Job motivation and performance of secondary school teachers

Performance can be regarded as almost any behavior, which is directed toward task or goal accomplishment. Despite extensive research, discussion and debate on how to predict employees' performance, teachers performance is complex and remains difficult to predict and evaluate. Teachers are still uncertain whether they can rely on some specific characteristics of performance. In view of this practice and in evaluating teachers' performance at the work place, it is therefore the interest of the researcher to conduct a study on secondary school teachers, so as to determine their job motivation and job performance. The second objective of this study is to compare job motivation with job performance and the third one is to compare teaching performance with job performance of secondary school teachers. This correlation study involved a total of 245 secondary school teachers throughout Kedah. Data will be analyzed using the t-test and ANOV

Effects of cyanobacterial fertilizers compared to commonly-used organic fertilizers on nitrogen availability, lettuce growth, and nitrogen use efficiency on different soil textures

2013 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Nitrogen plays a crucial role in synthesis of amino acids and proteins, plant growth, chlorophyll formation, leaf photosynthesis, and yield development of lettuce. Generally, organic farmers use composted manure, legume cover crops, and off-farm fertilizers such as fish emulsion to meet the nitrogen (N) demand of crops. However, the nutrient composition of off-farm fertilizers such as composted manure and fish emulsion varies widely depending on animal species and often have higher transportation costs. Therefore, an evaluation of the application of cyanobacteria in comparison to the commonly-used organic fertilizers was conducted as an alternative potential N biofertilizer. The laboratory soil incubation and greenhouse studies were conducted to evaluate the effect of N availability from potentially mineralizable N on different types of soil textures. Then, a greenhouse study was conducted to assess the effect of N availability from cyanobacterial fertilizers compared to the commonly-used organic fertilizers on lettuce growth, fertilizer recovery and lettuce root response on N use efficiency. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is a shallow-rooted crop and requires an extensive amount of N fertilizer to produce yield. The aims of the soil incubation study were to determine the rates of mineralization for different organic fertilizers, influence of soil texture on N mineralization, and to evaluate changes in soil microbial biomass from fertilizer application to sandy and clayey soils. In this study, N mineralization potential of cyanobacterial fertilizers were compared with traditional organic fertilizers in two soils with contrasting textures in a laboratory incubation study at constant temperature (25 degrees C) and moisture content (60% water-filled pore space) for 140 days. Soils were destructively sampled over the course of 140 days and analyzed for NH4+-N, and NO3--N, soil microbial biomass C, soil organic C, and soil total C and N. In both soils, soil NH4+-N was the highest at day 56 and decreased from day 56 to 140 due to its conversion to soil NO3--N. Compost treatment significantly increased soil microbial biomass C (207.5 mg C kg-1 soil) compared to fish emulsion (115.42 mg C kg-1 soil) in sandy soil. The N availability was 9% greater from fish emulsion than liquid cyanobacteria, and 6% greater from solid cyanobacteria than compost in sandy soil. The fish emulsion treatment showed 5% higher N availability compared to the solid and liquid cyanobacterial fertilizers. In the greenhouse study, percentage fertilizer recovery (PFR) was quantified to assess the efficiency of N uptake by lettuce to produce yield. A greenhouse study was conducted for 63 days to evaluate cyanobacterial and traditional organic fertilizers application on lettuce N response. Total leaf area, fresh yield, leaf dry weight, and leaf total N content were measured at the end of the greenhouse study. Total N uptake in lettuce tissue and PFR were calculated based on the analyses results. Soil applied fish emulsion recorded significantly higher fresh yield at 112 kg N ha-1 (147 g) compared to 56 kg N ha-1 (117 g) in clayey soil relative to sandy soil. Soil-applied liquid cyanobacteria recorded significantly higher yield compared to composted manure by 58%. Solid cyanobacteria recorded significantly higher total N uptake at 56 kg N ha-1 compared to 112 kg N ha-1 in clayey soil. In conclusion, soil applied fish emulsion treatment recorded higher PFR (99%) than soil applied composted manure (44%) at 56 kg N ha-1 on clayey soil. Soil applied fish emulsion has significantly higher PFR (57%) compared to the combination soil and foliar fertilizer (FFCom and FLScyb) at 56 kg N ha-1 in sandy soil. Nitrogen is also acquired from the soil by the plant roots. In the greenhouse study, root response to N fertilization was assessed to determine the efficiency of N uptake by lettuce to produce yield. A greenhouse study was conducted for 63 days to evaluate cyanobacterial and traditional organic fertilizers application on lettuce root response. Root: shoot ratio, root dry weight, root surface area, and root length density were measured at the end of the greenhouse study. Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) was calculated based on the analyses results. There was no significant difference observed in root dry weight. The composted manure (Com) treatment recorded significantly higher root: shoot ratio at 56 kg N ha-1 while foliar and soil applied liquid cyanobacteria (FLScyb) treatment recorded lower root: shoot ratio at 112 kg N ha-1. The foliar applied fish emulsion and soil applied composted manure (FFCom) treatment recorded the highest root surface area compared to other treatments at 112 kg N ha-1 on clayey soil . The FLScyb treatment recorded higher root surface area compared to the Com treatment at 112 kg N ha-1 on sandy soil. The fish emulsion (Fish) treatment recorded higher root length density at 112 kg N ha-1 on clayey soil while FLSCyb recorded higher root length density on sandy soil at 112 kg N ha-1 compared to the Fish and solid cyanobacteria (Scyb) treatments. In conclusion, the Fish treatment recorded 35 % higher NUE at 56 kg N ha-1 on clayey soil while Scyb treatment has significantly 24% higher NUE compared to Com treatment at 56 kg N ha-1 in sandy soil. Overall, the soil applied fish emulsion treatment recorded higher percentage fertilizer recovery and NUE compared to the solid and liquid cyanobacterial fertilizers at 56 kg N ha-1 on clayey soil. However, the combined soil and foliar cyanobacterial fertilizer and soil applied solid and liquid cyanobacterial fertilizers recorded higher percentage fertilizer recovery and NUE at 56 kg N ha-1 compared to the composted manure which correspond to lettuce yield component which was higher in fish emulsion compared to the composted manure

