Vincent Pang

Teaching and Research in Malaysian Public Universities: Synergistic or Antagonistic?

The Malaysian higher education system has undergone many reforms in the last two decades. These reforms have had radical implications for all aspects of the professional lives of university academics, particularly in their teaching and research as well as in their relations with institutional governance, infrastructure and facilities and remuneration. This chapter briefly discusses the consequences of the changing university system and institutional environments for teaching and research in the Malaysian public universities. It then examines a set of available data from the 2007 CAP study to investigate how academics use their time for teaching and research and how they perceive the teaching and research nexus. This chapter explores aspects of teaching and research using several determinants—perception of teaching and research environment, workload and preference, teaching and research processes, perception of a nexus—and compares them by university type. Several implications particularly in relation to the institutional policies and practices are offered to provide support for the coexistence of research and teaching in the Malaysian public universities.

Academics as Agents of Internationalization and Literacy: Malaysian Responses and Future Challenges

This chapter explicates the history and context of internationalization of higher education in Malaysia and presents the challenges and benefits of internationalization to the country, in relation to academic, economic, and socio-cultural areas. It examines the continuities and the gaps between on one hand the purposes and rhetoric of the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education’s (2007a, b) Strategic and Action Plans; and on the other hand, the perceptions and capacities of academics, as reported in the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) study and in the national research report on language proficiency of academic staff in public universities. Since academics are agents who occupy a central position in the knowledge production process in the new knowledge economies, this chapter investigates the orientations of academic staff in terms of their contexts, backgrounds, expertise, requirements, work roles and literacies in relation to the increasing relevance of internationalization and to their roles as reflexive agents of internationalization.

The influence of motivational orientations on academic achievement among working adults in continuing education

Abstract This paper reports on a study of five motivational orientations in continuing education among working adults. The influence of motivational orientations on their academic achievement was identified. The study involved 159 working adults who enrolled into part-time programs in an Open University in Sabah. Boshier’s Education Participation Scale (EPS) and Neill’s The University Students Motivation and Satisfaction Questionnaire 2 (TUSMSQ2) were adapted to form a thirty-item questionnaire, which was used to collect data about their motivational orientations, that is, personal development, career advancement, social pressure, social and communication improvement, and escapism. Analysis based on an Item-Response model reaffirmed the content validity of items in the questionnaire. The findings indicated that these working adults were highly motivated by career advancement in continuing education compared with the other four motivational orientations. However, the motivational orientations in continuing education varied based on their age, prior education level and length of working experience. Moreover, it was found that adults with higher motivation of personal development tended to perform better in their part-time learning. Some recommendations and directions for future studies are discussed.

Using Rasch Analysis to Examine the Effects of Year 5 Students’ Understanding of Whole Numbers Multiplication

This study aims to examine the effect of an intervention with line array representation on student’s understanding of whole number multiplication. This was done by comparing the scores of pre- and post-tests in multiplication. The tests were administered to 32 Year 5 students; aged 10–11 years old, in an intact classroom of an urban primary school in the district of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. A test of multiplication was developed and used in this study as a pre-test and a post-test. This test, which was aligned with Year 5 Standards in the Malaysia Primary Mathematics Curriculum, was developed by one of the researchers. Aimed at examining student’s computational knowledge in manipulating numerical symbols, the test contained 33 multiple-choice items of 18 single digit and 15 multi-digit multiplication in whole numbers that were divided into nine categories. Students’ responses for both pre- and post-test were obtained and analysed using Bond and Fox Steps using pre-test item difficulties as anchors. The analyses were focused on person measures and Wright maps. The increase in mean person ability from +0.82 logit in the pre-test to +1.15 logits in the post-test showed that students’ understanding in multiplication had improved after the intervention. Results showed that students of high ability were likely to have gained more in this intervention than were the children of average or low ability. This study has shown that the Wright map is helpful for determining which ability group of students has acquired the competencies in each category. High ability students who were likely to answer correctly in all categories, especially in the distributive strategy that involved higher order thinking skills items and have shown higher relational understanding in multiplication. Average and low ability students were likely answer correctly most of the lower order thinking skills items demonstrating only instrumental understanding. This study suggests other possible areas for developing tests of multiplication should include different visual representations and multiplicative situations or tasks.

