Malay Secondary School Students' Social Support Preferences: Implications for Support Network Interventions

This exploratory study seeks to identify urban-Malay secondary school students' perceptions regarding the degrees of importance of twelve common social support (5S) types and six salient individual SS sources, in relation to an academic problem. The levels of importance/preference ascribed to the SS types and sources of SS were also examined for gender differences. 164 respondents (71 males and 93 females) volumarily participated in the study. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire. The twelve categories of SS were derived from Richard E. Pearson's (1986) Personal Support System Survey. Results showed that subjects' preferences with respect to SS for academic problems are multifaceted. They desire a combination of informational, emotional and appraisal supports from others. Subjects rated 'guidance' as the most important supportive response should they experience academic problems. Perceptions regarding the levels of importance attached to each SS type also differed between gender. Students perceived their parents as the most important source of SS. Of their parents, mothers were regarded as more important. The findings suggest that to help Malay students with academic problems, S5-focused interventions need to be multifaceted, teachers and counselors need training in collaborating with parents regarding their children's academic difficulties, parental support is more preferred than support from others, student-teacher communication needs improvement. Gender differences in SS type preferences need further examination

Work-family conflict and its antecedents among single mother employees

Researchers have identified work-family conflict as one of the major stressors in the workplace leading to various negative outcomes, including impaired well-being. Although many studies have been conducted on the experience of work-family conflict on dual-earner couples, only a few were conducted on single parent employees. This study examines work-family conflict among single mother employees and its antecedents including dispositional (locus of control and perfectionism), job (role overload, role conflict and job flexibility) and organizational (supervisor support) factors. Data were gathered from 159 Malaysian single mother employees using self-administered questionnaires. The findings of the study indicated that 66% of the single mother employees experienced moderate to high levels of work-family conflict. The factors that characterize employees disposition including locus of control and perfectionism, their job factors including role conflict and role overload, as well as their supervisors’ support contributed significantly (51%) to work-family conflict. The findings imply the need for measures to be taken by employees, human resource managers and organizations pertaining to the antecedent factors to help reduce the level of work-family conflict

Reliability Analysis of the Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES) In a Malaysian Context: A Preliminary Study

AbstractNumerous research findings have highlighted counseling self-efficacy, defined as the strength of perceived competencies in successfully performing the tasks and roles of a counselor, as one of the most important factors affecting counselors’ performance. This preliminary study incorporated item analysis and reliability analysis to determine the quality of the items, and reliability of the Counselor Activity Self-efficacy Scale (CASES) developed by Lent, Hill, and Hoffman (2003) in a Malaysian setting. It involved 30 final year students of Bachelor of Education (Guidance and Counseling) program in a public university in Malaysia. CASES is a self-administered instrument used to measure counseling students’ self-efficacy regarding their helping skills, management of counseling process, and coping with challenges of different counseling situations. Item analyses revealed that majority of the items of CASES are of high quality. The findings confirmed the overall internal reliability of the scale (alpha=.98). Specifically, subsections of the scale were highly reliable in measuring counseling self-efficacy of university students, helping skills (alpha=.93), management of counseling process (alpha=.95), coping with challenges of different counseling situations (alpha=.97). Implications of the findings for counselor education and areas for future research are discussed

Age as moderated influence on the link of spiritual and emotional intelligence with mental health in high school students

This study examined whether, spiritual intelligence (SI) and emotional intelligence (EI) can be considered as predictor for mental health. The present investigation was also to test the moderating effects of age on the relationship of SI and EI with mental health among high school students. The participants in the study were 247 High school students (124 male and 123 female) in the age range of 14-17 years old, at the Gorgan City, north of Iran. Three valid and reliable instruments were used to assess SI, EI and mental health. Descriptive statistics, multiple and moderated regression analysis were used to analyses the data. The result demonstrated that mental health can be influences by SI and EI. In addition, the moderated effect of age on the relationship of SI and EI with mental health was not found

The effects of multisensory method and cognitive skills training on perceptual performance and reading ability among dyslexic students in Tehran-Iran