Aspirasi Pencapaian Pembelajaran dalam Bidang Kejuruteraan dan Minat Kerjaya di Kalangan Pelajar Sekolah Menengah Teknik

Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk meninjau tahap aspirasi pencapaian pembelajaran pelajar di Sekolah Menengah Teknik dalarn bidang kejuruteraan. Aspirasi pencapaian pembelajaran pelajar dilihat daripada perspektif sikap terhadap pembelajaran, usaha terhadap pembelajam dm cita-cita terhadap pembelajaran dalam bidang kejuruteraan. Kajian ini juga bertujuan untuk mengend pasti minat kerjaya di kalangan pelajar di Sekolah Menengah Teknik. Minat kerjaya yang mencakupi enam jenis iaitu minat kerjaya Realistik, Menyelidik, Artistik, Sosial, Daya Usaha dm Konvensional.Seramai 279 orang pelajar dari tiga buah Sekolah Menengah Teknik yang terlibat dalam pengajian kejuruteraan telah digunakan sebagai responden dalam kajian ini. Satu set soal selidik yang terdiri daripada 32 item mengenai aspirasi pencapaian dalam pembelajaran kejuruteraan dm 160 item mengenai minat kerjaya berdasarkan Inventori Minat Kerjaya Holland telah digunakan. Analisis deskriptif dan inferensi (ujian korelasi Pearson, analisis varians dan ujian-t) telah digunakan untuk menjawab persoalan-persoalan kajian. Secara keseluruhan keputusan kajian menunjukkan bahawa tahap aspirasi pencapaian pembelajaran dalam bidang kejuruteraan di kalangan pelajar di Sekolah Menengah Teknik adalah sederhana tinggi dengan min 3.68. Secara khusus pula bagi aspek sikap terhadap pembelajaran kejuruteraan minnya adalah 3.81, seterusnya aspek usaha terhadap pembelajaran kejuruteraan minnya adalah 3.40 dan min asp& citacita terhadap pembelajaran kejuruteraan adalah 3.82. Semakin tinggi pelajar itu melihat akan pencapaian kejayaau, semakiu tinggi pula aspirasi yang ada pada diri seseofatlg. Justeru itu pelajar di Sekolah Menengah Teknik dapat dilihat kejayaan mereka melalui pencapaian pembelajaran mereka. Dapatan kajian tentang minat kerjaya pelajar pula menunjukkan bahawa pelajar di Sekolah Menengah Teknik paling meminati kerjaya Artistik (53.00/0), diikuti oleh kerjaya Realistik (34.4%), kerjaya Sosial (32.3%), kerjaya Menyelidik (22.9%), kerjaya Daya Usaha (20.1%) dm kerjaya Konvensional (13.6%). Pada keseluruhmya dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa hanya satu per tiga pelajar meminati kerjaya Realistik iaitu berkaitan dengan kejuruteraan manakala dua per tiga tidak meminati kerjaya Realistik. Sehubungan dengan itu minat kerjaya pelajar secara keseluruhan akan bertambah apabila umur mereka semakin meningkat. Apabila umur meningkat tanggungjawab diri dan kesedaran diri akan kepentingan kerjaya akan menjadi keutamaan dalam kehidupan mereka Analisis korelasi menunjukkan terdapat hubungan yang sangat kuat antara aspek sikap dengan aspek usaha terhadap aspirasi pencapaian dalam pembelajaran kejuruteraan r(279) = 0.718, p < 0.01. Aspirasi pencapaian pembelajaran bagi aspek sikap dengan cita-cita terhadap pembelajaran kejuruteraan juga mempunyai hubungan yang sangat kuat iaitu, r(279) = 0.738, p < 0.01. Begitu juga bagi hubungan aspirasi pencapaian dalam pernbelajaran kejuruteraan antara aspek usaha dengan aspek cita-cita terhadap pencapaian dalam pembelajaran kejuruteraan dengan r(279) = 0.708, p < 0.01. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan tidak terdapat perbezaan aspirasi pencapaian dalam bidang kejuruteraan secara keseluruhan antara pelajar yang menmti kursus Pengajian Kejuruteraan Awam, kursus Pengajian Kejuruteraan Elektrik dan b u s Pengajian Kejwuteraan Jentera, F(2,276) = 1.387, p > 0.05. Dapatan kajian juga menunjukkan tidak terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan antara kumpulan pelajar Realisitik dengan kumpulan pelajar Bukan Realistik dari segi aspirasi pencapaian secara keseluruhan pada t(277) = 0.956, > 0.05. Ini juga menunjukkan aspirasi pencapaian terhadap pembelajaran kejuruteraan di antara kumpulan pelajar Realistik dm Bukan Realisth adalah tidak berbeza. Hasil kajian secara keselwuhan dalam kajian h i dapat memberi gambaran tentang aspirasi pencapaian dalam bidang kejuruteraan dm minat kerjaya di kalangan pelajar Sekolah Menengah Teknik. Has2 kajian ini juga dapat membmtu Jabatan Pendidikan Teknikal dalam mengenal pasti aspirasi pencapaian pelajar dalam bidang kejuruteraan dm rninat kerjaya pelajar terhadap kejuruteraan. Justeru pihak Jabatan Pendidikan Teknikal boleh menyusun agenda yang tersusun bagi merancang masa depan untuk mencapai visi Jabatan Pendidikan Teknikal, iaitu untuk melahirkan teknokrat yang berkualiti, mempunyai daya usaha, daya saing dm daya juang yang tinggi, bagi memenuhi kehendak pasaran global pada masa ini

