Physical and psychosocial aspects of the learning environment in the science laboratory and their relationship to teacher satisfaction

This paper is a report of a survey conducted to determine teachers’ perception of the science laboratory learning environment and the relationship between different aspects of this environment and satisfaction from teaching and learning. Teachers’ perceptions of psychosocial aspects were measured by use of the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI), whereas perceptions of physical aspects were measured by use of the Physical Science Laboratory Environment Inventory. The level of satisfaction was measured by use of a satisfaction scale (SC). Data were collected from 800 science teachers in secondary schools in Malaysia. Analysis of findings revealed that teachers have positive attitudes on all SLEI scales, with the exception of the open-ended scale. In terms of physical aspects, teachers regard lighting and technology as highly important but furniture and equipment, space, air quality and safety as of moderate importance only. Results also showed that teachers’ satisfaction from teaching in the laboratory was positive. Subsequent analysis revealed a significant predictive relationship between teachers’ perception of science laboratory learning environments and their teaching and learning satisfaction.     

School‐to‐work transition services for students with disabilities in Malaysia: organisations' views on policy and practices

Transition services are required by law for students with disabilities in many developed countries. In Malaysia, however, there is still no specific legislation mandating that school‐to‐work transition planning and services be provided to students with disabilities. This study investigated the state of the transition services provided by educational organisations to students with disabilities in Malaysia. A mixed method research design, which utilises both quantitative and qualitative research techniques, was employed to obtain information from 23 government organisations and NGOs involved in the education and training of students with disabilities. This study found that the organisations surveyed were aware of the lack of transition support and call attention to the importance of instituting a national policy on school‐to‐work transition services and supported employment systems for students with disabilities. The legislative and educational implications for Malaysia are discussed.     

Efficiency of antibiotics and gamma irradiation in eliminating Streptomyces strains isolated from paintings of ancient Egyptian tombs

Forty-six Streptomyces strains were isolated from paintings and stone surfaces from Tell Basta and Tanis tombs (80 km south-east Cairo, Egypt). Eight of these strains were selected to determine their sensitivity against 13 antibiotics. In general, high levels of resistance could be observed. Gentamycin, spiramycin and doxycycline were the most effective antibiotics against the majority of strains under study. Due to the observed antibiotic resistances, gamma irradiation was studied as a possible alternative to inhibit microbial growth. Isolated bacteria were exposed to different doses of gamma irradiation (5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 kGy). The growth of all Streptomyces isolates except S. canarius was completely inhibited at 25 kGy. The applied doses of gamma irradiation did not cause any observable alterations or colour changes to pigments and binding media (arabic gum, animal glue and egg-yolk) used in the paintings.     

Dynamic modeling and nonlinear control strategy for an underactuated quad rotor rotorcraft

In this paper, a nonlinear dynamic MIMO model of a 6-DOF underactuated quad rotor rotorcraft is derived based on Newton-Euler formalism. The derivation comprises determining equations of motion of the quad rotor in three dimensions and seeking to approximate the actuation forces through modeling of the aerodynamic coefficients and electric motor dynamics. The derived model is dynamically unstable, so a sequential nonlinear control strategy is implemented for the quad rotor. The control strategy includes exact feedback linearization technique, using the geometric methods of nonlinear control. The performance of the nonlinear control algorithm is evaluated using simulation and the results show the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy for the quad rotor rotorcraft near quasi-stationary flight.     

Self-regulated learning and satisfaction: A key determinants of MOOC success

Education and Information Technologies - MOOC is an innovative method in modern education, particularly important for sharing of excellent educational resources worldwide. To realize the full...     

