Teacher self-efficacy (TSE) in drug education is critical because it is linked to teachers' beliefs and ability to deliver learning material about drug abuse to students. There is scant literature about TSE in drug education. This might be due to the lack of valid instruments measuring TSE in drug education. This study aimed to validate and test the TSE Scale among secondary school teachers in drug education. The TSE Scale was adapted from the instrument of teacher efficacy by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001). One hundred and thirteen public secondary school teachers in Johor, Malaysia were involved in this quantitative study. Cronbach's alpha was used to examine the internal consistency and factor analysis through factor loading to confirm the items in each construct. The results reveal that the scale has internal consistency, with a Cronbach alpha value greater than .7. Furthermore, the factor loading results confirm the structure of the instrument, where each item had a factor loading.....

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Information and communication technology (ICT) in education refers to the utilization of information and communications technology to support, enhance, and optimize the delivery of information within the educational field. As the global landscape continues to expand, the significance of incorporating ICT in education has grown exponentially. It is crucial for teachers to possess the ability to employ ICT effectively in order to integrate their students' learning experiences and adequately prepare them for the challenges they will face in the future. While the integration of ICT in education offers benefits such as the creation of effective lessons, classroom management, and improved stakeholder communication, its successful implementation hinges upon teachers' possession of the requisite skills, knowledge, and willingness. The objective of this study is to evaluate the attitudes and preparedness of Tamil medium teachers in Sri Lanka with regard to their utilization of ICT in teaching a.....

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The vocabulary used by advanced Malaysian upper primary school learners is unknown after the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a corpus-driven study. This study primarily uses data from a learner corpus. This main purpose of this paper is to fill in this knowledge gap by examining the vocabulary usage in extended writing by advanced Malaysian upper primary school learners in the Northern Region. The study uses a corpus-driven research strategy and a quantitative methodology. Some 160 advanced upper primary school learners from the Northern Region, Malaysia were included in the study. They attended eight national primary schools with strong English programmes in the Northern Region. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the samples. This study's main corpus-driven toolkit (LancsBox) was used to analyse the data. A total of 46,185 tokens from 160 extended writing tasks were analysed. The word frequencies were counted both raw and normalised. Results showed that 160 advanced Malay.....

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The aim of this research was to verify the Malaysian version of Rathus assertiveness as a drug prevention scale in secondary school students. The current research participants were 211 secondary students in Johor, Selangor, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. An exploratory factor analysis with principal axis factoring and varimax rotation was performed for the initial analysis. After the eigenvalue emerged, the data was suppressed to.30 to display the factor loading. The value of commonalities and factor loading were considered to frame and locate the items in the scale structure. Furthermore, the reliability of the scale was tested through Cronbach's alpha. The result showed that nine factors emerged, explaining 58.721% of the variance. Four of the 30 items were eliminated from the analysis because they had commonalities below the threshold. The structure of the scale was as follows: seven items in the first factor, four items in the second factor, four items in the third factor, two items i.....

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Technological advances have led to a change in teaching strategies applied in Technical and Vocational settings. An effective teaching strategy is needed to address issues encountered in the traditional learning process of Electronics Technology Students at Malaysian Vocational College. Blended learning is one of the best teaching strategies for Electronic Technology courses as it is in line with the 21st-century learning, especially in promoting student-centred and life-long learning. This study looks at the impact of an Inquiry-Based Blended Learning (IBBL) module on the students achievement in the Industrial Electronics Equipment Problem Solving (IEEPS) Course, in an Electronic Technology Program. This study uses an experimental study design through the quasi-experimental method to evaluate the effectiveness of the module. The comparison of achievement between an experimental group and a control group was conducted based on the pre-test and post-test protocol. The findings of the ev.....

