Work-family conflict and well-being among employed women in Malaysia: The roles of coping and work-family facilitation

As the numbers of employed women, single-parent households, and dual-earner families are increasing, women are no longer confined to their traditional gender roles. Women’s participation in work and family domains indicates their struggles in juggling multiple roles and incompatible demands from both domains. Under these circumstances, they may experience conflict between work and family domains. However, women’s involvement in multiple roles may also result in benefits that can outweigh the costs associated with work-family conflict, and this is known as work-family facilitation. Work-family facilitation has received less attention in the literature than work-family conflict. Most research in the work-family literature has examined work-family conflict and work-family facilitation separately. Furthermore, most studies that examine work-family facilitation investigated the antecedents, effects, and its mediating role. Little emphasis has been placed on the moderating role of work-family facilitation. The present study was conducted among single and married employed women in Malaysia. Although they are the breadwinners of the family alongside the men, Malaysian women place their roles as wives and mothers above other roles (Hossain, Roopnarine, Ismail, Hashmi, & Sombuling, 2007). Due to different cultural traditions, societal values, work ethos, and family structures between Malaysia and Western countries, the findings from Western literature cannot be simply generalised to Malaysians. The present research involved a non-experimental two-wave design with a six- to eight-month time interval. Self-report surveys were obtained from 740 employed women at Time 1 and 210 at Time 2 from six industry types in Malaysia. Multivariate analysis was used to assess the direct effects of work-family conflict, coping, and work-family facilitation on well-being (social dysfunction, anxiety/depression, intention to leave, intention to stay, job satisfaction, family satisfaction, and life satisfaction). Hierarchical regression was also used to examine the moderating effects of coping and work-family facilitation on the relationships between work-family conflict and well-being. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the mediating effect of work-family facilitation on the relationship between work-family conflict and well-being. The cross-sectional and longitudinal findings of this study confirmed the findings in Western literature on the direct effects of work-family conflict and work-family facilitation on well-being, except for the positive association of FWC behaviour and family satisfaction at Time 1. While the other types of coping were related to increased well-being, high escape-avoidance at Times 1 and 2 in this study was associated with high anxiety/depression in the cross-sectional data. No longitudinal direct effect of coping on well-being was found. The cross-sectional findings of this study indicated very weak support for the moderating effects of coping and work-family facilitation on the relationship between work-family conflict and well-being. There were minimal interactions between coping and work-family conflict on intention to stay over time, and the interactions were not as hypothesised. This study also found some cross-sectional mediating roles of work-family facilitation on the relationship of work-family conflict and well-being among employed women in Malaysia. The cross-sectional findings indicated that work-family facilitation variables serve better as mediators than moderators. Both work-to-family facilitation (WFF) and family-to-work facilitation (FWF) mediated the relationship of family-to-work conflict (FWC) time and social dysfunction, intention to leave, intention to stay, job satisfaction, family satisfaction, and life satisfaction at Time 1. At time 2, WFF mediated the relationships of work-to-family conflict (WFC) strain and behaviour and FWC (strain and behaviour) and social dysfunction, family satisfaction, and life satisfaction, whereas FWF only mediated the relationship between FWC behaviour and family satisfaction. Although WFF mediated the relationship of FWC behaviour and intention to leave, and FWF mediated the relationship between WFC time and intention to leave over time, the relationships were not as hypothesised. This research makes some theoretical contributions and expands the landscape of work-family literature by examining the roles of work-family facilitation as a moderator and mediator of the relationship between different directions and types of work-family conflict and well-being, in both cross-sectional and longitudinal models. Additionally, this study provides useful information on the different types of coping strategies as moderators in the work-family model tested, and its application to the Malaysian culture. The findings may help the human resource practitioners understand how work-family conflict and facilitation, together with coping strategies, influenced employees’ well-being. Implications of the research are discussed and recommendations for future research are included

