Ale J. Hejase

Colorectal Cancer : Exploring Awareness in Lebanon

Background: In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified Colorectal Cancer (CRC) as the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths (694,000 deaths) after lung (1.59 million deaths), liver (745,000 deaths) and stomach (723,000 deaths) cancers. Thus, CRC awareness is needed in order to promote CRC screening which is widely recommended but remains underused, especially among poor populations. Objective: The study assessed the current understanding of CRC among the Lebanese population in order to propose recommendations that may contribute to increasing the screening rates where it is widely known that the survival rate increases significantly with early interventions. Materials and Methods: The study surveyed 1140 participants that were approached in public places, universities, entrances of the hospitals or places of work as well as following a snowball tactic by giving some potential participants few surveys to complete within their own social circles. The survey included questions related to risk factors, symptoms, and methods of screening. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 23.0 software. Results: The results of this study underline the lack of knowledge on CRC where the percentage of respondents that has never heard about it exceeds 59%; likewise, the study underlines the lack of knowledge on CRC screening where the percentage of respondents that have heard about it while claiming that they are familiar with CRC does not exceed 57.17%. Similarly, the results revealed poor knowledge in what relates to CRC risk factors and symptoms. Conclusions: Lack of awareness on CRC and its common risks and symptoms terminology is a barrier to CRC screening; accordingly, effective awareness campaigns are needed to highlight these issues. To cite this article [Nemer, H. A., Hejase, A. J., Hejase H. J., Othman, M., Chawraba, M., & Trad, M. A. (2016). Colorectal Cancer: Exploring Awareness in Lebanon. The Journal of Middle East and North Africa Sciences, 2(10), 10-21]. (P-ISSN 24129763) (e-ISSN 2412-8937). www.jomenas.org. 3

Solving Polynomial Inequalities with GeoGebra : Opportunities of Visualization and Multiple Representations

The main purpose of the present study is to investigate the ways students’ instrumentation of Computer Algebra System (CAS) can help promote their algebraic reasoning while solving polynomial inequalities. In addition, the relation between students’ CAS techniques and paper-and-pencil (P&P) techniques are explored, together with the difficulties that students may face as they apply these techniques. Research participants are 33 tenth graders at a private mixed gender school in Mount-Lebanon, distributed among nine homogenous groups, five of which are selected as focus groups. The study is qualitative in nature. Data is collected from pretests, students’ written solutions of four instructional activities, laptop screen recordings, video recordings of whole-class discussions, and audio recorded interviews with students in the focus groups. The findings of the study show that students’ lack of prerequisite knowledge of the topic of functions and their low level of familiarity with GeoGebra software are determinant factors that hinder these students’ instrumentation of CAS and hence their reasoning processes as well as their implementation of the solving techniques. High and middle-achieving students’ solving techniques acquired little epistemic and some pragmatic values, whereas low achieving students’ solving techniques acquired heuristic values. To cite this article [Tarraf, H. A., Hejase, A. J., & Hejase, H. J. (2018). Solving Polynomial Inequalities with GeoGebra: Opportunities of Visualization and Multiple Representations. The Journal of Middle East and North Africa Sciences, 4(01), 01-22]. (P-ISSN 24129763) (e-ISSN 2412-8937). www.jomenas.org. 1

Students’ Evaluation of the Teaching Process at Lebanese Universities : An Assessment of the Faculty’s Perceptions

Lebanon, like other countries, has a special interest in conserving the integrity, quality, and fairness of its higher education, especially that it serves approximately 200,000 students registered in the scholastic year 2017-2018; these students injected millions of dollars into the private institutions. Students are seen as customers whose satisfaction and comfort jump to the front and prevail as the main doctrine that governs the educational process. The student-as-customer concept is a fundamental factor that plays a major role in educational institutions, even the traditional non-profit ones that basically depend on tuition fees incurred by the number of enrolled students in order to cover their inflated budgets; hence, the need to have satisfied stakeholder —students. This orientation has made the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) a key criterion to evaluate the teaching process; especially since SET is currently used to assess and improve teaching and learning processes. Faculty members who are considered by the students, non-lenient, serious, strict, and highly demanding are put under pressure, if not penalized, irrespective if it is fair or not, hence leading to the former being frustrated. This research provides an insight into the frustration state of the faculty members at certain Lebanese universities due to the importance which is given to SET and its effects on the educational procedure and their careers per se. This research is exploratory and quantitative using a survey questionnaire distributed to 146 faculty members. Data is analyzed using SPSS software. Findings reveal that the majority of the said faculty members have a negative view of the SET evaluation process in terms of format, and the content of the corresponding questionnaires; results are seen as being ineffective and inappropriate means of evaluation. The SET evaluation process is complicated and the assessment survey differs from one university to another. Outcomes of this paper serve policymakers at the higher education institutions when setting the institution’s mission and vision and purpose; it may direct the continuous efforts to create agreed upon teaching and learning quality standards. To cite this article [Hejase, A. J., Hejase, H. J., Tarhini, A. M., & Younis, J. (2018). Students’ Evaluation of the Teaching Process at Lebanese Universities: An Assessment of the Faculty’s Perceptions. The Journal of Middle East and North Africa Sciences, 4(7), 1132]. (P-ISSN 24129763) (e-ISSN 2412-8937). www.jomenas.org. 3

Effect of Education and Emotional Intelligence on Consumers Impulsive Buying Behavior

Today, marketing has become highly competitive across the industry, and understanding consumers’ behavior has become a challenging task for the marketers. In strategic marketing planning, consumer behavior is an integral part of said process as the consumer plays the role of the user, the buyer and the payer. The behavior of the consumers changes as the factors that affect the consumer’s behavior change. The goal of this research is to examine the effect of education on consumers’ impulsive buying behavior. Data is collected using a 30-question questionnaire to test the respondents’ impulsive buying behavior, their attitude to impulsive buying, and their education level and Emotional Intelligence. The sample size is 200, of which 184 are valid. Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) is used to analyze the acquired data to discern the correlation between the level of education and impulsive buying behavior.