Organic nitrogen fertilizers influence nutritional value, water use efficiency, and nitrogen dynamics of drip irrigated lettuce and sweet corn

2016 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Farmers usually rely on off-farm sources (fish emulsion, feather meal, blood meal) for the additional N needed during the growing season, and they are willing to pay the extra shipping cost. However, there is another fertilizer option being developed that could allow farmers to produce N on-farm, which is cyanobacteria, formerly known as the blue green algae. The general objectives of this study were to assess effects of organic N fertilizer application and N rates on nutritional value, water use efficiency, N dynamics of sweet corn and lettuce. A two-year field study was conducted in the summers of 2013 and 2014 at the Colorado State University Horticulture Research Center, Fort Collins, CO. The fertilizers used in this study were blood meal, feather meal, fish emulsion, and cyano-fertilizer. Both fish emulsion and cyano-fertilizer were supplied in four split applications over the growing season through drip irrigation, while the blood meal and feather meal were subsurface banded prior to planting. Lettuce and sweet corn were used as an indicator to evaluate effects of organic nitrogen (N) fertilizers on nutritional value, water use efficiency, and N dynamics. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effect of different types of organic N fertilizer on nutritional value; β-carotene, iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), marketable yield, water use efficiency (WUE), residual soil nitrate-N, N content, and N use efficiency (NUE) of horticultural crops, particularly lettuce and sweet corn. All fertilizer treatments in 2013 increased β-carotene concentration in leaf tissue compared to control, while only fish emulsion had a higher β-carotene concentration compared to other treatments in 2014. The high indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) applied in the fish emulsion treatment could have increased β- carotene concentration in lettuce in both years. Amount of IAA applied in the fish emulsion treatment was positively correlated with β-carotene concentration in both years. A significant negative correlation was found between marketable yield and β-carotene concentration in leaf tissue in 2014. High salicylic acid (SA) applied in the cyano-fertilizer treatment had a higher total leaf area compared to other fertilizers in both years. In lettuce, the blood meal treatment had a lower leaf Fe and Zn concentrations than other fertilizer treatments at 112 kg N ha-1. The cyano-fertilizer treatment had a higher leaf Fe concentration at 56 kg N ha-1. Leaf N concentration was positively correlated with Leaf Fe and Zn concentrations. Amount of NO3- -N applied in organic N fertilizers was negatively correlated with leaf Fe concentration. The cyano-fertilizer, fish emulsion, and blood meal treatments increased Fe concentration in sweet corn compared to feather meal. Amount of NO3- -N, Fe, and Zn applied in organic N fertilizers were positively correlated with kernel Fe concentration, while amount of NH4+ -N applied was negatively correlated with kernel Fe concentration. There was no N rate or treatment effect on leaf and kernel N concentrations in sweet corn. The amount of phytohormone, Ca, and Fe applied in organic N fertilizers may have affected field water use efficiency (fWUE), instantaneous water use efficiency (iWUE), kernel number, and leaf gas exchange components of sweet corn. Cyano-fertilizer apparently had a higher WUE, likely due to the high amount of SA applied. A positive relationship was observed between the amount of SA applied with iWUE and fWUE. The amount of Fe applied in organic N fertilizers had a positive correlation with leaf VPD and transpiration rate. The amount of Ca applied in the feather meal treatment may have contributed to increasing leaf temperature and decreasing net photosynthetic rate. The