Researchers have been investigating various factors for differences in academic achievement among students besides the emphasis on cognitive intelligence. In fact, it has been found that academic achievement is not determined by cognitive intelligence alone. Among the factors that are thought to contribute to students’ success and academic achievement is thinking style. It stems from the belief that people have similar patterns in governing themselves just like society does. Studies have shown that people have different thinking styles – legislative, executive, and judicial style which do affect the way they prefer to do their tasks. Legislative style is considered as creative thinking, executive style is viewed as following instruction, and judicial style is represented as critical thinking. It has been found that students from Islamic private schools in southern Thailand, in general, do not perform well in public examinations. Hence, this study investigated the thinking styles of three categories of students and their relationship to academic achievement. Three groups of academic achievers among students from 3 selected Islamic private schools in Nakhonsrithammarat – in upper southern Thailand were identified as the sample. It comprised 158 grade ten students and the three groups were classified into low achievers (N=36), average achievers (N=102), and high achievers (N=20) based on the Ordinary National Educational Test (O-NET) score. The sample was obtained using stratified random sampling for low and average achievers while purposive sampling was used for high achievers. The descriptive statistics, multiple regression analysis, and Sternberg’s interpretation of the MSG scores were used in analyzing the data. The results reveal that the executive style was the predominant thinking style exhibited by all groups of academic achievers. Additionally, the judiciary style was the prevailing thinking style displayed by male students while the executive style was the most noticeable style presented by female students. Furthermore, only the legislative thinking style was found to be an indicator towards students’ levels of academic achievement. However, it was a weak one.

This study explored the use of WhatsApp, a well-known smartphone application, among IIUM undergraduate students, and examined the relationships between its use and two dependent measures, i.e., students` perceived academic performance and learning gains. A convenience sample of 116 IIUM undergraduates completed an 18-item self-developed questionnaire measuring WhatsApp use, perceived academic performance, and learning gains on a 5-point response category ranging from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. The results revealed that a majority of the respondents used WhatsApp for about two hours daily, mostly for chatting (85%) and communicating with classmates (81%). Some prevalent academic uses of WhatsApp were discussing assignments (89%), discussing course content (70%), and exchanging learning ideas (66%). While the given academic uses of WhatsApp were widespread among the undergraduates, only moderate numbers perceived learning gains and improved academic achievement resulting from their use of the application. The figures suggest the usefulness of WhatsApp for connecting learners and lecturers, but less so for meaningful academic learning. Consistent with the descriptive results, a moderate positive relationship was found between undergraduates` academic use of WhatsApp and learning gains (r = .428), as well as with their perceived academic performance (r = .412). The results highlight the role that WhatsApp might play to improve the interaction and communication between students and faculty, in addition to facilitating the learning of simple, not too complex educational content.

This study intended to explore thorough discernments of educational leaders on the function of innovative leadership style in vitally contributing to the implementation of hybrid learning at the university level aiming to understand the role of educational leaders in reference to adopting innovative leadership style for the execution of the matter. The recent pandemic had forced drastic change in reshaping the approaches and designs in the setting of formal education which demands the implementation of hybrid learning to be executed comprehensively in order to accommodate the situation. Through a qualitative research design the targeted informants consisted of head of departments selected from various kulliyyahs in International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) using purposive sampling technique. The data collection method used was in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data gathered from the interviews were transcribed using thematic analysis and themes were extracted to answer all of the research questions. Findings had shown relevant support for the mentioned leadership style towards the effectiveness of hybrid learning, and had highlighted the challenges faced in abruptly implementing hybrid learning, and interesting suggestions for considerations.

