Reading an academic expository text – The ESL learner’s experience

Researches on approaches to learning have often described students as either deep or surface learners. In essence, the deep approach is associated with intrinsic motivation, a focus on understanding the meaning of the learning material and relating new ideas to previous knowledge. In contrast, the surface approach views a particular task in isolation, a focus on memorizing discrete facts and reproduces terms through rote learning. Although these studies have provided information on the qualitative differences of learning in various contexts, little research has been conducted to examine the students’ learning approaches within an ESL context. Accordingly, the primary purpose of this paper is to describe and compare six ESL learners’ approaches of two readings of an academic expository text. Three instruments were used to collect data: reading sessions, individual interviews and observations, whereby all sessions were videotaped, audio taped and transcribed verbatim. Findings of the study revealed that there were qualitative differences in the ESL approaches of reading an academic expository text and that different types of approaches were employed in the two readings of the text. To conclude, the paper will further discuss the implications of the findings and some pedagogical considerations for the teaching and learning of reading within an ESL context

National Library of Malaysia Annual Report 2001

This Annual Report reflects the PNM activities during 2001, to support their vision,"The National Library of Malaysia aspires to be a world class library in the provision of excellent information services towards the realization of Malaysia's vision of becoming an industrialised and developed nation by the year 2020." and mission,"To ensure that all Malaysians have equal access to library services and facilities as well the ability to utilise Malaysian and universal intellectual heritage knowledge through a national infrastructure of integrated electronic libraries.

Linking pay level to interactional justice as a determinant of personal outcomes

Human resource development literature highlights that pay level is a crucial compensation design issue. The ability of the management to properly design the level of pay according to external and internal organisational factors may have a signifi cant impact on personal outcomes, i.e. job satisfaction, job commitment,and job performance. More importantly, a thorough review of such relationships revealed that effect of pay level on personal outcomes is indirectly affected by feelings of interactional justice. Although the nature of this relationship is interesting, little is known about the influence of interactional justice in compensation programme models. Therefore, this study was conducted to measure the mediating effect of interactional justice in the relationship between pay level and personal outcomes. A survey research method was used to gather 917 usable questionnaires from employees who have worked in Malaysian institutions of higher learning. The outcomes of stepwise regression analysis showed three important findings: firstly, the relationship between interactional justice and pay level would increase job satisfaction. Secondly, the relationship between interactional justice and pay level would increase job commitment.Third, relationship between interactional justice and pay level would increase job performance. This result confirmed that interactional justice does act as a full mediating variable in the pay system model of the organisation sample. In addition, the implications of this study on compensation theory and practice,conceptual and methodological limitations, and directions for future research are discussed

Knowledge management initiatives, innovation and GLC performance

A model of knowledge management initiatives, innovation and performance evaluation was developed and tested on listed Malaysian Government-Linked companies (GLC). Data collected from 273 employees representing the three different levels of management were subjected to structural equation modeling analysis. The proposed model fits the data well. Results indicate that employees perceived knowledge management initiatives as important antecedents of innovation in the GLC, and innovation in return resulted in better organizational performance

Purchase Intentions of Foreign Luxury Brand Handbags among Consumers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

AbstractLuxury products are purchased and adorned by people to display wealth, prosperity, success, social status or merely the satisfaction of a superior product quality. The dominance of any one of these reasons for luxury goods purchase is influenced by culture. None of such study was found in Malaysia. In this study, we explored the motivations to purchase luxury brand handbags among Kuala Lumpur consumers. Unlike others, we also consider income as an added factor in perceived customers’ intentions to purchase in addition to the specific functional, experiential, symbolic, social influence; and trait of vanity dimensions. We used the self-administered questionnaires on 382 shoppers selected by the convenience sampling in major high-end shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Data was analysed for simple frequencies, factor analysis, correlation and hierarchical regression. Results indicate that functional value, vanity achievement and household income directly influence Malaysian consumers purchase intention for luxury goods. Marketing strategies to expand foreign luxury brand bags in Malaysia that incorporate these factors could have excellent chance of success

Quality improvement of manuka honey through the application of high pressure processing

