This topic introduces the Preschool Education issues from Malaysian’s perspectives. Two fundamental issues have been highlighted; new preschool teachers’ application of knowledge and skills and inclusive early childhood education for special needs children. Actions taken are discussed in the light of governments’ and non-government agencies. The policy for minimum qualification of a diploma for nursery and preschool teachers are driving the early childhood in the private sector to move forward. For the inclusivity of special needs children, the government has taken initiatives to provide accessibility and equity to these children. The implication highlight the need for keeping advocacy efforts intentional and focused by developing strong relationships with early childhood education leaders, partners in federal agencies and government...

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Tin-doped zinc oxide nanorods (Sn:ZnO NRs) were prepared on magnesium (Mg)–aluminum (Al) codoped ZnO seeded layer-coated glass substrate using lowtemperature solution immersion for ethanol gas sensor applications. The crystallite size, diameter size, and thickness of Sn:ZnO NRs were found to be 46, 84, and 480 nm, respectively; these values were smaller than the values of those of undoped ZnO nanorods (ZnO NRs). Sn:ZnO NRs exhibited a hexagonal-shape structure with c-axis orientation. Sn:ZnO NRs also presented compressive strain and tensile stress with values of −1.61% and 3.75 GPa,respectively. The ethanol gas sensor based on Sn:ZnO NRs obtained a response of 3.8 and response/recovery times of 75 s/53 s to ethanol gas (240 ppm) at 100 °C; thus, Sn:ZnO NRs produced better sensing performance than ZnO NRs. Results demonstrate that Sn:ZnO NRs are very promising in fabricating ethanol gas sensors with high response at low operating temperature...

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During the teaching practice, assessment of pre-service teachers’ performance by the institution supervisors and school mentors are the key elements during their placement. The goal of this paper focuses on the assessment methods used nowadays to evaluate the preservice teachers during teaching practice. This article adopted the narrative overviews’ method which also known as a unsystematic narrative review that comprehensively syntheses previously published article journal on teaching practice assessment method. From the literature that has been studied, the were two categories of assessment methods and eight type of assessment methods that can be used to evaluate pre-service teacher during teaching practice. Discussion of the strengths and limitations of each assessment methods for teaching practice during will be discussed in the final part of this paper. This article has the potential to contribute to the field of education. Specifically, this research will contribute to the as.....

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Sedap Cycle is a composition inspired by the author’s interaction with Malaysian cuisine.The culture surrounding each meal, the food’s components and author’s background and experience with the food inspired the musical output. The music is drawn from music connected to a food’s culture and the interpretation of tastes as musical characteristics. The creation of the music used some quantitative methods to survey Malaysians about which local foods are well-known, but largely several categories of qualitative methods to create the music, such as practice-based, practice-led and autoethnographic research. The result is a six-movement composition based on six meals in a day (four main meals and two ‘teas’) with each major movement containing a title of well-known Malaysian food (‘Nasi Lemak’, ‘Nasi Campur’, ‘Char Kuey Teow’ and ‘Roti Canai’). This piece combines Western classical and avant garde styles with traditional and popular Malaysian, Chinese, Indian and .....

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Malaysia is a country of many races and cultures. Melaka and George Town are among them which reflect the encounter on cultural elements of the Malay Archipelago, India, China and Europe that created a culture, architecture and the most beautiful heritage buildings. Intangible cultural heritage is a legacy that is easily vanished by the passage of time versus current tangible heritage. This is because the younger generation is not interested in inheriting the cultural heritage, it is therefore feared that the heritage will be vanished. The objective of this article is to list the elements contained in the intangible cultural heritage, namely performing arts, customs and culture, language and literature, fine art/crafts, and heritage of the living. The importance of this article is that the public can find out about the importance of intangible cultural heritage, thereby maintaining the heritage. Thus, the society will appreciate more the diversity of cultural heritage in Malaysia and i.....

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The study aims to build, and acquire content validity and reliability of Pre University Students Stress Inventory. The Pre University Students Stress Inventory’s questionnaires aim at measuring the stress that students at the Foundation Level, Matriculation, Form Six and Pre University students in all Public Universities and Private Institutions of Higher Learning Suffer. Its theoretical basic is based on the theory of Reality by William Glasser (1965). It contains 42 items divided into 5 subscales. These subscales are categorized as follows: subscale 1, the desire for survival, sub-scale 2, the sense of belonging, sub-scale 3 is the desire for power, sub-scale 4 is the desire for freedom and sub-scale 5 is the desire for pleasure. Pre-University Students Stress Inventory content validity was assessed by 7 experts consisting of five lectures and two counselors. The pilot study involved 50 subjects made up of students at a Matriculation College as samples to check for reliability and .....

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The main purpose of this study is to examine the level of stress among the parents of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) children. The data were obtained from a survey using the Perceived Stress Scale that involves 120 parents. The findings revealed that only 25 (20.8%) parents experienced stress at low level (Score = < below 13) and they were in the state of normal. Whilst 26 (21.7%) of the parents were suffering moderate level of stress (Score = 14 - 19) which is considered as mild. However, the findings indicated that 69 (57.5%) of them experienced high level of stress (Score = > 20) which is classified as severe. The findings indicated that mothers of ADHD children was associated with higher stress and were significantly experienced more stress than fathers. In terms of ethnicity, the findings showed that Chinese parents are experiencing more stress than the Malay and Indian parents. Accordingly, parents of high parental income were reported experiencing greater stress t.....

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Mental health problems become a pervasive yet under-detected and undertreated growing issues among Malaysian university students. Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms (CCAPS) is an instrument that has been widely used in all universities and colleges in the United States, but it has not been practiced in Malaysia. The purpose of this preliminary study was to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the CCAPS into the Malay language and make it applicable as a screening tool for addressing mental health issues among university students. The translation and back-translation were used. A total sample of 252 university students from a public university was participated in this study. Results from exploratory factor analysis supported the original version of CCAPS-62, which was an eight-factor model. Findings provided preliminary evidence for adequate internal consistency with Cronbach's Alpha 0.946. Content validity was obtained from two experts and they endorsed the qua.....

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The purpose of this study is to explore the role of preschool children in designing their school grounds. It will implementthe concepts of an innovative participatory multi-method known as Mosaic Approach. The Mosaic approach uses a variety of methods including observation, child interviewing, children drawing, children photograph and map-making to generate documentation. This leads to a formulation of the ‘design concept’ which emerged from the documentation, including some surprising design ideas, for example active spaces, personal spaces, scales, colour schemes and materials. This paper summarizes the result obtained from a case study of a group of children under the auspices of the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Malaysia. Results showed that children are capable asa research participants by helping the teachers and landscape architects to understand the environment from their perspectives including what it means, what is important and futures liked and dislike. Their views cou.....

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In this paper, a system of equation for mixed Boundary Value Problem (BVP) on a square shape domain is proposed. We apply Boundary Element Method (BEM) to form a system of equations of two dimensional potential problem which satisfies Laplace equation. The mixed BVP will be reduced to Boundary Integral Equation (BIE) by using direct method which involve Green second identity representation formula. Boundary of the square shape domain is discretized into four linear boundary elements. Each of element is prescribed with specific BC value where Neumann BC is prescribed on one element of the boundary and Dirichlet BC on the other three elements of the boundary. Then, linear interpolation is used on the discretized element. However, there can be two values of Neumann BC at a corner node due to discontinuous outward normal. While, there is only one unknown value for Dirichlet BC at each node. Therefore, our first results for this considered domain yields to the underdetermined system.Hence, .....

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