Reading performance of Malaysian students across gender in PISA 2012

The 2012 PISA reading literacy aims to measure 15 year-olds’ reading performance in preparing them to meet real-life challenges. The primary aim of the present study is to examine Malaysian students’ reading performance by comparing the girls’ and boys’ performances in PISA 2012. The 2012 PISA reading literacy framework comprises three important reading aspects: access and retrieve (AR), interpret and integrate (II), and reflect and evaluate (RE). These aspects were further examined through the students’ reading performance in five types of text namely narration, exposition, argumentation, description and instruction. The findings demonstrate that the students performed better in AR than in II and RE indicating a better performance in lower-order reading skills than in the higher-level reading aspects. Findings also show that girls outperformed the boys across all reading aspects and types of reading texts. This paper concludes by emphasizing the need to integrate higher-order reading skills in the reading curriculum in order to prepare Malaysian students for better literacy competency

Error analysis in academic writing: a case of international postgraduate students in Malaysia

This paper examines the different types of writing errors performed by 16 international postgraduate students undertaking an intensive English course at a public university in Malaysia. It was mandatory for international postgraduate students who obtained less than IELTS Band 6 to undertake an Intensive English Course (IEC) offered by the University, prior to entering their respective faculties’ academic programs. The students were required to write a 3-5 page term paper assignment on a topic related to their field of study. Mixed methodology approach was employed to examine and analyze corpus of students’ term papers. The errors in the term papers were identified and classified accordingly. The results of the study revealed that four most common English language errors committed by the participants were sentence structure, articles, punctuation and capitalization. This study also shed light on the manner in which students assumed the rules of English to that of their native language. Such insight is useful for both instructors and students because it provides significant information on the building blocks experienced by English language learners in academic writing

A tool to measure engineering students' design strategies and abilities

Malaysia is moving from service-based industries to knowledge-based industries to achieve Vision 2020. This is also in line with innovation-led economy and globalization. Hence, there is a pressing need to transform the current engineering education system to meet the ever-growing roles and responsibilities of contemporary engineers. Design is central to engineering activity because students can apply the theoretical knowledge into practice. Students' engineering design knowledge and abilities are unknown when they enroll into the engineering programs. These engineering programs are either too low or too advanced for the students' design abilities. Hence, dropout rates in the engineering programs escalate each year. The invention is an online questionnaire which will assist in determining students' engineering design knowledge and abilities. It will guide engineering faculties in identifying suitable candidates for their engineering program through the scores obtained by the students. The scores will determine the students' level of engineering design knowledge. This will function as a mechanism for the faculties to filter the candidates' knowledge of engineering design and reduce the number of dropouts from the engineering program

Lost in transition: electronic learning in Malaysian Universities

This book is designed to answer several questions with regards to policy issues and the development of electronic learning in Malaysian universities. The role of policies at the level of national government, university administration and the individual experience of academics are analysed to provide a better perspective on this challenging topic. This book claims that e–learning as currently employed by Malaysian universities does not match the stated mission of the universities or the government. The lack of a national IT policy for the universities has significantly affected the implementation of e–learning strategies in Malaysian tertiary institutions. The book argues that both the national economy and the tertiary education sectors have suffered from the absence of a national IT strategy that could have given better direction to the universities

Internet and language teaching

The Internet is increasingly used by Malaysian higher institutions. However, there is lack of evidence on the application of the Internet in the universities as well as the teachers’ view on their Internet application in language teaching. The aim of this research is to seek the perception of Malaysian English language lecturers on the use of Internet in language teaching and learning. Respondents who are teaching in two universities were the subjects of this research. Results show that most of the teachers applied the Internet in their language teaching and believed that the Internet is a valuable teaching tool

Vision 2020, the Multimedia Supercorridor and Malaysian Universities

Malaysia is one of the most ‘globalised’ countries in the Asian region. This statement is based on Kearney’s ranking of 62 countries using 14 indicators to test the degree of globalisation. Table 1 ranks some of the important Asian countries - from those that are the least integrated into the world system to the most integrated. Integrated and globalisation in this sense, are used as synonyms throughout this paper. Malaysia’s global position in 2004 reflected the achievements of the previous decades. In the 1990s, for example, the Malaysia government decided push the country in the direction of transforming itself from an industrial base into a K-economy based on knowledge and information technology. The universities were expected to play a role in this, but have they? This paper seeks to map out the contours of Malaysia’s integration in the world system, how this relates to Mr Mahathir’s ‘Vision 2020’ and finally how all of this has impacted on the higher educational sector

Mobile learning to support teaching English as a second language

Technology utilization in distance education has demonstrated its significance in the transfer of knowledge for both the instructors and the learners. This is also made possible through the use of the Internet which helps change the traditional teaching approaches into more modern methods when integrated with the pedagogical instruction. Mobile devices together with other forms of technology-based tools in education have established their potential in language teaching. In this regards, the Teaching of English as a Second Language (TESL) has become easier and more attractive via mobile learning. The aim of this study is to review the mobile-based teaching and learning in the English language classroom. Such integration of mobile learning with English language teaching may offer great innovations in the pedagogical delivery