Ethnic and religious tolerance: barrier factors and improvement measures based on Malay youth perspectives in Malaysia

Ethnic and religious unity is a thing that every country wishes for not exempting Malaysia. Tolerance among the population is very much expected to achieve this. Nevertheless, ethnic and religious diversity in Malaysia is often seen as a challenge for realizing tolerance and thus creating unity. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the barrier factors for ethnic and religious tolerance while at the same time identifying proposals for improvement measures to tolerance among the community. Hence, the Focus Group Discussion or FGD study design was used by involving 20 Malay youth informants as information providers. As a result of the analysis it can be concluded that there are six themes that exist as a barrier factor to ethnic and religious tolerance, namely (i) social gap; 38.06 percent, (ii) political debate; 16.42 percent, (iii) religious differences; 16.42 percent, (iv) economic inequality; 11.94 percent, (v) rights and constitution; 11.94 percent, and (vi) primordial sentiment; 5.22 percent. Meanwhile, in addressing the problem of ethnic and religious tolerance, the informants also proposed four perspectives on improvement measures i.e. (i) social empowerment; 71.19 percent, (ii) political role; 15.25 percent, (iii) the rule of law; 10.17 percent, and (iv) maintaining the image of Islam; 3.39 percent. The issues are important to be scrutinized because the practice of good ethnic and religious tolerance can unite the community, thereby driving the stability and progress of the country

Attitudes toward physical activities among college students

This study examined perceived benefits and barriers of physical activities among college students. Exercises Benefits/Barriers Scale (Sechrist, Walker, and Pender, 1987) was administered to 80 participants. Results indicated that the most common perceived benefits to physical activity for both female and male students were enjoyment of exercises, and decreased feelings of stress and tension. The female students also reported that exercise improves mental health, while for male students it improves strength. Among females students, the most common barrier to exercising is having no time to exercise, whereas for male students wanting to do other things with their time. Costly to exercise, lack of encouragement from family, taking too much time to exercise, and embarrassment are the other common barriers to physical activity

The Understanding of Meaning and Cultural Significance of Leisure, Recreation and Sport in Malaysia towards Capitalizing Human Resources

This paper is concerned with examining the impact towards capitalizing human resource (i) the meaning of leisure, recreation and sport in the context of Malay language and (ii) the cultural significance of leisure, recreation and sport in Malaysia. There is no single word in Malay that could be translated as leisure and recreation. Most Malaysians understand leisure as “kegiatan masa lapang” (free time activity) or “waktu senggang” and recreation as” riadah” (active recreation) or “santai” (passive recreation). The direct translation for sport is “sukan”. The availability of the term” sukan” has helped sport to be more familiar among Malaysians than leisure and recreation. Leisure, recreation and sport in Malaysia are manifested in the patterns of the Malay language and culture. Culture is commonly used to describe a way of life. The symbols and rituals of some Malaysians indicate the strength of their adherence to certain behavioural norms related to good health and well-being. Attitude wise, Malaysians seem to enjoy „time after work‟, holidays and out of door activities during their leisure time. In Malaysia, sport persons are not as popular as a hero / role model as compared to a politician. Furthermore, Malaysians, being Eastern-oriented, are more inclined to incorporate their religious values into leisure, recreation and sport, although Islam allows one to proceed towards excellence in sport but the emphasis is on healthy bodies, family recreation and social harmony. Since sport is generally based on Western interpretations, many regulations such as dress codes, do not in accordance to Islamic principles, and this may make it difficult for some Malaysians, especially Muslim women, to participate

Significance of teachers and education in promoting national economic development: A case study of Pakistan

The key objective of the present paper is to highlight the consequence of education along with the importance of teacher in education and its overall influence on the national economic development Pakistan.It is crystal clear that the role of education and teachers has become more important in improving human capital and consequently has a positive impact on the national development and prosperity.The results of this study show that teachers in all level including primary school, middle school teacher and high school teacher play a positive and statistically significant role in promoting national economic development.Therefore, these findings have some important policy implications.The government of Pakistan at both the federal and provincial levels needs to formulate appropriate and education promoting oriented policy in order to encourage education and increase quality trained teachers in the country. Consequently, it will further help to promote overall economy performance and largely mitigate poverty and improve social welfare in the country

College Students\u27 Attitude Towards the Utilization of the Sport Recreation Center (SRC)

The primary aim of this paper is to examine the reasons for using or not using the student recreational center (SRC) among a frequent users and non-users. The second purpose is to use the research findings in order to make same recommendations for attracting stronger patronage amongst student users. Two groups of college students that were identified by user and non-user were invited to attend a separate focus group discussion. A user group consisted of six students (5 male, 1 female) with a mean age of 20.33 (Sd=.82), and the non-user group consisted of eight students (6 male, 2 female) with a mean age of 20.38 (Sd=1.30). The discussion was lead by one of the authors and was tape recorded with permissions from the respondents. The recorded tape was transcribed verbatim and analyzed by using the content analysis method by the three authors. Separate analyses were conducted for both groups. Results show that three themes emerged as important for the User group using the facility: the wellness reason; good facilities; and reasons associated with socialization. On the other hand, four themes emerged for the non-user group not using the facility: inconvenience; personal inadequacy; poor accessibility; and lack of interest. On how to attract more students, the User group suggested that students themselves must be knowledgeable in exercise; SRC should create more competition; and the SRC should keep up with the maintenance. While the non-user group suggested that more email information sent to them; the SRC should train their staff (e.g. for weight room staff), and the SRC should build a bigger space (especially weight room); and more competition should be offered. Furthermore, it is interesting to find that both the user and non-user have different opinions on how to promote more students usage. However, there appears to be a relatively good relationship between the two. This relationship has is in the conclusion and further recommendations are also suggested