The quality of honey is known to be compromised when it goes through thermal processing due to its negative impact on the unstable and thermolabile honey components which originated from the nectar and bees themselves. This present work is undertaken to access the use of an emerging food preservation technique known as “High Pressure Processing” for treating honey, as an alternative to the conventional thermal processing. In this thesis, honey quality has been addressed by measuring the effects of high pressure processing parameters (pressure, time and temperature) on nutritional properties of honey, namely total phenolic content and antioxidant activity. Honey samples, contained in small pouches, were subjected to different pressures (200-600 MPa) at close to ambient temperatures (25-33°C) for different holding times (10 to 30 min). Thermal processing (49- 70°C) was also carried out for comparison purpose. Results demonstrated that high pressure processing operated at 600 MPa for 10 min has capability to increase significantly the total phenolic content and antioxidant activity by 47% and 30%, respectively. Besides, the result showed that high pressure processing can maintain the natural colour of honey which relates directly to consumer perception, while retaining its shear-thinning behaviour and viscosity with no significant changes (p > 0.05). High pressure processing can also control hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) concentration in honey during process within the standard limit, 16.93 to 18.76 mg/kg (which is below than the maximum allowed limit of 40 mg/kg). This work also reveals that high pressure processing can enhance antibacterial activity of Manuka honey significantly. It shows an increase in the percentage inhibition of Staphylococcus epidermidis from 64.15 ± 5.86% to 84.34 ± 7.62% when honey was subjected to 600 MPa. Storage studies for one year at room temperature (25°C) demonstrated that high pressure-treated samples have a good retention to the physicochemical, nutritional and rheological properties of honey throughout storage, which confirms that the positive effect of high pressure on honey is not a temporary effect. Whereas, an insight study on the safety part showed that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell varied linearly with ° Brix, indicating that food compressibility has a significant role in the microbial inactivation

Students’ learning preferences of English for academic purposes - A KUiTTHO Affair

Kolej Universiti Teknologi Tun Hussein Onn (KUiTTHO) aims to produce graduates who are competent in English and other core skills in order to be in parallel with other established institutions. Communication and soft skills play important roles in making a graduate a success in the working world and to meet the demands of globalization especially where English is becoming more important. English for Academic Purposes was introduced as one of the required subjects for KUiTTHO students. Students whose MUET results are below than Band 3 and achieved only 50% or less in the placement test are required to take this course. This subject is aimed to facilitate students to undertake MUET again so they are able to achieve at least a Band 3. The study aims to find the learner’s preference in learning English for Academic Purposes as a new subject. Learning preferences in this case include how they want to learn, which language skills they prefer to learn and types of activities they prefer. This research will adapt the qualitative method using questionnaire and observation in gaining data. It is hoped through this research a comprehensive needs analysis can be developed to enhance the learning and the teaching of English for Academic Purposes later

Public complaints: An instrument to improve services in public institution of higher learning in post modern era. Case study: Student Affairs Department in Universiti Utara Malaysia

Jurgen Habermas dan Anthony Giddens are among other postmodern thinkers have proposed the theory of public sphere and social reflexivity. Because postmodenism has undermined the structure and function of the society and gives extra power to the periphery and individuals, the rise for individual participation in voicing out their need and wants is seen as important so that decision made at the top rung of the society reflect the masses. According to Habermas, in post modern era where tradition is lacking, people are losing trust and confidence in an abstract system – the system governing them beyond their immediate surrounding. To encounter it, citizen should be given power to participate in decision making. Habermas idea is supported by Giddens with his social reflexivity concept that suggests inputting public trust back into social institution. In coherence with this argument, the paper will discuss on the public complaint in public institution which is seen as a way to improve public services. The study is carried out in Student Affairs department in Universiti Utara Malaysia in 2003. The objectives of the study is to measure the level of awareness of the services offered at the Complaint Unit HEP and complaints by the students of the university. The paper will then discuss the findings and suggests ways to improve existing systems so that the quality of service is further enhanced

Phenomenological study: bilingual teaching classroom of Malaysian community colleges

The study of bilingual teaching classroom of Malaysian community colleges was designed for developing a brand new environment of teaching in a classroom. It was also to find the main factors that lead to this crucial phenomenon of bilingual classroom. This study has never been conducted among the academicians of community colleges and this is the first study invented by the researcher in order to help in creating new environment of teaching in a bilingual classroom and also to equip learners with good command of English language as to produce trainers who are proficient in the language. The targeted respondents of this study were several course content instructors from several different programs of Malaysian community colleges. Students from semester four undertaking certificate courses from various disciplines of studies were also involved in this research. Non-structured interviews, non-participant observation and note taking were the methods used in this research. The result indicates various answers given by the respondents from the interviews. The needs of the language for each classroom are highly depend on the teachers’ competencies of the language used instead of the learners’ needs. In a nutshell, the bilingual teaching classroom of community colleges can be evaded by practicing better approaches and methods in teaching