Marlia Puteh

The Role of Ambiguity Tolerance in Participation in Online EFL Courses

Online courses for teaching and learning English as a foreign language (EFL) are widely accepted in educational settings and have been investigated from various perspectives in order to improve their effectiveness. Yang (2011) established that students’ participation in online learning activities is a key element in successful language learning through CMC. Lee (2005) emphasized that knowledge of students’ personality characteristics can assist teachers and administrators in predicting the students’ performance and hence can facilitate the restructuring of the classroom situation in order to encourage more student participation. One of these significant personality traits/characteristics or individual differences is ambiguity tolerance (AT) and its importance has been highlighted by a number of studies. However, its effect on online EFL participation has not been widely discussed in the literature. The current study, therefore, was intended to investigate the effect of AT on the participation of 120 students in online EFL courses. The analysis revealed that tolerant students were more interested in participating in online EFL courses. In comparison, intolerant students were less likely to take part in these courses.

Does greater participation in online courses lead to passing grade? An EFL learning context

Concerning the importance of class participation, a series of studies have been reported by researchers. Further studies in this area also investigated students’ participation in online language learning environments. The present study determined to investigate whether great interactions in online participations lead to passing grade at the end of the course. To do this, 112 undergraduates, comprising 57 male and 55 female students who enrolled for online English as a foreign Language (EFL) courses participated in this study. In order to find the relationship between online interaction and passing grades of the students, the collected data were analyzed by applying multiple regression analysis. The results of data analysis showed that the more students participated in online interactions, the more likely they would secure the passing grades. The findings further emphasized that passing grade in online courses can be predictable by the frequency of online participation.

Quality Issues Facing Malaysian Higher Learning Institutions: A Case Study of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

This chapter analyses the extent to which Malaysian universities have responded to the pressing call for enhancing institutional quality and advocating academic excellence. Malaysian universities have been challenged by both internal and external assessments that suggest that they are not on a par with their international competitors. As a result there have been great demands for an urgent remedy. This chapter explores the progress that has been made in responding to those demands and the limitations that have been encountered. In so doing it provides a case study that focuses on engineering programmes in particular. The chapter is intended to answer the question: can institutional quality improvement deliver the human capital that Malaysia needs in order to remain globally competitive?

Quality Assurance through Innovation Policy: The Pedagogical Implications on Engineering Education

This study explores the role of science, technology and innovation to a country’s economy and examines the extent to which the engineering education field tallies with the national system of innovation.

Reading performance of Malaysian students across gender in PISA 2012

The 2012 PISA reading literacy aims to measure 15 year-olds’ reading performance in preparing them to meet real-life challenges. The primary aim of the present study is to examine Malaysian students’ reading performance by comparing the girls’ and boys’ performances in PISA 2012. The 2012 PISA reading literacy framework comprises three important reading aspects: access and retrieve (AR), interpret and integrate (II), and reflect and evaluate (RE). These aspects were further examined through the students’ reading performance in five types of text namely narration, exposition, argumentation, description and instruction. The findings demonstrate that the students performed better in AR than in II and RE indicating a better performance in lower-order reading skills than in the higher-level reading aspects. Findings also show that girls outperformed the boys across all reading aspects and types of reading texts. This paper concludes by emphasizing the need to integrate higher-order reading skills in the reading curriculum in order to prepare Malaysian students for better literacy competency. Keywords: PISA 2012; reading performance; gender; reading aspects; text types DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2202-08