An application of the theory of reasoned action: Assessing success factors of engineering students

© 2016 TEMPUS Publications. Student attrition in engineering is of concern. This study investigated motivational factors necessary to succeed in engineering. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) model was used to guide the suggested paths from learning strategy, interest, and intention to academic performance. Participants were 135 Malaysian and 132 Australian engineering undergraduates who had completed the Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) scale and the Learner Autonomy Profile (LAP-SF) scale. The correlation coefficient analysis showed strong interrelationships between learning strategy, interest and intention. The findings of the structural equation modelling (SEM) revealed unexpected but interesting findings between the two countries. Two different pathways were established for the Malaysian and Australian data suggesting that the TRA model is best suited to the Australian learning context. The findings of this study could help identify a suitable model for explaining success factors in engineering

7/7: A reflexive re-evaluation of journalistic practice

The suicide bombings of 7 July 2005 remain the most serious terror attacks in the United Kingdom to date in the so-called ‘war on terror’. Much has been published on the war on terror but few journalists have reflected on their practice post 9/11 and none on their domestic coverage of the 7/7 attacks. This article is written by a journalist who covered the London bombings for a UK national newspaper and more recently is a practitioner-academic. Using academic texts focusing on the domestic reporting of the war on terror as stimuli for scholarly reflection, this article reviews the author’s own coverage using reflexive practice and content analysis. This article places 7/7 in the continuum of reporting subsequent to 11 September 2001 (9/11) and issues discussed. Some 63 authored articles were considered from the period. Scholarly texts have proposed a range of concepts to analyse coverage from including political ritual, trauma, national wound and hegemony. This article concludes by noting that while many academic texts see coverage of terrorism as an elite discourse, dominated by political economy drivers and responding to events in a homogeneous reactivity, in practice, news organisations can have complex responses and journalists, agency in their coverage of major terrorism events

High through-put sequencing of the Parhyale hawaiensis mRNAs and microRNAs to aid comparative developmental studies

Understanding the genetic and evolutionary basis of animal morphological diversity will require comparative developmental studies that use new model organisms. This necessitates development of tools for the study of genetics and also the generation of sequence information of the organism to be studied. The development of next generation sequencing technology has enabled quick and cost effective generation of sequence information. Parhyale hawaiensis has emerged as a model organism of choice due to the development of advanced molecular tools, thus P. hawaiensis genetic information will help drive functional studies in this organism. Here we present a transcriptome and miRNA collection generated using next generation sequencing platforms. We generated approximately 1.7 million reads from a P. hawaiensis cDNA library constructed from embryos up to the germ band stage. These reads were assembled into a dataset comprising 163,501 transcripts. Using the combined annotation of Annot8r and pfam2go, Gene Ontology classifications was assigned to 20,597 transcripts. Annot8r was used to provide KEGG orthology to our transcript dataset. A total of 25,292 KEGG pathway assignments were defined and further confirmed with reciprocal blast against the NCBI nr protein database. This has identified many P. hawaiensis gene orthologs of key conserved signalling pathways involved in development. We also generated small RNA sequences from P. hawaiensis, identifying 55 conserved miRNAs. Sequenced small RNAs that were not annotated by stringent comparison to mirBase were used to search the Daphnia pulex for possible novel miRNAs. Using a conservative approach, we have identified 51 possible miRNA candidates conserved in the Daphnia pulex genome, which could be potential crustacean/arthropod specific miRNAs. Our study presents gene and miRNA discovery in a new model organism that does not have a sequenced genome. The data provided by our work will be valuable for the P. hawaiensis community as well as the wider evolutionary developmental biology community

Learning strategies as an enabler of study success

© 2017 Universiti Putra Malaysia Press. Engineering students enrol in engineering without a clear understanding of how they can achieve success in the field. The current study explores study strategies of engineering undergraduates across two geographical locations, Malaysia and Australia. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews, in which 16 final-year engineering undergraduates volunteered to participate. Data were analysed using a thematic coding approach and the NVivo software was used to assist with the coding process. The results suggested that engineering students at universities in both locations used very similar learning strategies to achieve different success outcomes such as to fulfil assessment criteria, to achieve a personal goal or success, to endure with challenges, to overcome challenges, to survive after failure and to keep persisting in the programme. Integrating knowledge, visualising engineering applications, optimising the use of learning materials and mastering engineering skills are examples of strategies that were frequently used by the students. The level of importance of each strategy is context dependent

Developing an instrument to measure the cognitive-affective-conative profile of engineering students

© 2017 IEEE. Learning strategies (cognition), emotion (affection) and conation are suggested as important elements of success for engineering students. Identifying student learning profile may help improve successful rate in engineering program. An instrument that can be used for reliably assessing the cognitive- affective-conative profile of students is needed. This paper report the development and initial testing of the questionnaire (CACQ). Quantitative procedures were used. The set of questionnaire was distributed to 207 final year engineering students after being reviewed by four experts. Each of the constructs reached a good reliability value. Strong and positive correlations were established between learning strategy, emotion, conation and achievement motivation measures. The strength of correlations between the constructs also provides an indicator to the unidimensionality of the constructs. This new questionnaire is a promising measure for assessing the cognitive, affective and conative profile of engineering students