An investigation of Jordanian EFL teachers’ assessment practices

                     The study aimed at investigating Jordanian EFL teachers’ assessment practices relating to the test construction through self-reported frequencies of using the procedures of preparing, correcting, analyzing, interpreting an achievement test, and discussing its results with students. To achieve this, a 31-item questionnaire was used. The questionnaire was administered to 118 basic stage EFL teachers after establishing its validity and reliability.                 The results showed that EFL teachers claimed to always or usually  practice appropriate procedures of preparing the test, discussing the results with students and evaluating and assessing short-answer tests. However, they were found to sometimes practice appropriate  procedures for analyzing test results and evaluating and assessing open-ended questions.                       In light of the findings, it is recommended that educational institutions should pay more attention to educating teachers to analyze and interpret test results, and evaluate and score open-answer questions

Community Energy Planning From the Ground Up: Developing an Integrated Energy Plan

Community Energy Planning and Green Urbanism initiatives have been embraced by governing bodies to reduce their carbon footprint and achieve energy security. Although authorities have embraced ideal visions of sustainability, they have largely been unable to achieve their goals. In this paper, I begin by examining the different aspects of Green Urbanism and how it can be implemented at different scales. Next, I examine the process known as Community Energy Planning and how it can be used as a tool to achieve energy democracy. This requires a comprehensive analysis of existing legislation with respect to energy management and sustainable development in Ontario. My analysis reveals that existing sustainable guidelines and energy conservation initiatives are most often voluntary programs, vaguely outlined, and often subject to misinterpretation. This results in a gap between planning and implementation that hinders the development of low-carbon communities. In seeking to identify the underlying issues, I analyze how the influences of neoliberalism pose considerable barriers for the effective implementation of CEP. Next, I examine six case studies where community power projects have successfully been implemented in Europe, Central America, and Canada in order to identify alternative models. I identify several challenges in Ontario in terms of replicating these models and using CEP as a way forward to achieve green urbanism. Common issues include high upfront capital costs, high risk, lack of technical knowledge and experience, and legal and regulatory barriers. Lastly, as a way of addressing these issues, I present key considerations towards integrating energy management and land use planning processes in order to formulate more holistic approaches, from a bottom-up and community-driven approach, towards achieving energy democracy and green urbanism ideals in Ontario

Mental health and substance use disorders and treatment receipt among pregnant women in the United States, 2008-2014 : trend analysis, likelihood of treatment receipt, and ethnic disparities in mental health treatment.

The purposes of this dissertation were to examine trends from 2008 to 2014 in mental health and substance use disorders and treatment receipt, and explore factors associated with treatment receipt in pregnant women aged 18-44 years in the United States. A systematic review showed that illicit drug use disorder increased in pregnant women over the past decade. Despite the increase in treatment admissions for these disorders from 1992 to 2012, the overall treatment admission rate for pregnant women remained relatively stable (4%). In a trend study, compared mental health and substance use disorders and treatment receipt across Matched groups of pregnant (n = 5,520) and non-pregnant women (n = 11,040) who participated in the 2008-2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) did not differ on mental health and substance use disorders and treatment receipt. Past-year anxiety disorder, past-month psychological distress, and illicit drug use disorder increased in the total sample from 2008 to 2014, whereas trends in treatment receipt did not change over time. Secondary analysis of data from the same survey was conducted with data from pregnant women (1,106 with mental health problems and 521 with substance use disorders). Predictors of mental health treatment receipt included: mental health problems, college education, health insurance, and White ethnicity. Predictors of substance use treatment receipt were: illicit drug abuse/dependence, alcohol dependence, comorbid anxiety/depression, White ethnicity, and urban residency. Compared to Whites, nonWhite pregnant women with mental health and/or substance use disorders had lower odds of receiving mental health treatment

Constitutional Action and Effects of a Declaration of Unconstitutionality in the Islamic Legal System

A constitutional action plays a fundamental role in sustaining democracy in any legal system. Therefore, if the objective of the constitutional action is to prevent the legislative authority from putting forward unconstitutional laws in contemporary countries, then, the wisdom of the constitutional action in the Islamic legal is to deny the rules from wording legislation that contradicts the legitimacy and higher divine rule demanded by Allah (s.w.t.). Before studying constitutional action and effects of a declaration of unconstitutionality in the Islamic legal systems, it is necessary to examine other types of action, to distinguish constitutional action. This paper will review each of them, their definitions and the parties involved, by first studying the action in its general form, analysing the definitions of earlier jurists in the Islamic legal system, and then constitutional action. This paper addresses the effects of a declaration of unconstitutionality in the Islamic legal system. It discusses the binding effects on all state authorities and stuthes the judgment and nature of unconstitutionality and focuses on the absolute conclusiveness of rulings passed in constitutional actions under the Islamic legal system

The Moroccan Jurist al-Khamlīshī: Can a Woman Become a Legislator (Mujtahid)?

