The role of teaching experience in language teachers’ perceptions of a top-down curriculum change

The current study aimed to investigate the role of teaching experience in language teachers’ perceptions of a top-down curriculum change. One hundred twenty-seven language teachers who have been experiencing the change for three years participated in the study. Their perceptions of change were quantitatively assessed by perceptions of change survey with three main components: new curriculum, teacher practices, and administrative support of change. Analysis of the quantitative data analysis indicates that experience is associated with more cautious perceptions of change and explains 9% of the variance in the results. To triangulate the findings of the quantitative data analysis, 10 experienced and 8 novice teachers took part in a structured interview and answered 10 questions regarding the old curriculum and the change, their role in the reform, and the administrator's support of the change. The result showed that both experienced and novice teachers are optimistic about the new syllabus. However, experienced teachers are more concerned about the practical issues of change such as time and lack of audiovisual aids. Further, they think that their agency and experiential professionalism are neglected in this change and the problems of implementing change have not been appropriately addressed by the administrators during the last three years.     

THE EFFECT OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES ON ELEMENTARY STUDENTS’ SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT AND SOCIAL SKILLS IN KUWAIT

This study compares the effects of two methods of teaching—teacher-centered and cooperative learning—on students’ science achievement and use of social skills. The sample consists of 163 female elementary science students in 8 intact grade 5 classes who were assigned to 2 instructional methods and were taught an identical science unit by 4 classroom teachers. The students’ science achievement was measured by a researcher-designed achievement test given to students as a pretest and a posttest. Students’ social skills were determined by a researcher-designed survey administered as a pretest and posttest. Analysis of the achievement test scores and the social skills survey responses revealed that cooperative learning strategies have significantly (p > 0.05) more positive effects on both students’ achievement and social skills than teacher-centered strategies. These results provide an evidential base to inform policy decisions and encourage and persuade teachers to implement cooperative learning methods in Kuwaiti classrooms.     

Development of a scale for data quality assessment in automated library systems

A credible scale based on the opinions of system users was developed to evaluate and assess data quality in automated library systems (ALS). Development and testing were carried out in two stages. In the first stage, 77 dimensions for data quality which had been previously identified through a systematic literature review were used to develop scale items. The first draft of the scale was then distributed among a target population of ALS experts to solicit their opinions on the scale and the items. In the second stage, a revised version of the scale was distributed among the main study population, which included end users of the target systems. This stage used factor analysis to determine the final draft of the scale, which consists of 4 factors and 62 items. The 4 factors were named after the qualities of their associated items: Data Content Quality, Data Organizational Quality, Data Presentation Quality, and Data Usage Quality. This scale can help system managers identify and resolve potential problems in the systems they manage and can also aid in evaluating the quality of data sources based on the opinions of end users.     

Performance of the geometric approach to fault detection and isolation in SISO, MISO, SIMO and MIMO systems

In this paper,a geometric approach to fault detection and isolation (FDI) is applied to a Multiple-Input Multi-ple-Output (MIMO) model of a frame and the FDI results are compared to the ones obtained in the Single-Input Single-Output (SISO),Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO),and Single-Input Multiple-Output (SIMO) cases. A proper distance function based on parameters obtained from parametric system identification method is used in the geometric approach. ARX (Auto Regressive with eXogenous input) and VARX (Vector ARX) models with 12 parameters are used in all of the above-mentioned models. The obtained results reveal that by increasing the number of inputs,the classification errors reduce,even in the case of applying only one of the inputs in the computations. Furthermore,increasing the number of measured outputs in the FDI scheme results in decreasing classification errors. Also,it is shown that by using probabilistic space in the distance function,fault diagnosis scheme has better performance in comparison with the deterministic one.     

Why Are You Waiting? Procrastination on Academic Tasks Among Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Innovative Higher Education - Academic procrastination is understood as the postponement of academic tasks despite the possibility of negative consequences, with an estimated 46% of undergraduate...     

The Modified <Emphasis Type="Italic">h</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">Index</Emphasis> of Scopus: A New Way in Fair Scientometrics

The h-index of Scopus is used as an important and practical instrument in analyzing the scientific level of researchers. In this research, 6 effective items (including author’s order, quality of publication source, quality of citation source, type of citation, research scopes of the authors and the regular scope of citation source) were considered in order to increase the accuracy and equity of research and also the optimization of scientometrics. In order to find the actual impact of each item, a relation with a default coefficient was considered, and all effective items were presented after evaluating the influence of them on the desired coefficients. Here, the introduced effective factors were separately investigated for 20 Iranian authors who are randomly selected. The analysis of the results showed that by applying the effective factors, the h-index of authors was obtained on the basis of real and scientific criteria; thus, the mean of all effective factors is introduced as modified h-index. Among considered authors, the lowest reduction in h-index was 10.67% and the highest reduction was 37.25% (SD was 6.5). This reduction was obtained in comparison with their h-index of Scopus, and it demonstrates that the authors, who have less reduction in their h-index value, have more scientific and honest approach to research.     

Study of Toxicity Effect of Pegylated Nanoliposomal Artemisinin on Breast Cancer Cell Line

Nano carriers have greatly revolutionized the treatment of most diseases recently. One of these nano carriers, liposomes, has got particular significance. On the other hand, Artemisinin which is used as an effective anticancer drug has some side effects. To reduce such side effects, liposomes can be employed. In order to prepare pegylated nanoliposomal artemisinin, particular proportions of phosphatidylcholine, polyethylene glycol 2000 and artemisinin were combined. As a result, the mean diameter of nano liposomes is 455 nm. Besides, the encapsulation efficiency and the drug release from pegylated nanoliposomes for pegylated nanoliposomal artemisinin are respectively 91.62 ± 3.5 and 5.17 %. The results also show that IC50 of the produced formulation is less than that of the standard drug. This study reveals that the amount of artemisinin cytotoxicity compared to standard drug is increased by pegylated nanoliposomal formulation.