amount of NH4+ -N and Ca applied in the feather meal treatments were negatively correlated with both iWUE and fWUE. N rate effect was only observed in lettuce marketable yield and NUE in both years. Blood meal and feather meal fertilizers with higher percentage of N applied as NO3- -N compared to other fertilizer treatments had a higher residual soil NO3- -N concentration in 2013. Greater residual soil NO3 - -N was observed in the 0-30 cm depth compared to the 30-60 cm depth in 2014. Organic growers could achieve higher marketable yield and NUE when applying fertilizers at rates between 28 kg N ha-1 and 56 kg N ha-1 compared with 112 kg N ha-1. In sweet corn, the feather meal and fish emulsion treatments had a higher residual soil NO3- -N compared with other treatments. The fish emulsion, cyano-fertilizer, and blood meal had a higher leaf and kernel N contents and NUE compared with feather meal at 56 kg N ha-1. The cyanofertilizer treatment had a higher marketable ear yield and NUE compared with other treatments at 112 kg N ha-1 in 2014. The amount of C inputs and crop species may have affected soil permanganate oxidizable carbon (POXC) concentration in a single season study. Soil POXC concentration was higher in the cyanofertilizer treatment compared to the control treatment in sweet corn, while the opposite trend was found in lettuce. Depth effect was observed in soil POXC concentration at 0-30 cm compared to 30-60 cm in lettuce. Soil POXC concentration was higher at 112 kg N ha-1 compared to 56 kg N ha-1 in sweet corn, but there was no N rate effect in lettuce. Greater soil POXC concentration and marketable ear yield of sweet corn were observed in the cyano-fertilizer treatment compared to others at 112 kg N ha-1. Overall, our results indicate that organic N fertilizer, particularly cyano-fertilizer influenced soil POXC concentration over a short-term growing season of horticultural crops

Organizational team building culture among teachers in Gombak Selangor

This study examined the organizational team building culture among teachers in Gombak, Selangor. Aspects that were being studied were the teachers’ perception on the elements of team building, the relation between team building factors and motivational factors and differences between gender and the eight factors of team building which were goals, priorities, roles and responsibilities, self-awareness, leadership, group dynamics, communications and environment. The study employed a survey method for collecting data from 100 purposively selected teachers from 10 government aided secondary schools

Towards an innovative and creative social entrepreneurship in driving sustainable change beyond the millennium: A microfinance practitioner’s perspective

Social entrepreneurship has grown into a global movement that is producing solutions to the world’s toughest problems and transforming the way we think about social change.However, despite the popularity of this approach particularly through its microfinance schemes, it is a field that remains under-theorized and less scrutinized. This paper, therefore, attempts to critically examine key cross-cutting issues to microfinance. In doing so, it will delve into actual economic and social impacts of microfinance in Asia and Europe, rather than providing a robust critique of its technical methodologies, a popular approach recommended by almost all microfinance institutions.Among critical issues that will be explored include challenges of social entrepreneurship especially as it relates to the global mission of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to reduce long-term poverty.Finally, the paper offers policy recommendation that will strengthen the current practice of social entrepreneurship which includes setting up a revolving fund to finance emerging social entrepreneurs so as to complement the existing model of direct financing of MFI.It is hopeful that these recommendations will drive sustainable change of poverty reduction beyond the millennium

