Psychology

The study was aimed to analyse “Effect of problem solving teaching strategy on 8th graders’ achievement ". Major objective was to compare the achievement of the 8th grade students in General Science taught through problem solving teaching strategy and traditional methods. The population of the study was 150 grade 8th students of the Federal Government Model secondary school F-8/3, Islamabad. Two groups of 30 each were selected randomly including 10 in each category of high, average and low achievers. These groups were randomly assigned as experimental and control group. A research tool ‘Achievement Test in Science (ATS) for 8thgrade was developed to use as pre-test and post- test. The test was validated through peer review, expert opinion and pilot testing. In the beginning of treatment pre-test was administered, after six moths teaching through problem solving teaching strategy to experimental group only, the post-test was administered. On the collected data, t-test and ANOVA was applied. It was concluded that the students taught through problem solving teaching strategy, showed better achievement than the students taught through traditional teaching methods.

Sexuality is an important component of human life given its implication for sexual satisfaction, reproduction, egalitarianism and the continuity of the human race. The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the literature on cultural sex-role prescriptions for male control and female deference particularly in the Nigerian literature, and to demonstrate the implication of such for relationship satisfaction, sexually transmitted diseases and egalitarianism. In this article, we emphasize the socio-cultural specifics of the Nigerian society and its role in perpetuating power imbalance, sexual inequality and sexual in-expression between men and women.

Despite the increasing attention of organizational commitment in the management literature, most studies predominantly focus on full-time workers in traditional work settings. The results of this study highlight important directions for implementing strategies to increase casual academic’s organizational commitment. Organization commitment is important because it is known association with other important organizational variables such as turnover, absenteeism and work effort. This study provides the first step in better understanding the factors that affect the organization commitment.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to test the hypothesized relationship between maternal and paternal parenting behavior and adolescents’ anxiety. Probability proportional to size sampling (PPS) technique was used to identify 1,200 school-going adolescents (aged 12-17 years) from selected daily secondary schools in Malaysia. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaire that comprised questions on demographic information, Parenting Behavior scale, as well as Beck Anxiety Inventory-Malay (BAI-Malay). The structural modeling proposed that maternal and paternal hostility were found to be associated with higher levels of anxiety. Findings seem to indicate that low-quality of parenting behavior would put adolescent at an increased risk for subsequent anxiety problem. Implications are discussed in relation to efforts that would help to diminish internalizing problems in adolescents, particularly anxious symptoms.

The aim of this study was to investigate the adolescent psychopathologies among youth in Eldoret town. The objectives of the study were; to investigate the psycho-physical manifestations of psychopathology among youth in Eldoret town, the etiological factors in the psychopathologies and the relationship between the psychopathology and socio-economic factors. The study adopted the expost-facto research design. The study sample was 72 adolescents from low socio-economic status estates of the town which include Langas, Kamukunji, Kambi Nyasi, Munyaka, King’ong’o and Huruma estates. The common psychopathologies were aggression, anxiety disorders, depression, learning disorders, eating disorders and the conduct disorders. The etiological factors for the psychopathologies were peer influence, bad role models, influence of the environment and genetic factors. The psychopathologies were common in large families that that had five or more children implying laxity in control by the parents. The prevalence of the psychopathologies was high in less well-to-do families as well as those that had uneducated parents.