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Digital platforms are one of the technology adoption that is beginning to be used in most vocational colleges today. Services provided through digital platforms are an alternative to conventional methods. However, the use of digital platforms nowadays, among users consisting of vocational college students in Malaysia is still at a less than satisfactory level. Previous studies also focused a lot on the use and acceptance of technology platforms among users in schools only but not in vocational colleges (VC). The aim of the research is to determine the experts consensus on the objective of the digital pedagogy policy for Technical Education and Vocational Training (TVET) students especially in vocational colleges which is currently under development. Vocational colleges is one of the Technical Education and Vocational Training (TVET) institutions in Malaysia that offers certificate level and skill diploma education to high school students. Therefore, it is important to identify the poli.....

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A notable attribute of the empirical studies on monetary rules is that few published articles rely on the normative evaluation in eliminating unwanted economic uncertainty. To prevail over this shortcoming, this paper introduces the optimal mitigation of economic uncertainty and determines its applicability through a sample of 14 selected countries. Using the combination of the theoretically derived optimal mitigation of economic uncertainty with the empirical estimations leads to specific monetary rules. The findings of this paper provide some policy implications; the optimal mitigation of economic uncertainty can characterise the optimal use of the interest rate and exchange rate to eliminate economic uncertainty and serve as a monetary policy guide in the adjustment process to restore macroeconomic conditions of the equilibrium that eventually promote the best macroeconomic outcomes. Asian Academy of Management and Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2023. T...

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Knema is one of the genera in the Myristicaceae family. The genus includes 60 species in Southeast Asia and is traditionally used for treating skin disorders. Here, for the first time, the essential oil, anti-tyrosinase, and molecular docking studies of Knema intermedia were evaluated. The essential oil was obtained by hydrodistillation and fully characterized by gas chromatography (GC-FID) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Anti-tyrosinase activity was evaluated against mushroom tyrosinase, whereas molecular docking studies were performed using Autodock vina embedded in PyRx to evaluate the binding interactions of major components. A total of 37 components (97.3%) were successfully identified in the essential oil, which was characterized by high amounts of t-muurolol (20.1%), ?-copaene (14.4%), ?-cadinene (13.9%), germacrene B (9.5%), and ?-selinene (7.0%). The essential oil displayed moderate inhibitory activity towards tyrosinase with an IC50 value of 70.2 ?g/mL. The .....

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This study examined the effect of mixed alkaline earth modifier fluoride on AC conductivity and dielectric properties in xBaF2–(50–x)CaF2–50B2O3 (x = 5–35 mol%) glass system. The impedance data showed a single-depressed semicircle with decreasing bulk resistance (Rb) with temperature. The change of σAC implied a non-linear relationship with BaF2, which induced a blocking effect on the mobility of the charge carriers at x ≤ 20 mol%, indicating the Mixed Alkaline Earth Effect (MAEE). The abrupt increase at x = 25 mol% was associated with the expansion of the glass network due to the formation of Non-Bridging Oxygen (NBO). All glass samples followed the Overlapping Large-Polaron Tunneling (OLPT) model for the conduction mechanism. The change in ε′ more prominent in low-frequency regions, signifying that polarization was contributed mainly by the space charge polarization. Electrical modulus analysis revealed non-Debye type relaxation, indicating temperature- and composition-.....

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This article is part of the current ecocritical research that is being conducted on Tash Aw's works. It attempts to analyse Tash Aw's first novel The Harmony Silk Factory and investigate how he customizes the concept of harmony and dissonance in relation to human beings from the perspective of the recent and growing theory of ecocriticism. Through examining Aw's novel, the manipulation of nature in the hope of illustrating the plot of a novel is studied thoroughly. In this article, the ecocritical theory is used to approach the phenomenon of harmony and dissonance in nature in the context of human-nature relationship in the chosen novel. The ecocritical theory assists in revealing with what perspectives the nature is portrayed by Aw in his first novel. The analysis of the novel reveals that there is a coherent harmony in dissonance in the bridge between human beings and their natural setting with the idea that human beings and nature are constantly influencing each other and causing di.....

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