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Research concerning Islamic school leadership from teachers’ perspectives is very scarce in which most research only takes into consideration the account of administrators. Furthermore, the use of Dr. Saleh’s comprehensive framework for educational administration has not been previously employed to assess Islamic school leadership practices. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore and analyse the practices of Islamic leadership from the perspective of both primary and secondary Islamic school teachers. Secondly, this study also sought to assess whether Dr. Saleh’s four tier framework consisting of the Personal, Interpersonal, Managerial and Organizational levels of Islamic leadership holds relevance in an Islamic school setting. A phenomenological design was employed in which six teachers from three private Islamic schools in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, partook in a structured open-ended interview. The participants involved three males and three females, in which two were from South East Asia, three from Africa, and one from North America. With the application of Dr. Saleh’s framework of Islamic educational administration, an inductive analysis of the data was applied in which the twenty-seven prescribed principles were examined in congruence with teachers’ accounts of leadership practices within their respective schools. Teachers mentioned twenty-two out the twenty-seven principles outlined in Saleh’s framework in which some characteristics were positively attributed to administrators while others were mentioned with negative implications. The findings assert that the perceptions held by teachers of the three designated Islamic schools follow a consistent pattern in which they mostly disapprove of administrative practices due to its observed incompatibility with the expected Islamic principles of governance outlined in Saleh’s four-tier framework. Amongst the most prevalent issues, teachers have stated the following needs in which administrators ought to practice: lead with accountability, receptivity to various perspectives, communicate plans with transparency and a conscientious presence during school hours. The study concluded with some recommendations for administrative practices and also for further research.

The purpose of this study is to investigate administrators' and teachers' awareness of ISO 9000 and their interest in the achievement of the certification in Kuala Lumpur. Correlation between awareness and interest and the variation in responses according to the participants' demographic characteristics were examined. The instrument used was a self-constructed questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were tested and results showed Cronbach Alpha valued at 0.8490 for 'awareness' and 0.6109 for 'interest'. Multistage cluster sampling was applied and a total of 30 administrators and. 542 teachers representing 10% of the population in four different zones in Kuala Lumpur participated in the study. Data was analysed using SPSS to determine the frequency, percentage and means of the variables. Hypotheses were tested using Chi-square and Kendall-Tau. The findings indicated that most of the respondents showed a fair level of awareness and interest. However, a comparison of responses revealed that more administrators than teachers showed high level of awareness· and interest. The results of the hypotheses testing showed significant differences between their awareness of ISO 9000 as well as their interest in the achievement of the certification. There was a significant positive correlation between teachers' awareness and their interest but not between administrators' awareness and interest. It was also found that there were no significant differences between respondents' age, gender, number of years of teaching and academic qualification in the level of awareness and interest except teaching experience in regard to the interest. There is a need for further research to increase teachers' awareness and. interest in the achievement of the ISO 9000 certification.

This study focuses on the technological readiness of teachers at the Advanced Technology Center (ADTEC) Taiping to accept mobile learning and their psychological readiness of mobile learning. It is based on a theoretical framework adapted from the e-learning readiness model of Chapnick (2000). The purpose of this study is to measure both the mobile learning technological of these respondents and their general perceptions of mobile learning. Two types of technological were measured: mobile phone technological and social messaging application (SMA) technological. Teachers’ perceptions of social messaging applications (SMA) for mobile learning will also be measured. The methodology was done in quantitative research approach and the instrument was a set of questionnaire consisted of four sections from 50 teachers at the Advanced Technology Center (ADTEC), Taiping. The findings of this research focus on their technological for and perceptions of mobile learning, with a view to potentially assisting these educators in implementing what may be innovative teaching techniques.

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There has been a growing interest in the cultural dimension of foreign language learning and teaching in Algeria. The research aims to recognise and evaluate the cultural representation in the 4th Year textbook in middle school and discover the impact of the culture on learners’ speaking in the classroom. The study explored cultural representations in the English textbook (the 4th Year textbook) used at public middle schools in Algeria and investigates the opinions and attitudes of Algerian teachers of English on the effects of these cultural elements on learners’ speaking in the classroom. The research begins by looking at the way culture has been framed in an EFL textbook in general and its representations in the textbook, followed by interviews with teachers about the influence of these cultural representations on learning English in the classroom. In this study, the researcher used the qualitative method (case study). Data were collected from the 4th Year textbook analysis and the interview with two EFL teachers. The findings of this study showed that there was deference in culture types such as the cultural items’ distributions and dimensions. Moreover, the teachers were generally aware of their students’ learning of lessons containing some cultural features and asserted that cultures whether local or foreign help students to learn English as a foreign language.

