increasing stiffness for both ESC's (with a 95% decrease on 35 kPa compared to 2 kPa) and neural precursors (with a 83% decrease on 35 kPa). The attachment of immature neurons was unaffected by stiffness. Expansion was independent of stiffness for all cell types, implying that the proliferation of cells during this differentiation process was independent of Young's modulus. Stiffness had no effect upon phenotypic changes during differentiation for mESC's and neural precursors. 2 kPa increased the proportion of cells that differentiated from immature into mature neurons. Taken together our findings imply that the impact of Young's modulus on attachment diminishes as neuronal cells become more mature. Conversely, the impact of Young's modulus on changes in phenotype increased as cells became more mature