Current perspectives on the early childhood curriculum stress the need for a play-based program for children. Although the status of play has been given due to emphasis in the Malaysian Preschool National Curriculum, the implementation of play in the daily practice may not be consistent with the curriculum guidelines. Therefore, this study set out to examine the preschool teachers’ perception on the implementation of play in the private preschools. This study adopts the survey method, involving 105 teachers from 35 private preschools in Tampoi and Skudai, Johor. The questionnaire comprised of 46 items modified based on the CIPP model with the focus on the Input and Process constructs. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis (mean, rank and standard deviation). Results on input evaluation revealed that although the teachers viewed play positively, they perceived possessing only average pedagogical knowledge about the implementation of play. On the other hand, the respondents believed that parents’ attitude towards the play concept was averagely positive. The overall appropriateness and availability of resources were also rated average. As for the process evaluation, the aspects of play management and the observation of the children’s behaviors were claimed to be average. A few suggestions were highlighted in the end of the study to enhance the effectiveness of the implementation of play in preschool curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions about employing GeoGebra in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The study comprises four respondents who are currently enrolled in a mathematics education course at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The findings indicate a similar opinion among the respondents according to their experience, with regard to GeoGebra. All respondents agree that the software employs straightforward and comprehensible instructions in addition to offering accurate and simple information. They also agree that the software is user friendly. The respondents on the whole have positive opinions regarding the idea of employing GeoGebra in the teaching of mathematics.

Willingness to communicate (WTC) is one of the affective factors assumed to influence success in second and foreign language learning. Although the nature of the construct of WTC has been thoroughly investigated in both first and second language its relationship with different modalities of communication in a foreign language has not been studied. The present study explores the possible relationship between WTC and its components and success in foreign language learning. For the purposes of this study a willingness to communicate scale was correlated with a C-Test, which is a measure of general language proficiency. Results show that two out of the three subscales of WTC, namely, willingness to communicate in the school context and willingness to communicate with native speakers of English, were moderately correlated with success in learning English as foreign language as measured by C-Test. The other subscale of WTC, i.e., willingness to communicate with non-native speakers of English was not correlated with success in foreign language learning. Implications of the study are discussed.

Knowledge management is a process that helps organizations to find important information, select, organize and publish them; and it’s a proficiency that will be necessary for actions like solving problems, dynamic learning, decision making. Knowledge management can improve a wide range of organization performance properties by enabling company to more intelligent performance, but it’s not enough alone; because knowledge management to be useful needs undertaking staff to organization and their job, that accept the knowledge management process with spirit and heart and perform it (Wiig,1999:14). With considering the importance of this topic, the current discussion will study the relation between knowledge management and professional commitment of staff at a petroleum company in the south of Iran. Formation of this study was based on this question that with considering the importance of professional commitment and organizational commitment of staff, what the relation between knowledge management and professional commitment and organizational commitment of staff is. The tools of data collection in order to knowledge management evaluation is the 21 questions questionnaire of Proset et al., to evaluation of professional commitment and organizational commitment, that’s combination and native 27 questions questionnaire of Allen and Meyer et al.; the stability of professional commitment and organizational commitment obtained 83% and the stability of knowledge management evaluation was 0.87 and because of being Kronbakh alpha of questionnaires both more than 0.7, both questionnaires had obligatory stability. To determine being normal, the data obtained of Colmogroph-Smirnoph was applied and confirmed the results of being normal test. Hypothesizes of the study were examined by performing of Spearman correlation test and their significant and positive effects were proved, this means that knowledge management totally has a direct and significant relation with organizational commitment and professional commitment.

Psychologists have identified personality variables as one of the most important factors related to physical illness. The period since 1950s till date, research has continued to show positive results relating illness to psychological factors and personality. Research in this area suggests that stress seems to affect some people more than it does to others, and researchers have looked for personality variables that might account for differential effects of stress. This study attempts to compare the neuroticism versus emotional stability scores of hypertensive and normotensive as well as male and female participants. The study adopted a 2 (hypertensives and normotensives) x 2 (males and females) factorial design. Two hundred and forty participants (120 chronic hypertensives and 120 normotensives) are selected from Gurgaon, Delhi. Out of 120 hypertensives, there were 60 males and 60 females. Similarly 60 healthy males and 60 healthy females not suffering from hypertension or any other disease were selected. The participants of all the four groups compared with respect to their scores on neuroticism versus emotional stability. The results indicate that hypertensives showed more score in all the dimensions of neuroticism compared to normotensives. It is also found that females have more depression and anxiety than males. They are more self-conscious and more vulnerable to stress compared to males. Males score high on anger, hostility and impulsive dimensions of the personality.