Reflective Teaching and the Teachers' Self Efficacy in the Post Method Era: A Case Study of Jazan University, Saudi Arabia

The theoretical and practical underpinnings of reflective teaching and the teachers' self-efficacy were examined in this research to bring forth coherence in the construct and measurement of these apparently competing conceptual strands. The research found many implications of applying reflective teaching with its reconciliation with the teachers' self-efficacy for the practicing teachers. The study used Teacher Reflectivity questionnaire (short form) coined by Akbari, et al (2010) and the Teachers' Self Efficacy Scale developed on Bandura's (1997a) Social Cognitive Theory. The objectives of the study were to find correlation in (1) teachers’ reflective practices and self-efficacy in overall teaching practice (2) teachers’ reflective practices and self-efficacy on the basis of gender (3) teachers’ reflective practices and self-efficacy on the basis of their educational level, and (4) teachers’ reflective practices and self-efficacy on the basis of their job experience. A total of 96 teachers participated in this study. The study found that there was a positive correlation between the teachers' reflectivity and self-efficacy which means that the reflective practices by the teachers will obviously lead to teachers' self-efficacy. Keywords: Language teaching, reflective teaching, self-efficacy, post-method era

Anxiety and Attitude Of Secondary School Students Towards Foreign Language Learning

AbstractMultiple methodologies are being used for teaching and learning of foreign language. In countries where English is taught as a foreign language, learners suffer various levels of being anxious and develop a specific attitude towards English. The paper examined foreign language anxiety of 10th grade students and their attitude towards foreign language learning. Sample of the study was 360 male and 360 female students of 10th grade students of public sector secondary schools from six districts of the Punjab Province of Pakistan. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for data analysis. Level of anxiety and level of attitude were determined through percentage. t-test was used to find out difference between boys and girls of 10th grade. Relationship of anxiety with attitude of the students was determined though Pearson product moment coefficient. Results showed significant differences between boys and girls in foreign language anxiety and attitude towards foreign language learning. There was significant negative correlation between foreign language anxiety and students’ attitude towards foreign language learning. Girls showed less anxiety in English language class and had more positive attitude towards English. Similarly, rural students had high anxiety in English and had less positive attitude towards English. It was suggested that training might be given to English language teachers on modern pedagogical patterns. English language Curriculum might be redesigned keeping the context of the learners in mind

Emerging Trends in E-Learning in Punjab- Pakistan

رافق التعلم عبر الإنترنت والجوال ظهور اتجاهات ناشئة في التعليم خلال العقد الماضي الامر الذي يعكس التغييرات الهائلة في انتشار المعرفة المحدثة التي عززت النتاج التعليمي وملاءمة العالم في الوقت الحالي. وعملت شبكة الإنترنت والجوال معًا لتسهيل عملية التعلم الذاتي. وفي هذه الدراسة وضعت ثلاثة مؤشرات لتقييم أهمية التعلم الإلكتروني الذاتي؛ أولاً، التحقق من أن الإنترنت مصدر سهل لتعزيز وتحديث المعرفة من وجهة نظر طلاب الجامعات. ثانيًا، إدراك أن التعلم الإلكتروني هو وسيلة لتوفير الوقت للتعلم الذاتي. ثالثًا، سهولة الحصول على مصادر المعرفة الكترونيا في مجال دراسة معينة ومن خلال استخدام محركات البحث المختلفة. في هذه الدراسة تم إعداد استبيان راجعه النظراء وحكمه مراجعون متخصصون. الذين وافقوا على محتواه والجوانب الدلالية لجميع الأسئلة، لجمع البيانات من مائة طالب مسجلين في ثلاث جامعات عامة في البنجاب في باكستان. أوضحت النتائج أن الإنترنت والجوال يُستخدمان للتسلية والترفيه واكتساب المعرفة ومواد البحث ولتسهيل الدراسات أو الأبحاث في مختلف التخصصات. علاوة على ذلك، بدت نتائج الدراسة الحالية متباينه، وهو ما قد يرجع إلى فحوى الدراسة الحالية والنتائج المحتملة من استخدامات وممارسات المستخدمين الحاليين للتعلم الإلكتروني والجوال. والحقيقة المثبته و بوضوح على أن العلماء والطلاب يميلون في الغالب إلى مثل هذه التوجهات في دولة باكستان.Internet and mobile learning are necessarily emerging trends in education through last decade. They are mirroring vast changes and proliferation of update knowledge, which enhanced our learning productivity and real time world relevancy. Internet and mobile worked together to facilitate the self-learning process. In this study, there are three indicators set up to weigh the importance of E-learning; first, to investigate that the internet is an easy source of promoting and updating knowledge from university students’ points of view. Second,  to recognize that the E-learning is a time saving method of self-learning. Third, to facilitate gaining electronic sources of a specific study field through using different search engines. A peer reviewed questionnaire was prepared and governed by specialist reviewers; who agreed on its content and semantic aspects of all questions, to collect the data from one hundred students enrolled at three public universities of Punjab in Pakistan. Results outlined that internet and mobile are used to fun and entertainment, gain knowledge, search materials, and  to facilitate studies or researches of different disciplines. Furthermore, the outcomes of the current study seemed different, which may be due to the focus of the current study upon perceived consequences rather than uses and practices of current users of mobile and E-learning. The fact that apparently clear demonstrates that scholars and students mostly tend to such trends in Pakistan