The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of cognitive (cognitive skills training) and developmental intervention (sensory-perceptual skills training) on performance and reading ability of dyslexic students. In the study 60 dyslexic students participated and they were divided into three experimental groups including 20 students as the first experimental group (E1), 20 students as the second experimental group (E2), and 20 students as the control group (C). The effectiveness of the 16-session intervention for both E1 and E2 groups was measured by Reading and Dyslexic test (RTD) as screening test at the beginning and followed by the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test (BVMGT) and Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure test (ROCF). The results were analyzed by using analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare mean scores among the three dyslexic groups after intervention. Findings suggest that developmental intervention significantly improves RDT, BVMGT and memory scale of ROCF performance of dyslexic students. However, cognitive intervention does not appear to significantly increase performance of the students compared to the control group

Differences in counselors' career outputs in view of licensure status in Malaysia

Malaysia is a rapidly developing country. In the last decade, the availability of counseling services has been getting progressive attention and there arises the question of who govern the standard and practice of the counseling service providers. In Malaysia, school counselors are encouraged to register under the Malaysia Board of Counselor which is subjected to the Counselors Act 1998 or Act 580 of the Laws of Malaysia. This paper aimed to study and examine the licensure status of Malaysia school counselors and its’ relation with their career outputs. Three hundred and forty five secondary school counselors in Malaysia responded via paper and online survey. The result shows counselors who are registered with the Malaysia Board of Counselor demonstrated higher levels of job satisfaction, career success, professional commitment and self-perceived employability. The reasons of not registered were also explored and discussed in this paper. The recommendation and suggestions for future policy development and governance were discussed

The mediating role of spirituality between self-value and counselling attitudes among Nigerian students in Malaysian universities

This study examined the mediating role of spirituality between self-value and counselling attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help among Nigerian students in Malaysian universities. The sample consisted of 394 Nigerian students who are currently enrolled in 10 randomly selected universities across Malaysia. They completed self-report questionnaires administered one-on-one in each of the selected institutions. It was hypothesized that there is no mediating relationship between self-value and counselling attitudes through spirituality. Two levels of quantitative research are presented: descriptive and correlational. SPSS version 22 and SEM analyses (descriptive statistics/AMOS) gave a contrary result, therefore the null hypothesis was rejected and it was concluded that spirituality mediated the relationship between self-value and counselling attitudes. Limitations in the current study, such as sample size, and directions for future studies to address the limitations are discussed

Efficacy of group cognitive behavioral therapy on depression among Muslim parents of autistic children in Jordan

Parents with autistic children usually are advised to reduce depression in order to improve their mental health. However, studies on depression among parents of autistic children in Jordan are limited. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of group Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) among parents of autistics children in Jordan. An announcement was made for a group cognitive behavioral therapy at three special needs centers in Irbid- Jordan and BDI-II was administrated to 87 parents. Accordingly, 60 parents with the lowest test score were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. Participants were tested in three times with the same scales, pre-test, post-test and follow up. Employing SPSS version 19 and repeated measures ANOVA, the three times scores of the experimental and control groups were compared. Result indicated that the participants have reduced their depression across time (T1, T2 and T3). Result showed that 50% of the variability in the depression within the participants may be due to the group counselling treatment. These findings are shown that there is significant difference at all times. These implied that the treatment had a strong lasting effect after one month of group counselling treatment. Moreover, results of this study also indicated that significant difference was found between the experimental and control groups (p < .001, ɳp2 = .56). This indicated that, experimental group is better than the control group in term of Depression by 56%. In conclusion, this study implied that group cognitive behaviour therapy is an effective treatment for depression among parents of autistic children

Self- spirituality and its advantageous impact for positive counselling attitudes among youths

This paper presents the influences of self-spirituality for prosperous Counselling attitudes among youths with particular focus on Nigerian students in Malaysian Universities, towards becoming positive agents of change in the society. The research paper analyses ways in which self-spirituality can be applied independently as a Counselling means to achieve positive attitudes among these university students. The Null hypothesis stated that there are no significant and direct relationships between self-spirituality and counselling attitudes. To carry out the research, two instruments were combined in a quantitative survey involving 394 students that were systematically drawn from ten randomly selected universities in Malaysia. The results of the data analysis indicate the fact that self-spirituality has a positive impact on counselling attitudes with (β =0.212 and p value = 0.002). The null hypothesis was therefore rejected. The analysis ends with a discussion that provides recommendations that can be adopted to ensure success of the self-spirituality use in counselling. The paper suggested with remarkable conclusion that since spirituality plays such an important role in every society, there should be more nurturing of it in the society while the Guidance Counsellors work towards directing the young people on the right path of God