The focus of this research is to establish the importance of humanisation of education that begins in teacher education program. This research focuses on IIUM teacher education program under the Kuliyyah of Education, as the university is built on the notion of Islamisation of Knowlegde (IOK). This study thus aimed to: (1) highlight the significance of humanisation of education in the current academic setting, (2) discover if the missions of IOK is in line with the notion of humanisation of education and (3) identify practices of humanisation of education that can be adopted in teacher education program in IIUM. The overall study aspires to draw a number of general conclusions which may be useful to the teacher education program in IIUM specifically and Malaysian education policy at large. This study includes an exploration of the different dimensions of the notion of humanisation of education which may be useful to the teacher education practice in IIUM. The critical orientation of this study is derived from the critical analysis of the aims and practices of teacher education program. Theoretical criticism and analytical explorative approach are employed to develop and propose a new perspective that is expected to be a major contribution of this study. A conceptual framework to aid this study was developed based on the concept of Humanisation of Education by Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1984). The three principal components of the framework are, (i) de-commodification of knowledge, (ii) de-captive mind, and (iii) the inculcation of social vision. Habermas’ theory of knowledge-constitutive interest which elaborates upon three main generic cognitive areas namely practical, emancipatory, and technical (work) in which human interest generates knowledge (MacIsaac, 1996) are also referred to. This has enabled the study to address the requirements of a new perspective for the betterment of IIUM teacher education program and analyse essentially what is needed today. Stemming from the guiding framework, three overarching themes are unearthed throughout the study. They are, (1) process of acquiring knowledge, (2) realisation of self and (3) situatedness in society and manifestation of values. The study also indicate that the implementation of IOK fortify the notion of humanisation of education by holding on to tawhidic paradigm.

This study is designed to explore the possibility and viability of critical pedagogy in Muslim higher education. Critical pedagogy is an educational approach that highlights democracy, social justice, empowerment, social responsibility, countering hegemony etc. The central concern of this study is to explore how these aspects can be implemented to improve the Muslim higher education system. This was done by drawing from explanations and examples of how critical pedagogy has been implemented in the west. The study employed philosophical method of conceptual analysis and explorative approach to answer the research questions raised. An understanding was developed on the process of implementing critical pedagogy in a classroom context and also some of the challenges and concerns it entails. To contextualize the significance of critical pedagogy in Muslim education context, the study has discussed in general about the problems of Islamic education system and how critical pedagogical aspects can be used to overcome them. Since critical pedagogy is very context specific, this study used the particular context of social psychology course offered at IIUM to demonstrate with examples how a course can be taught from a critical pedagogical perspective in the Muslim higher education context. It provides detailed examples on how certain topics in the course can be taught to develop students’ critical consciousness, a sense of social responsibility and the motivation to act upon issues. It demonstrates how students can be taught to identify and resist the power politics of the dominant groups, counter hegemonic ideologies, and defend themselves and their community against these oppressive forces. It is hoped that providing such examples and detailed analysis can contribute to realizing a critical pedagogical classroom setting in the Muslim higher education context.

This study on anxiety involved 280 student respondents from 18 Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur lower secondary schools that offer the Arabic Language as a foreign language. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the levels of anxiety among the students learning the Arabic Language as a foreign language, particularly the Arabic speaking skill that they have acquired since primary school. Horwitz's FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale) was adapted to assess the levels of four types of anxiety, namely communication apprehension (CA), fear of negative evaluation (FNE), test anxiety (TA), and anxiety of the classroom (AC). This study further examined significant differences in CA, FNE, TA and AC related to speaking Arabic as a foreign language, based on two selected demographic variables, gender and age. This research is quantitative employing the FLCAS questionnaire to collect the data. The sample was selected using purposive sampling. The findings revealed that the respondents' anxiety level of all four variables (CA, FNE, TA, and AC) were high and the anxiety level did not show any significant differences in terms of gender or age. The findings could have implications for the Arabic language's teaching and learning process in the classroom and help school administrators, policymakers and the Ministry of Education understand anxiety among the Arabic Language as a Foreign Language students in Malaysia. In conclusion, anxiety in the Arabic Language as a Foreign Language subject does exist, especially in terms of speaking skill.