Cord Blood Insulin Levels: It’s Correlation with Gender,Birth Weight and Placental Weight in Term Newborns

The cause of more insulin resistance in female than males are still unknown. To know the cause from early life, normal values of relevant parameters are required. So, aim of this study was to determine the reference levels of glucose and insulin in cord blood of term newborns and to examine their effects on gender, placental and birth weight of term newborns. In cross sectional study 60 consecutive term newborns were included from constituent hospitals. Placental and birth weights were measured and cord blood was collected for estimation of serum insulin and plasma glucose. Plasma glucose estimation was done by auto analyzer (GOD–POD method) and serum insulin analysis was done using Insulin ELISA Kit. After analysis, mean ± 2SD used for estimating cord blood insulin and glucose levels, which were 10.1 ± 7.8 μIU/mL and 67.8 ± 33.8 mg/dL respectively. Correlation of insulin with both birth weight and placental weight were r = 0.359 and 0.41 respectively; p < 0.001. Interestingly we found higher insulin levels in females as compared to male newborns in spite of having lower birth weight in them. In conclusion this study reported the levels of insulin and glucose in cord blood of term newborns. Incidentally, this is the first study as per our knowledge to report significant correlation between cord blood insulin, glucose with birth weight, placental weight and gender in south India. Female newborns had higher insulin levels than males, despite lesser birth weight can be attributed to intrinsic insulin resistance in them.     

Combining Economic and Conjoint Analysis to Determine Optimal Academic Services

In today's era of global competition, organizations must manage their functions and activities in a manner such that they are responsive to customers' needs and can provide excellence in service to the customer while also being efficient and cost conscious. These issues are extremely common in corporate organizations, but such concerns are equally relevant in service industries, including institutions of higher education. This study is conducted at a private, undergraduate institution of higher education. We utilize focus group evaluation and conjoint analysis combined with economic analysis in the form of a newly designed preferred utility economic cost diagram to pick the ideal services that should be provided to enrolled students at the institution. The package of ideal services accounts for preferred utility expressed by students and a new methodology (preferred utility function) to balance these against financial considerations to optimize services and financial gains for a college adult education program. This combination of focus groups and mathematical techniques can be easily employed by educational institutes.     

Addressing issues of peer rejection in child-centered classrooms

In many early childhood classrooms, teachers are providing more opportunities for children to interact with peers as they learn. For most children, these interactions are successful. However, for a few children, their attempts to interact with peers are ignored or rebuffed. If interactions are an essential component of the instructional program, then being denied access to them is tantamount to being denied access to learning events. Therefore, the children experience the psychological impact of rejection as well as the impact of being denied access to learning opportunities. This article explores this issue by: (a) describing the sociometric dimension (i.e., interpersonal relationships) within groups, (b) providing illustrations of how the sociometric dynamics in one classroom affected three children, and (c) presenting suggestions for maximizing the learning experiences for all children.     

How to sustainably increase students’ willingness to protect pollinators

The current loss of biodiversity requires efforts to increase awareness of pollinator conservation. An important tool is education which often uses the honeybee (Apis mellifera) as an exemplary organism to reach this goal. Any successful module needs to focus on reducing the perceived danger associated with fear, in order to support the willingness to protect them. Using a quasi-experimental design, we investigated the effectiveness of two educational approaches: one by authentically encountering living animals at a beehive, the other by using a remote online beehive. We monitored secondary school students’ (N = 354) perception of bees with respect to interest, danger and conservation as well as situational emotions (interest, well-being, boredom) during both interventions. In both cases positive effects on perception levels were observed, even when already a high willingness to protect bees existed. Using living animals in educational settings is crucial, especially when students’ situational emotions need targeting. However, we achieved similar intervention results in perception levels using a remote beehive, which therefore constitutes an excellent alternative to raise awareness of the conservation of bees as pollinators when working with living organisms is not possible.     

Finite element simulation of stress intensity factors in elastic-plastic crack growth

INTRODUCTION The finite element method (FEM) has been widely employed for solving linear elastic and elas-tic-plastic fracture problems. The evaluation of stress intensity factors in 2D geometries by FEM is a tech-nique widely used for non-standard crack configura-tions. Basically, there are two groups of estimation methods, those based on field extrapolation near the crack tip (Chan et al., 1970; Shih et al., 1976) and those using the energy release when the crack propagates. However…