Evaluation of third class survey data for national digital cadastral database population

The objective of Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB) introduced 'by the Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia (DSMM) is to ease the production of land title and to facilitate the realization of e-cadastre system. The development of e-cadastre system is to change the existing method of cadastral management to fully digital system in accordance with information technology development. National Digital Cadastral Database (NDCDB) is a critical dataset in e-cadastre system. Currently, DCDB was developed based on First Class and Second Class observations. This criterion caused the Third Class survey data is left out because of the low data quality. Third Class survey data is a value of scale distance without bearing or connection line. A new methodology is needed in order to integrate Third Class survey data into DCDB. The objectives of this study are: i) to check the quality of an existing Third Class survey, and ii) to adjust the Third Class survey of the study area with acceptable accuracy. Least Square Adjustment technique was used because the measurements with differences quality can be systematically adjusted. The cadastral network was formed into several parts and the least square adjustment were carried out systematically to minimum the error propogations. Systematic summary of the adjustment results are tabulated. Locality adjustments give good results while the adjustments of inter CP's are less accurate. Results show that the existing Third Class survey is not suitable to be integrated in developing of NDCDB. Upgrading the Third Class survey Certified Plan to more accurate First Class survey is important for repopulation of NDCDB

Improved Random Forest For Feature Selection In Writer Identification

Writer Identification (WI) is a process to determine the writer of a given handwriting sample. A handwriting sample consists of various types of features. These features are unique due to the writer’s characteristics and individuality, which challenges the identification process. Some features do not provide useful information and may cause to decrease the performance of a classifier. Thus, feature selection process is implemented in WI process. Feature selection is a process to identify and select the most significant features from presented features in handwriting documents and to eliminate the irrelevant features. Due to the WI framework, discretization process is applied before the feature selection process. Discretization process was proven to increase the classification performances and improved the identification performance in WI. An algorithm and framework of Improved Random Forest (IRF) tree was applied for feature selection process. RF tree is a collection of tree predictors used to ensemble decision tree models with a randomized selection of features at each split. It involved Classification and Regression Tree (CART) during the development of tree. Important features are measured by using Variable Importance (VI). While Mean Absolute Error (MAE) values use to identify the variance between writers, VI value was used for splitting process in tree and MAE value is to ensure the intra-class (same writer) invariance is lower than inter-class (different writer) invariance because lower intra-class invariance indicates accuracy to the real author. Number of selected features and the classification accuracy is used to indicate the performances of feature selection method. Experimental results have shown that the performances of IRF tree in discretized dataset produced third feature (f3) as the most important feature with average classification accuracy 99.19%. For un- discretized dataset, first feature (f1) and third feature (f3) are the most important features with average classification accuracy 40.79%

Kesan model unsur tautan terhadap pengajaran karangan Bahasa Melayu

Purpose – This study examine whether the teaching of cohesive ties using “The Cohesive Ties Teaching Model” can be used by teachers as a technique in writing quality essays. Method – This study was carried out using the Quasi-Experimental Design. Sample essays were collected from 60 Form Three students in a secondary school in Kedah. They were divided into two groups, 30 students were placed in experimental group, and the rest were placed in control group. To ascertain whether there is a significant difference between the scores of frequency in cohesive ties among the experimental and control groups in pre-test and post-test, the independent samples t-test was conducted using the SPSS for Windows Version 11.5. Findings – The finding of this study proved that the teaching of cohesive ties has given a significant effect on the scores of frequency in cohesive ties made by students in their essays. Value – This study extends the Bahasa Melayu education (especially in teaching and learning field) about the effectiveness of using The Cohesive Ties Teaching Model as a technique in writing quality essays

Pedestrian Movement at the Unpaid Concourse Area in KLCC Train Station

This study investigates the pedestrian movement during three different peak hours by considering their walking speed and density at the unpaid concourse at a train station. The data for analyses; pedestrian hourly volume and pedestrian walking speed in this study was extracted from the CCTV video footage at the train station in KLCC. The findings show the walking speed at the study area can be considered as fast with the highest walking speed was 1.68m/s during the afternoon peak hour and the slowest walking speed was 0.98m/s during the morning peak hour. The study area was divided into several segments in order to simulate the pedestrian density by using VISWALK. Pedestrian density was highest during the evening peak hours. The study also found that the pedestrian tended to walk in oblique movement to avoid collision with other pedestrian in the crowd during the peak hours. The findings in this study give some insights for pedestrian crowd management in the train station to increase the pedestrian flow and may useful for emergency evacuation planning