Tee Tze Kiong

The Level of Marzano Higher Order Thinking Skills among Technical Education Students

Higher order thinking skills is an important aspect in teaching and learning especially at higher education institutions. Thinking skills practices are part of the generic skills that should be infused in all technical subjects. Students with higher order thinking skills are able to learn, improve their performance and reduce their weaknesses. Hence, the purpose of this research was to identify the level of Marzano Higher Order Thinking Skills among technical education students in the Faculty of Technical Education (FPTek), Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia. A total of 158 students of FPTek were randomly selected as sample. A set of questionnaires adapted from Marzano Rubrics for Specific Task or Situations (1993) was used as research instrument. This is a quantitative research and the gathered data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. The findings indicated that students perceived they have moderate level for investigation, experimental inquiry, comparing, deducing, constructing support, inducing and invention. However, decision making, problem solving, error analyzing, abstracting, analyzing perspectives and classifying are at low level. The Eta analysis indicated that there is a very low positive relationship between the level of Marzano Higher Order Thinking Skills and gender, academic achivement as well as socio economic status. Besides that, the findings also showed that there is no statistically significant difference in gender, academic achivement and socio economic status on the level of Marzano Higher Order Thinking Skills. However, there is significant difference in socio economic status on the level of decision making.

TRIZ: An Alternate Way to Solve Problem for Student

The followers of deviant movements have an extraordinary level of obedience towards their sheikhs or spiritual leaders. The leaders are regarded as religious sources that determine certain practices and are considered ma‘sum or infallible by his followers. They would therefore blindly follow what their leaders want and desire without much resistance. This has resulted in an extraordinary level of worship exceeding the level accorded for the Prophet s.a.w. Individuals involved in such extreme worshipping risk putting themselves in a major shirk. This article seeks to address the issue of extreme attitude or al-Ghuluw, and the concept of worshipping the spiritual leaders from the Islamic points of view by using the document analysis method. The results of the study have found that these religious leaders are regarded as a point of reference to certain practices, and are considered infallible or free from sin. In more extreme cases, these leaders are deemed to have divine attributes.

The needs analysis of learning Inventive Problem Solving for technical and vocational students

Malaysian Ministry of Education highlighted in their National Higher Education Strategic plan that higher educations need to focus adopting 21st century skills in order to increase a graduates employability. Current research indicates that most graduate lack of problem solving skills to help them securing the job. Realising the important of this skill hence an alternative way suggested as an option for high institutions student to solve their problem. This study was undertaken to measure the level of problem solving skills, identify the needs of learning inventive problem solving skills and the needs of developing an Inventive problem solving module. Using a questionnaire, the study sampled 132 students from Faculty of Technical and Vocational Education. Findings indicated that majority of the students fail to define what is an inventive problem and the root cause of a problem. They also unable to state the objectives and goal thus fail to solve the problem. As a result, the students agreed on the developing Inventive Problem Solving Module to assist them.

Relationship Between Creativity and the Tendency of Choosing Entrepreneurship as a Career among The Polytechnic Students in Malaysia

The purpose of this research is to analyze the relationship between creativity and the tendency of choosing entrepreneurship as a career among the polytechnic students in Malaysia. A total of 425 third semester polytechnic diploma students (PMKL, PMJB, PUO, PMJ, PMK, PSMZA, PMM, PBS and PPD) were selected as research samples using purposive stratified random sampling method. The modified TTCT instrument was used to identify the level of creativity and the level of tendency choosing entrepreneurship as a career among the respondents. Research results indicated that there are significant differences in the level of creativity and the level of tendency on choosing entrepreneurship as a career based on the category of polytechnic. The study also shows a positive relationship between the level of creativity and the tendency of choosing entrepreneurship as a career.