Multiplication is an important arithmetic topic that need to be mastered by children in primary schools. The lack in understanding of the topic will build a weak prior knowledge and be a barrier for further topics. Consequently, it will affect children’s personalities and motivations in learning mathematics. Hence, the main purpose of this study was to explore year four children basic concept of multiplication by asking three research questions: (a) what is the children’s mental image of multiplication? (b) what is the children’s understanding of multiplication? and (c) how do the children represent multiplication? Thus, three year four children with different learning abilities were selected to be involved in this study via clinical one-to-one interview and answering questions by using concrete material tasks. The data collection and subsequent analysis were guided by qualitative research method based on constructivist theory of learning. This study identified seven mental images captured by the children in multiplication: multiplication as a process of producing bigger digits, multiplication as doubling of digits, multiplication as two digit numbers, multiplication as an array, multiplication as association of addition in multiplication number structure, multiplication as grouping of numbers and multiplication as commutative. The findings also showed that the children’s understanding of multiplication were demonstrated by applications in real life and non-applications in real life. In addition, the children illustrated their representation of multiplication in three forms: operational symbol, arrangement of concrete objects and erratic array representation. This study concluded that understanding basic concept of multiplication is a vital aspect in understanding basic concept of mathematics and need to be emphasised in teaching and learning activities. Meanwhile, the teaching and learning activities must be suited with children’s learning abilities and the use of concrete materials must be considered as fundamental teaching aids.

The research investigated the perceptions of pre-service and in-service teachers, who were undertaking Bachelor of Education Programme at Institute of Education, International Islamic University Malaysia, on teaching thinking. Specifically it attempted to obtain their perception towards the three major approaches to teaching thinking namely the Direct, Indirect and Infused Approaches. The research was conducted using a self-constructed questionnaire and interviews. The respondents were 96 primary school English Language in-service and pre-service teachers who had undergone a course on “Teaching of Thinking” in their undergraduate programme. The findings indicated that regardless of gender, age, teaching experience and their service status the majority preferred the Infused Approach to teaching thinking. Then the in-service group showed their next preference was for the Indirect Approach while the pre-service group preferred the Direct Approach. Their preference for the Infused Approach was because the approach focused both on content learning and thinking skills acquisition. The study recommended that appropriately designed training programmes for teaching thinking be conducted to ensure teachers improve and sustain their ability to enhance thinking in their students and that future research that use larger samples be carried out to examine perceptions of other subject teachers in both primary and secondary schools and also in institutes of higher learning.

This study explores the approaches used by Islamic education teachers at Ansarul Islam Secondary School, Ilorin, Kwara State of Nigeria, in inculcating their students with moral values. It examines the extent to which the teachers understand the Islamic approach to moral education, as explained in the Qur’ān and Sunnah, and how their approach has produced the expected results among their students and the community at large. The study applies qualitative method of phenomenology for data collection and analysis. Data used in the study are based on school curriculum and text books, interviews with the teachers and students as well as observation of teachers and students when performing their respective duties. Analysis of data uncovered several themes related to the inculcation of moral values. This includes the principal values emphasized in the curriculum; teachers’ knowledge of, and concern with, the concept of morality in their work; teachers understanding and mastering of the approach of the Qur’ān and Sunnah; impact of approaches used on the students, and the suggestion for improvement. The study finds that teachers are generally aware of Islamic moral values and the Qur’ānic approach to morality. While students appreciate and recognise the validity of moral values they learn at school, they are confronted with other negative norms at home and in society that are not compatible with the Islamic morality. Thus, the study recommends that there should be more cooperation between school on the one hand and home and society on the other.

