An introduction

Abstract

Political and historical thoughts pertaining to “modern Malaya” and Malaysia are phenomena of the emerging modern era characterized by the stirrings and the rise of nationalism in Southeast Asia since the early twentieth century. One of the most compelling ideas in envisioning the nation and fighting for independence then was Melayu Raya, articulated by a group of visionary leaders of socio-political movements who professed to fight for the creation of a political entity, a new independent “nation.” Using the history of ideas approach, this article argues that nations are envisioned, and that we need to contextualize the discussion within what has been termed as “Malay world,” the old kingdoms in the region, and the subsequent struggles against colonial powers and the “nationalist” projects for independence. To help understand this background, the article uses the concept of “culture zone” as used by Fernand Braudel in his study of civilizations. This article examines the debate on the “Malay world” and Melayu Raya, and also the post-Second World War envisioning of the nation and the approaches taken by various groups to fight against British colonialism and for independence. Despite almost six decades of independence, some of these ideas keep returning, resonating with some aspects of the present in today's Malaysia. In the course of this article, a brief reference to the history of ideas and the idea of history is made.     

A promising route to neuromorphic vision

The human vision system has a very strong capability in perceiving surround-ings.Such visual perception starts in the retina,which receives and preprocesses the...     

How can we enhance enjoyment of secondary school? The student view

This paper considers enjoyment of formal education for young people aged 14 to 16, largely from their own perspective, based on the view of around 3000 students in England. The data include documentary analysis, official statistics, interviews and surveys with staff and students. Enjoyment of school tends to be promoted by factors such as successful social relationships, small classes, variation in learning and students having some control of their learning. Enjoyment tends to be inhibited by perceived lack of respect or concern by teaching staff and passive pedagogy. For some disengaged students, a work or college environment with more adult relationships appears to restore enjoyment and enthusiasm. Enjoyment, unlike attainment, for example, is not particularly stratified by the standard student background variables. Nor is there evidence of a clear school effect. This means that enjoyment should be easy to enhance more widely, positively affecting the learner identities of all young people, including the more reluctant learners.     

The nature of Chinese Language classroom learning environments in Singapore secondary schools

This article reports findings from a classroom environment study which was designed to investigate the nature of Chinese Language classroom environments in Singapore secondary schools. We used a perceptual instrument, the Chinese Language Classroom Environment Inventory, to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards their Chinese Language classroom learning environments using six dimensions, namely, Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Cooperation, Task Orientation and Equity. The investigation was carried out using a sample of 1,460 secondary three (Grade 9) students from 50 Chinese Language classes in 25 Singapore government secondary schools. The nature of the Chinese Language classroom learning environments was interpreted from analyses of the perception scores obtained, as well as from various comparisons of the perception scores between different groups. Although both the Chinese Language teachers and students perceived their present classroom learning environments positively, they would like improvements in all the six dimensions of the classroom learning environments under investigation. Also teachers perceived a more positive classroom learning environment than their students in the same class. In addition, female students perceived their actual and preferred classroom environments more positively than their male counterparts.     

The Success and Struggles of Filipino Geriatric Nurses in Nursing Homes

Geriatric nursing is a physically and emotionally demanding job in healthcare. It is a neglected field despite the growing population of the elderly, and the experiences of geriatric nurses are one of the unrecognized aspects of this field. This qualitative study purports to explore the successes and struggles of the lived experiences of a select group of Filipino geriatric nurses working in nursing homes. A total of five registered nurses selected from Philippine geriatric homes were the subjects of this qualitative study. Data were gathered from a two-part instrument: namely, a researcher-made robotfoto and a semistructured interview. Through the use of a repertory grid involving both cool and warm analyses, field texts were phenomenologically reduced in order to establish distinct conceptual clusters.

Summarily, two roles were found to be the defining elements of Filipino geriatric care nurses' sense of success and fulfillment. These include the instrumental and developmental, which describe the nurses' appreciation of their unique place in the lives of their elderly patients and, at the same time, their experiences of personal and professional growth and expansion as nurses. In regard to their struggles, the contextual conditions in the workplace typify the roadblocks of their efficient and effective delivery of quality healthcare services.     

Modelling pre-service teachers’ perceived usefulness of an ICT-based student-centred learning (SCL) curriculum: a Singapore study

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence pre-service teachers’ perceived usefulness of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) course that was conducted using the student-centred learning (SCL) approach. In this study, perceived usefulness was used as the dependent variable and perceived competence, course delivery, facilitating conditions and learning environment as independent variables. The results of this study showed that perceived competence and course delivery have direct effects on pre-service teachers’ perceived usefulness of the course, while learning environment and facilitating conditions affect perceived usefulness indirectly. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that the four selected variables in this study affect perceived usefulness and that the resulting model is an adequate fit to the observed relationships among the factors that influenced pre-service teachers’ perceived usefulness of an ICT course.