A Pilot Study of Student Teachers’ Infinity Thinking Assessment: Part I—Rasch Analysis

The Infinity Thinking Assessment (ITA) was developed to study how student teachers make sense of the concept of infinity (∞). Consequently, this pilot study aimed to examine the ITA which consists of 22 items in two constructs: Aspects of Infinity (AI) and Conceptions of Infinity (CI). The ITA was administered to student teachers from the Malaysian Institutes of Teacher Education (IPG), and the sample consisted of 40 respondents (out of 60). The quality of the items was evaluated in terms of unidimensionality, reliability, and internal consistency. Item reliability coefficients for the AI and CI were 0.90 and 0.95 respectively, while person reliabilities for the AI and the CI were much lower at 0.41 and 0.59 respectively. The low person reliabilities reflects the limited number of items in the survey. However, given that the study was conducted to examine the items rather than determining the ability of the respondents toward infinity thinking, the results appear satisfactory for a no-stakes description of the ITA traits. Only one item, in the CI subscale, warranted being put aside for revision due to its mis-fit indicators. Based on these findings, the instrument might be analysed as a single ITA scale and then used for testing in a larger sample to further validate the sequence of the items in the scale.

Measuring Change in Early Mathematics Ability of Children Who Learn Using Games: Stacked Analysis in Rasch Measurement

Teaching approaches that are effective for children in the early stages will be able to improve their performance. This study aimed to use the Rasch Measurement Model to measure the change in early Mathematics achievements of preschool children before and after an intervention. This study applied the Rasch analytic technique of data “stacking”, whereby the researcher is able to see if and how each individual’s performance changed during the intervention. The sample consisted of 170 P1-preschool children in Sabah, Malaysia, who enrolled in a learning-through-games intervention programme for 13 weeks. The 40 item dichotomous test “Ujian Pencapaian Awal Matematik (Early Mathematics Achievement Test)” (UPAM) was used. The instrument showed good fit of data to the Rasch Model. The pre-intervention and post-intervention results show generally consistent changes in early mathematics performance of children who learnt using games across the intervention. The Rasch stacked analysis provided a useful method for measuring change of the children’s ability over time, thereby complementing traditional statistical analyses.

Students’ Moral Behaviour Inventory Development and Validation: A Rasch Analysis

In this study, an instrument was developed to measure the level of students’ moral behaviour based on the Malaysian Moral Education Syllabus. Samples are from 60 secondary school students; aged from 14 to 17 years old, from a middle school in the Tuaran district, Sabah. The Students’ Moral Behavior Inventory had 108 items, with a four-point rating scale (never, seldom, often, always) questionnaire that assessed seven learning areas (self-development, family, environment, patriotism, human rights, democracy and, peace and harmony). This paper reports the analysis of the quality of each of the items in the instrument using Rasch Model. Person reliability (0, 97) and item reliability (0.95) are excellent. The infit and outfit mean square for all the items were between 0.50 and 1.50, except for 10 items that needed to be checked and modified. The principal component analysis residual showed that there is no noticeable secondary dimension. Summary statistics show good reliability and separation while the person separation and reliability are weak. Category structure is OK. The stability of Students’ Moral Behavior Inventory needs to be tested again after the modification of the misfit items.

Personal Characteristics, Career Trajectory and Job Satisfaction of Academics in Malaysia

The study presented in this chapter describes the profile (e.g., gender, age, and language), career trajectory (e.g., highest degree obtained, academic trajectory and rank), and job satisfaction of academic staff based on the results of the CAP (Changing Academic Profession) survey of academics. The report provides a framework for discussing how recent contextual changes affect the academics’ career trajectory and are likely to affect the Malaysian academic profession in the future. The demands on the major tasks of teaching and research have increased significantly with emphasis on key performance indicators. These changes have impacted the career trajectory, motivations and morale of academics in Malaysian universities.

Accessing Gender Bias in Malaysian Secondary School Students’ Leadership Inventory (M3SLI)

The study aims to access gender bias in M3SLI by investigating gender differential item functioning (GDIF). The instrument utilised was the Malaysian Secondary School Students’ Leadership Inventory (M3SLI). There were 877 male and 1306 female secondary school students involved in this study. The M3SLI consists of three constructs; core personality, values and competencies. Data gathered were analysed by a Rasch-based item analysis programme. The analysed data reveals that 30 items (44.1 %) from 68 items in M3SLI show significant GDIF with t ≥ 2.0 logit. The GDIF contrasts less than 0.5 logit indicate that all items do not show serious GDIF. As such, M3SLI is proposed to be free from GDIF.

The Postgraduate Research Student Experience in Malaysia

The Malaysian Ministry of Education (MOE) has set its mission to establish a higher education environment that will foster the development of educational excellence within a highly globalized and competitive university environment. In this regard, the National Higher Education Strategic Plan (PSPTN) and its accompanying Action Plan Phase 1 and Action Plan Phase 2 were formulated toward forging an internationalization policy for HE in Malaysia.