The idea of deducing legal rulings in Islamic law, or ijtihād, as well as the qualifications of the person who practices ijtihād, known as the mujtahid, has been a complex issue among Muslim ʿulamāʾ for centuries. Many Muslim ʿulamāʾ and Western scholars have maintained that the gate of ijtihād was closed. The title of mujtahid was therefore impossible to attain. The Moroccan intellectual al-Khamlīshī maintains that the strenuous conditions put forth by some of the Sunni jurists to qualify an individual to become a mujtahid actually contributed to the demise of ijtihād. These qualifications, according to al-Khamlīshī, were proven to be unachievable and stood as myriad obstacles in creating new generations to reform the old Islamic fiqh. This essay shows that, despite the extremely strenuous set of qualifications, through the writings of al-Khamlīshī, Moroccan women penetrated men’s domain in Islamic family law, breaking the long-standing monopoly men held therein

The citizens' initiative referendum: a tool to fight against inequality and the absence of counter-power

Dissertação de mestrado em Philosophy and Ethics; Political Science and CitizenshipThe French representative democracy should be reformed to make it better adapted to the principles of a modern democracy with a high level of inclusion and participation. The CIR contributes to an effective participation in decisionmaking, because it is a very efficient instrument for citizens to express their will forcefully. It is a tool that can strengthen democracy, and not to worsen it. And for this reason, it is one of the best measures that we could adopt in France. Although the CIR can have negative effects such as decreasing the participation in the elections, by associating it with the basic income, we avoid this, but in addition we decrease the economic inequalities that are also creators of political inequality

Admissibility conditions of a constitutional suit in the Islamic judicial system

يجب أن تستوفي الدعوى الدستورية، كغيرها من الدعاوى، شروطاً محددة. وفى حين أن هناك شروطاً عامة ومشتركة تسري على جميع أنواع الدعاوى ، إلا أن للدعوى الدستورية شروط خاصة نظراً لخصوصية طبيعتها. ومن تم تستعرض هذه المقالة شروط قبول الدعوى الدستورية في النظام القضائي الإسلامي، وتحلل تلك الشروط في ضوء القضاء الإسلامي. كما أن هناك عدداً من المتطلبات التي يجب أن يستوفيها المدعي حتى تنظر دعواه أمام المحاكم في النظام الإسلامي، وهي الأهلية وجدية الادعاء، بالإضافة إلى شرط المصلحةA constitutional Suit, like any other Suit, must satisfy certain conditions, and while there are common and general conditions applicable to all types of Suits, there are special conditions that are only relevant to a constitutional Suit due to its special nature. Therefore, this article covers the admissibility conditions of a constitutional Suit in the Islamic judicial system. This article will analyse these conditions in the Islamic judicial system. Furthermore, there are a number of requirements that a plaintiff must establish in order to have standing before courts in the Islamic system, namely, capacity, actuality of plea, and condition of interest

Constitutional and Legislative Guarantees of Foreign Investment in Light of Jordanian Legislation

© 2006-2019 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved. Constitutional and legislative protection is one of the most powerful forms of protection that the host country pledges to foreign investors to encourage them to invest their capital. This is one of the main reasons for investors to decide where they will invest. This paper examines factors that fall outside commercial transactions and the expectations of investors that harm their investment in the host country, such as expropriation, nationalisation and confiscation. Such risks turn investor away and jeopardise investment. Constitutional and legal guarantees also strengthen the principle of respect for private property, regardless of the nationality of the owner. These interests are not to be affected except by law and the general interest of the host country in exchange for fair compensation. This paper analyses constitutional and legislative texts as the is one of the main reasons guarantees that protect foreign investment in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Authenticating the administrative contract in electronic form and its legal force in Jordanian law

The administrative contract is one of the transactions that may be concluded electronically. For this reason, it is important that it is legally regulated. The electronic contract is created by special procedures via electronic certification bodies. This article considers the authentication of the electronic administrative contract in Jordan. It also examines the legal value of the contract before the Jordanian judiciary