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There are four strands that constitute creativity which are: the creative person, the creative process, press and the creative product. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the creative product, which is one of the four strands of creativity. The creative product was investigated using short stories written by undergraduates at the International Islamic University Malaysia IIUM. Quantitative methods of data collection and analysis were employed. The study also examined the relationship between creativity, CGPA, gender, program, and year level. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, the improvised stories were assessed by language expert raters using the consensual assessment technique (CAT). The obtained inter-rater reliability was 0.83 which indicates the reliability of the CAT. The study findings yielded a non-significant negative correlation between creativity and CGPA. In addition, findings revealed no significant gender difference in creativity, and no significant difference in creativity with regard to program and year level, nevertheless, first year students had the highest creativity levels.

This study examined in-service teachers’ level of self-efficacy with respect to their teaching thinking skills in the cities of Rasht and Tehran, Iran. It also investigated the relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy and their abilities to conduct teaching thinking skills in the selected schools. Finally, this study examined gender and location differences in the two mentioned areas. The participants were 230 in-service teachers from the two selected cities in Iran. Data was collected through purposive sampling procedure by using a modified instrument developed by Tebbs (2000), entitled The New Millennium in Mind. The results of the study illustrated that the teachers’ level of self-efficacy were on the average. Most of the respondents were not fully confident in terms of their abilities and skills towards teaching thinking skills. Their knowledge towards thinking skills, and information about different methods, models and activities for teaching these skills were not adequate due to insufficient and less qualified training. Difference in self-efficacy level was clearly seen between two geographical locations. Accordingly, investment in qualified professional development programs with special focus on teaching thinking skills would be highly recommended

All refugees suffer from a range of physical, psychological, and social problems that may include memory problems, depression, anxiety, etc. Palestinian refugees in particular need safety and humanitarian assistance due to being victims of forcible and arbitrary displacement from their homeland. The Palestinian refugees displaced in Malaysia have experienced traumatic events and suffer from symptoms of depression and anxiety, in addition to experiencing difficulties in dealing with the stressors of adjustment. The experience of traumatic pain and multiple losses coupled with the struggle for survival in a foreign community place them at risk for diminished health and psychosocial well-being. The refugees’ psychological and psychosocial problems call for more research about them in order to have holistic approach to their issues to compliment the existing efforts. The aim of this study was to investigate the Palestinian refugees’ psychosocial problems in order to provide the proper assistance to overcome trauma, depression, and anxiety. The methodology used was the quantitative research design employing a survey method on a sample of 100. The findings showed that the Palestinian refugees of both genders suffer from symptoms of trauma, anxiety, depression and displacement anxiety at different degrees. The findings also showed that the humanitarian interventions being provided to be inadequate.

Group work as one of the student-centered learning strategies characterized under the cooperative learning approach has become a central feature for many colleges’ courses. It allows students to work in small groups helping each other to develop questions, hone their problem solving skills, and stimulate them to create something of new substance. With group work students will likely obtain soft skills which incorporate all aspects of interpersonal, academic and non-academic skills, and which serve as pre-requisite to employment in the workplace. In Malaysian context, soft skills are demonstrated to include communicative skills, thinking and problem solving skills, teamwork force, life-long learning and information management, entrepreneur skills, ethical, moral and professionalism, and leadership skills. These skills were proven by several literatures that group work learning strategy can be the best tool to develop them in students. For these profound benefits of group work, the current study sought to explore students’ perception at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) towards learning in group. The researcher also assesses the relationship that exists between students` perception on group work and their academic achievement by using a Pearson correlation analysis. The respondents generally reported a positive perception toward group work learning. With regard to the correlation analysis, there was no significant statistical relationship between students’ perception on group work and their academic achievement. However, the study shows a significant difference between low achiever and high achiever students on their self-efficacy to involve in group work. These results warrant further research using more advanced statistical tools to have a broader outlook. Finally, it is hoped that the study will open new avenues to benefit each and every sectors of higher education centres striving to promote high standard of education and professional careers for their students.