Antecedents of Attitude towards Advertising of Controversial Products in Digital Media

The promotion of controversial products on digital media has become a challenge for marketers as consumers of different ethnicities and cultures access web media. Therefore, the study has examined the impact of advertising’s antecedents on consumers’ attitude and their effect on purchase intentions. The study has also considered the mediating roles of attitude towards purchase intentions. The population for this study comprises of adult female digital media users. We collected data from 400 female respondents via the online survey method. The results suggest that hedonic value, falsity, and materialism directly impact attitude towards the advertising of controversial products. Further, hedonic value and materialism also affect purchase intentions. We also found that advertising attitude mediates the relationship between hedonic value, falsity, materialism, and purchase intentions. The study’s empirical results will help design appropriate marketing strategies, especially in the context of controversial products. Future research may extend the model by incorporating other factors and testing their efficacy in different regions and cultures

A System for True and False Memory Prediction Based on 2D and 3D Educational Contents and EEG Brain Signals

We studied the impact of 2D and 3D educational contents on learning and memory recall using electroencephalography (EEG) brain signals. For this purpose, we adopted a classification approach that predicts true and false memories in case of both short term memory (STM) and long term memory (LTM) and helps to decide whether there is a difference between the impact of 2D and 3D educational contents. In this approach, EEG brain signals are converted into topomaps and then discriminative features are extracted from them and finally support vector machine (SVM) which is employed to predict brain states. For data collection, half of sixty-eight healthy individuals watched the learning material in 2D format whereas the rest watched the same material in 3D format. After learning task, memory recall tasks were performed after 30 minutes (STM) and two months (LTM), and EEG signals were recorded. In case of STM, 97.5% prediction accuracy was achieved for 3D and 96.6% for 2D and, in case of LTM, it was 100% for both 2D and 3D. The statistical analysis of the results suggested that for learning and memory recall both 2D and 3D materials do not have much difference in case of STM and LTM

Improving bio aviation fuel yield from biogenic carbon sources through electrolysis assisted chemical looping gasification

The second-generation bio aviation fuel production via Chemical Looping Gasification (CLG) of biomass combined with downstream Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is a possible way to decarbonize the aviation sector. Although CLG has a higher syngas yield and conversion efficiency compared to the conventional gasification processes, the fraction of biogenic carbon which is converted to biofuel is still low (around 28%). To increase carbon utilization and biofuel yield, incorporation of two types of electrolyzers, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) and Molten Carbonate Electrolysis Cell (MCEC), for syngas conditioning has been investigated. Full chain process models have been developed using an experimentally validated CLG model in Aspen Plus for Iron sand as an oxygen carrier. Techno-economic parameters were calculated and compared for different cases. The results show that syngas conditioning with sustainable hydrogen from PEM and MCEC electrolyzers results in up to 11.5% higher conversion efficiency and up to 8.1 % higher biogenic carbon efficiencies in comparison to the syngas conditioning with water gas shift reactor. The study shows that the lowest carbon capture rates are found in the configurations with the highest biogenic carbon efficiency which means up to 14% more carbon ends up in FT crude compared to the case with conventional WGS conditioning. Techno-economic analysis indicates that syngas conditioning using PEM and MCEC electrolyzers would result in an increase of the annual profit by a factor of 1.4 and 1.7, respectively, when compared to using only WGS reactors

Evaluation of Introgressed Lines of Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) under Contrasting Water Treatments

Drought stress is a major production constraint in crops globally. Crop wild relatives are important sources of resistance and tolerance for both biotic and abiotic stresses, respectively. A breeding program was initiated to introgress drought tolerance in sunflowers through hybridization between the wild species Helianthus argophyllus and the cultivated pool of H. annuus. Selection was carried out from the F2 to F5 segregating populations for the silver canopy, high cuticular wax, small leaf area, single heading and high oil content. Cuticular wax ranged between 8.72 µg g−1 and 17.19 µg g−1 in the F5 offspring. The selected F5 breeding lines were self-pollinated to obtain the F6 generation. Thereafter, this F6 was compared with the non-adapted elite sunflower germplasm in a factorial complete randomized design with different water treatments; i.e., comparing fully irrigated (100%, T0) versus 75% (T1), 50% (T2) and 25% (T3) of total irrigation. The comparison between the two types of the germplasm showed that drought-tolerant breeding lines had a comparatively lesser decrease in leaf area (0, 11, 22%) and shoot length (4, 21, 28%) than the elite germplasm, which experienced a decrease in leaf area (21%, 33% and 40%) and shoot length (17, 27 and 34%) under the various drought treatments. Moreover, drought-tolerant breeding lines had 100% more root shoot ratios than the elite germplasm (20%) in T3 when compared with control. Several drought-tolerant promising lines (D-2, D-5 and D-27) were selected due to their high leaf area, great root length and increased root to shoot ratio under T3. Some of the lines could be directly used for the development of drought-tolerant hybrids. Combining ability testing indicated that D-27 (F7) was a good general combiner for seed yield plant−1 and oil content after mating with male-line RSIN.82. Resulting hybrids could help to minimize seed yield loss due to water stress and to achieve profitable cultivation of sunflowers in arid regions of Pakistan