Evaluating the relationship of imagery and self-confidence in female and male athletes

This study examines the relationship between imagery and confidence in athletes. The Sport Imagery Questionnaire and a Self-Confidence questionnaire were used to collect data. The samples consisted of athletes who are from the Khon Kaen Sport School in Thailand and who regularly participate in sports training (5 days a week). All subjects (n=120) were selected by purposive sampling and consisted of 71 (59.2 %) male and 49 (40.8 %) female athletes. Our analysis considered two parameters, imagery and selfconfidence, which were evaluated with regards to the physical fitness level and experience of the athletes. The data was analyzed using a t-test to determine the difference of the means between imagery and self-confidence measures in males and females. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) (P<0.05) was used to evaluate differences across the groups, and linear regression and correlation analyses (r =0.71) were used to compare between genders, physical fitness, and experience levels. The results show that there are significant correlations between males and females in terms of imagery and self-confidence. This result suggests that imagery and self-confidence in male and female athletes are associated with high levels of physical fitness and more experience in sports situations

Headmaster’s Transformational Leadership and Teacher’s Organisational Commitment in Primary School

The study aimed to explore the level of headmaster’s transformational leadership/the level of teachers/organizational commitment and the relationship between headmaster’s leadership style and the organisational commitment of primary school teachers in Beaufort, Sabah, Malaysia. The model of transformational leadership developed by Bass (1985) and the organisational commitment model which was developed by Meyer and Allen (1991) served as the theoretical framework for the study. The transformational leadership classified into inspirational motivation intellectual stimulation and individual consideration. The organisational commitment on the other hand divided into affective commitment; continuance commitment and normative commitment. Data was obtained from 130 Beauforts, primary schools teachers. The research only dealt with Grade A schools. Two questionnaires were used as the main instrument; Alimo-Metcalfe’s (2001) Transformational Leadership Questionnaire (TLQ) which consisted of 21 items and Meyer and Aliens (1997) Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ)/ which consisted of 18 items. Data was analysed with SPSS for windows version 15.0. An average positive relationship between headmaster’s inspirational motivation and teacher’s organisational commitment was found. As perceived by the teachers/ the level of headmaster’s transformational leadership in Beaufort, was high in most schools. The research also indicated that the level of teacher’s organisational commitment was average. This research also suggested numbers of ways to improve teacher’s organisational commitment

Forecasting a winner for Malaysian Cup 2013 using soccer simulation model

This paper investigates through soccer simulation the calculation of the probability for each team winning Malaysia Cup 2013.Our methodology used here is we predict the outcomes of individual matches and then we simulate the Malaysia Cup 2013 tournament 5000 times.As match outcomes are always a matter of uncertainty, statistical model, in particular a double Poisson model is used to predict the number of goals scored and conceded for each team.Maximum likelihood estimation is use to measure the attacking strength and defensive weakness for each team. Based on our simulation result, LionXII has a higher probability in becoming the winner, followed by Selangor, ATM, JDT and Kelantan.Meanwhile, T-Team, Negeri Sembilan and Felda United have lower probabilities to win Malaysia Cup 2013. In summary, we find that the probability for each team becominga winner is small, indicating that the level of competitive balance in Malaysia Cup 2013 is quite hig

Exploring small-scale sport event tourism in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to explore the potential of a small-scale sport event as tourist attraction in Malaysia using Leiper’s (1990) tourist attraction system as framework. This paper reports the results of a study conducted on a small scale event sport tourism in Lake Kenyir Malaysia. Data for this study were collected quantitatively from 400 subjects using the Leisure Motivation Scale developed by Ragheb and Beard (1983). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. Visitors to sport event at Lake Kenyir fall into three categories: (1) sport excursionist, (2) active sport tourist and (3) passive sport tourists and the majority of the respondents (81.75%) were sport tourists. The results indicate factors such as competence mastery and intellectual factors are significant variables which motivate people to seek active sport-oriented vacations. On the other hand, passive sport tourists are motivated by social factors and the need to escape from over stimulating situations. The results were discussed in light of earlier findings concerning sport tourist motivations and preferred destination attributes. The potential and benefits of small scale sport events as tourist attraction in Malaysia were also discussed in this paper as well as suggestions for the local tourism authority

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT AMONG SECONDARY FEMALE STUDENTS IN JORDAN

The investigation of the level of Social and Academic Adjustment and the relationship between both of them in Jordan is still inadequate due to lack of research and interest among scholars and researchers. This fact is occurring even though the increase of refugees during the last five years has affected other Jordanian students. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between Social Adjustment and Academic Adjustment among secondary female students in Jordan. A total of 100 students from one school were examined. The result from the analysis posited that there is a high level of Social Adjustment (60%) and Medium level of Academic Adjustment (66%). Additionally, there is a positive statistically significant correlation (0.552) among the total of Social Adjustment and the total of the Academic Adjustment. Pearson correlation was used to evaluate the overall relationship between social and academic adjustments. A strong positive correlation was found between the social and academic scores of students. The current study has also discussed the results, the limitations and the recommendations.  Article visualizations