2020 tracer study report

Assalamualaikum arahmatullahi wabarakatuh, Last year and the current year have been turbulent years due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Universities were closed for most of the days and classes were conducted online. Convocations were cancelled or postponed and hence it has affected the collection of data involving graduates of the year 2020. The Alumni Relations Division and the Counselling and Career Services Centre had done their best to collect necessary data for this Tracer Study report. As with other universities globally, the current condition has also affected the employability rate of the graduates. This document reports the Tracer Study findings that were compiled using the results of data analysed from the 2020 graduates. Graduates answered 2 sets of online survey questionnaires – one constructed by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and another constructed by the 2020 IIUM Tracer Study team. The MOE survey consists of eight main parts/ categories. PART A: Respondent’s Background, PART B: Current Job Status, PART C: Employment, PART D: Unemployed/ Not Working and Others, PART E: Further Studies, PART F: Evaluation of Programmes and Services Offered by Respective Institution, PART G: Effectiveness of Study Programme and Self Readiness and PART H: Agreement. Respondents who were employed were asked to complete Section C, to clarify about their employment status, occupation, income, and other work‐related particulars. Graduates who were not working at the time of the survey were asked to complete Section D, which asked their reasons for not working, job search, and preferences. Those who were doing further studies were asked to complete Section E. All respondents were asked to complete Sections F and G. The IIUM questionnaire consists of ten parts which include categories on the graduates’ level of satisfaction of different offices and services offered by IIUM, self-perception of Islam and Islamisation, conditions related to mental health and well-being, involvement in community programmes and realization of Sustainable Development Goals. A total of 4,338 graduates participated in completing MOHE survey – 3804 Bachelor’s degree graduates, 425 Master graduates, and 109 PhD graduates. They were representatives from fourteen Kulliyyah at IIUM as well as two institutes, namely INHART, and IIiBF. Another Institute, INSTAC was not represented in the MOHE survey but 2 of their students completed the IIUM survey. For completeness, comparison and presentation of charts/ graphs by Kulliyyah include the Institutes although their number of students are less. The findings of this Tracer Study are presented in thirteen different sections. The first section presented the profile of the graduates with the details of their employment profile in the second one. The third section reports on graduates’ entrepreneurship situation during study with the fourth section presenting the details on non-working graduates. This is followed by the fifth section on career, guidance and counselling services (CGCS) and the sixth section on academic programmes. The seventh sections examine the facilities and services offered by IIUM which include Mahallah, Library, Kulliyyah, Career, Guidance and Counselling services, etc. The eighth section examines the graduates’ perception of the effectiveness of their study programme and self-readiness after their study, while the ninth section examines students’ job-seeking behaviour. IIUM missions of islamisation, which is considered important to IIUM is presented in section ten together with other components of IIUM’s mission such as internationalisation, and integration of knowledge. Section eleven reveals IIUM graduates’ psychological condition; Section twelve about the sustainable development goals (SDGS), and finally section thirteen detailing what the graduates’ perceive of their experiences in IIUM

Utilizing decision tree machine model to map dental students’ preferred learning styles with suitable instructional strategies

Background Growing demand for student-centered learning (SCL) has been observed in higher education settings including dentistry. However, application of SCL in dental education is limited. Hence, this study aimed to facilitate SCL application in dentistry utilising a decision tree machine learning (ML) technique to map dental students’ preferred learning styles (LS) with suitable instructional strategies (IS) as a promising approach to develop an IS recommender tool for dental students. Methods A total of 255 dental students in Universiti Malaya completed the modified Index of Learning Styles (m-ILS) questionnaire containing 44 items which classified them into their respective LS. The collected data, referred to as dataset, was used in a decision tree supervised learning to automate the mapping of students' learning styles with the most suitable IS. The accuracy of the ML-empowered IS recommender tool was then evaluated. Results The application of a decision tree model in the automation process of the mapping between LS (input) and IS (target output) was able to instantly generate the list of suitable instructional strategies for each dental student. The IS recommender tool demonstrated perfect precision and recall for overall model accuracy, suggesting a good sensitivity and specificity in mapping LS with IS. Conclusion The decision tree ML empowered IS recommender tool was proven to be accurate at matching dental students’ learning styles with the relevant instructional strategies. This tool provides a workable path to planning student-centered lessons or modules that potentially will enhance the learning experience of the students

Work-family conflict and well-being among employed women in Malaysia: The mediating role of work-to-family facilitation

Sorotan penulisan tentang kerja dan keluarga yang sedia ada di Malaysia lebih menjurus kepada konflik kerja-keluarga. Walaubagaimanapun, kebanyakan kajian terkini mendapati bahawa mengimbangi kerja dan keluarga tidak hanya memberi kesan negatif kepada pekerja. Oleh sebabitu, kajian ini dijalankan untuk menguji kesan perantaraan fasilitasi kerja-kepada-keluarga terhadap hubungan antara konflik kerja-keluarga dan kesejahteraan (termasuk kesihatan psikologi, niat untuk berhenti kerja, kepuasan kerja, kepuasan keluarga, dan kepuasan hidup). Menerusi kajian ini, fasilitasi kerja-kepada-keluarga dijangka mempunyai kesan perantara terhadap hubungan antara konflik kerja-keluarga dan kesejahteraan. Satu kajian soal selidik keratan rentas telah dijalankan di mana seramai 210 orang pekerja wanita daripada beberapa organisasi di Malaysia melengkapkan soalan kaji selidik melalui persampelan bertujuan. Analisis pengesahan faktor telah dijalankan bagi memeriksa struktur faktor setiap skalayang digunakan dan analisa permodelan persamaan struktur telah digunakan untuk menganalisis data. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bukti-bukti kewujudan kesan perantara fasilitasi kerja-kepada-keluarga terhadap hubungan konflik kerja-keluarga dan kesejahteraan. Artikel ini turut membincangkan implikasi kajian, limitasi kajian, dan cadangan penambahbaikan untuk kajian yang akan datang