Experimental validation of bulk-graphene as a thermoelectric generator

Quest for alternate energy sources is the core of most of the research activities these days. No matter how small or large amount of energy can be produced by utilizing the non-conventional techniques and sources, every bit of innovation can reshape the future of energy. In this work, experimental analysis of the thermoelectric (TE) properties of bulk-graphene in the temperature range of (303 to 363) K is presented. Graphene powder was pressed to form a pellet which was used to fabricate the TE device. The effects of temperature on the Seebeck coefficient, electrical and thermal conductivities, and the dimensionless figure of merit (FOM) were measured. The increasing value of the Seebeck coefficient (thermopower) with temperature is indicant of the metallic behavior. Additionally, the observed thermopower (TEP) is positive, which shows that the majority charge carriers are holes and peaked to a value of 56 μV K-1 at 363 K. The thermopower of the pellet is four times larger than the previously reported values for single layer graphene (SLG) and few layer graphene (FLG). In addition to this, low values of the thermal conductivity were observed for the pellet which is one of the requirements of a good TE material. Besides this, an upward trend is observed with increasing temperature for FOM, which attains a peak value of 0.0016 at 363 K, which is almost ten times that of the previously reported values

Production of aviation fuel with negative emissions via chemical looping gasification of biogenic residues: Full chain process modelling and techno-economic analysis

The second-generation bio aviation fuel production via Chemical Looping Gasification (CLG) of biomass combined with downstream Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis is a possible way to decarbonize aviation sector. The CLG process has the advantage of producing undiluted syngas without the use of an air-separation unit (ASU) and improved syngas yield compared to the conventional gasification processes. This study is based on modelling the full chain process of biomass to liquid fuel (BtL) with LD-slag and Ilmenite as oxygen carriers using Aspen Plus software, validating the model results with experimental studies and carrying out a techno-economic analysis of the process. For the gasifier load of 80 MW based on LHV of fuel entering the gasifier, the optimal model predicts that the clean syngas has an energy content of 8.68 MJ/Nm3 with a cold-gas efficiency of 77.86%. The optimized model also estimates an aviation fuel production of around 340 bbl/day with 155 k-tonne of CO2 captured every year and conversion efficiency of biomass to FT-crude of 38.98%. The calculated Levelized Cost of Fuel (LCOF) is 35.19 $per GJ of FT crude, with an annual plant profit (cash inflow) of 11.09 M$ and a payback period of 11.56 years for the initial investment

Impact of unhygienic conditions during slaughtering and processing on spread of antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli from poultry

Antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli is a global health concern. We studied all possible routes of cross contamination of broiler meat with resistant E. coli from broiler feces at poultry shops. Various sample categories namely poultry feces, meat (n=225 for each), slaughterer hands, consumer hands, slaughterer knife, canister, tap water, carcass, feed and drinking water (n=50 for each) were collected from local poultry processing market. Samples were screened for prevalence of E. coli, resistance of isolates against ten antibiotics and presence of tetracycline- resistance genes in the isolates. Fecal samples had greatest colony count (4.1×104 CFU/g) as compared to meat (1.9×104 CFU/g) samples. Samples of consumer hands (6%) and tap water (12%) had less prevalence percentages of E. coli as compared to slaughterer hands (92%) and drinking water of broiler (86%). Isolates of eight sample categories had high resistant rate (≥90%) against oxytetracycline. On average, about 94% of the isolates from various sample categories possessed multidrug-resistance (MDR). Tetracycline-resistance genes (tetA and tetB) were identified in all sample categories except isolates of consumer hands and tap water. The distribution of tetracycline-resistance genes was significantly greater in fecal isolates (42%) than meat isolates (25%). The study depicted the spread of resistant E. coli in broiler meat through all studied routes of contamination of slaughtering periphery. This problem can be mitigated by strict monitoring of antibiotics use at poultry farms, prevention of cross contamination by adopting hygienic slaughter and vigorously screening the market meat for resistant E. coli