Evaluating the quality of BEd programme: Students' views of their college experiences

Quality assurance of teacher training has become of a great concern nowadays. This paper addresses the quality of BEd programme of the University of Education (UE) Lahore. The main purpose of the study was to evaluate the quality of BEd programme with regard to the internal efficiency of Government Colleges for Elementary Teachers (GCETs), the affiliated institutions of UE. The study was conducted on a random sample of 600 BEd students drawn from 11 GCETs in Punjab province. Data was collected through a questionnaire which was validated through a pilot study in 2006. The reliability of the final questionnaire was established at 0.863 allowing the researcher to launch the study at large scale (Gay, 2000). The findings revealed that BEd programme was effective in terms of updating student teachers' knowledge and skills. Student teachers favoured the quality of BEd curriculum, lesson planning and presentation by themselves and their teacher educators, and had some reservations about the proper use of audio-visual aids for effective classroom teaching learning processes. Female gender showed more satisfaction with the quality of BEd curriculum and teaching than their male counterparts. No significant difference was found in the opinion of the students of GCETs having low, medium, and high enrolment.     

A qualitative inquiry of doctoral students' herding in education and validation of ‘herding in educational decisions’ scale

Fresh PhD recipients are experiencing restricted career opportunities yet the enrolment of PhD Scholars is increasing rapidly. Perhaps, doctoral students lack conscious educational decision-making. Building on such a perspective of doctoral students' unconscious educational choices, we explored their educational choices throughout their life trajectory. We started with a qualitative inquiry of 18 different PhD scholars in Pakistan. The findings helped us in developing a measure to determine the extent of herding in doctoral students' educational decisions. We ‘benefitted from’ this opportunity and validated the scale in two separate quantitative inquiries for conducting an exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The study concluded a 3-dimensional scale (consisting of 15-items) for measuring ‘herding in educational decisions’. The study offers certain implications for conscious educational decisions.     

Modeling and control of microgrid: An overview

A microgrid (MG) is a building block of future smart grid, it can be defined as a network of low voltage power generating units, storage devices and loads. System of systems (SoS) is another concept involving large scale integration of various systems. In this paper, we provide an overview of recent developments in modeling and control methods of microgrid as well as presenting the reason towards incorporating MG into the existing grid. Various SoS control strategies when applied to MG are discussed.     

School Leaders’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of Learning Disabilities: Implications for Support in Inclusive Schools in the Sultanate of Oman

The study examined school leaders’ and teachers’ perceptions of Learning Disabilities (LDs) in Key Stage1 Schools in a sample drawn from schools in Muscat, the capital city of Oman. A sample of 175 school leaders and 175 teachers completed The Survey on Learning Disabilities (SLD), an instrument developed to explore beliefs and perceptions of the causes of LDs. A principal component analysis indicated that six factors underlie perceptions of LDs: The governmental formal educational system, repertoire of teachers’ skills and school support, familial and cultural background, students, academic curriculum, and social change. Multivariate analyses showed that school leaders perceive more strongly than teachers that the governmental formal educational system and academic curriculum as main causal factors for LDs. Implications for support of students with LDs in inclusive settings in Oman are discussed.     

Parental Choice and Schooling: some factors influencing Muslim mothers’ decisions about the education of their daughters

In recent years parental choice in education has become an important focus of political debate. Muslim demands for the state funding of Islamic schools have attracted a significant amount of media attention, with opposition sometimes coming from those who argue that such schools are likely to offer limited opportunities to pupils, particularly girls. This article reports on a small‐scale research project which examined the attitudes and values of Muslim women in the UK to their daughters’ education, particularly the basis on which they had selected either a private Islamic school or state primary school. It considers whether the concept of parental choice is a valid one for these women     

Teachers’ Expectancy and Efficacy as Correlates of School Achievement in Delta, Mississippi

This study explored the relationship between school achievement levels and teachers’ expectations, locus of control and efficacy in four elementary schools in Delta, Mississippi in keeping with the self-fulfilling prophecy theory. Data from surveys of 102 teachers, five focus groups, observations, and secondary information on teachers’ grading pattern were used. Analyses using t-tests and multiple linear regressions revealed that teachers in high achieving schools tended to exhibit an internal locus of control and base their expectancies on students’ abilities rather than personal characteristics. School achievement level was found to be the only significant predictor indicating that high achieving schools had a culture of higher expectations that affected teachers’ perceptions, motivations, and grading pattern. These findings are substantiated by qualitative assessments.     

Preliminary studies on the hypoglycaemic effect ofAbroma augusta in alloxan diabetic rats

The hypoglycemic effect of the aqueous extract ofAbroma augusta (Family: Steculiceae) was studied in normal as well as alloxan diabetic rats. Treatement of diabetic rats with 4 ml (4gm dry weight) of agueous extract ofA. augusta for 16 weeks resulted in gradual but significant fall in fasting blood glucose and improvement in glucose tolerance. Serum total and LDL cholesterol and triacylglycerol which increased in diabetic rats showed improvement. These results show that the water extract ofA. augusta has both hypoglycemic and hypocholesterolemic effects.     

Examining the relations of time management and procrastination within a model of self-regulated learning

The primary goal of this study was to investigate whether college students’ academic time management could be used to understand their engagement in traditional and active forms of procrastination within a model of self-regulated learning. College students (N = 446) completed a self-report survey that assessed motivational and strategic aspects of self-regulated learning, time management, and procrastination. Results of regression analyses indicated that self-efficacy and metacognitive strategies initially were significant predictors of traditional and active forms of procrastination. Incorporating time management in the analyses increased the amount of the variance explained and, even in the presence of the motivation and strategy variables, time management emerged as an important predictor of both traditional and active forms of procrastination. Findings support the conclusion that academic time management is a key aspect of self-regulated learning and, as such, it can be useful for understanding the extent to which college students procrastinate when doing their academic work.     

Assessing the response of indigenous loquat cultivar Mardan to phytohormones for in vitro shoot proliferation and rooting

In vitro cultures of loquat cultivar Mardan were established using shoot apices after treating with NaOCl (5%, 7%, 10%, 12%, 14% (v/v)) for 12 min and HgCl₂ (0.01%, 0.05%, 0.10%, 0.20%, 0.25% (w/v)) for 2 min. A maximum survival rate of 70% was recorded after surface sterilization with 10% NaOCl. Caulogenic response was assessed on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium fortified with assorted combinations of the cytokinins, benzylaminopurine (BAP), kinetin, and N6-(2-isopentyl)adenine (2iP). Treatment of BAP 1.5 mg/L combined with 2iP 9.0 mg/L and kinetin 1.5 mg/L was found to be optimum for shoot morphogenesis in terms of the number and subsequent growth of shoots, while the highest shoot length was yielded by the combination of BAP 0.5 mg/L, kinetin 0.5 mg/L, and 2iP 3 mg/L. Higher levels of cytokinins induced callogenesis, vitrification and stunted growth to some extent. For rhizogenesis, uniform sized micro-shoots were excised and transferred to half-strength MS medium containing auxins. The best rooting expression was observed with naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) 1 mg/L combined with indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) 2 mg/L and paclobutrazol (PBZ) 1 mg/L.