Academic Arena Research Articles

Attitudes toward Concealed Carry of Firearms on Campus: A Systematic Review of the Literature

ABSTRACTGun control is a highly debated and divisive social issue. In recent years, this issue has been thrust into the academic arena with the advent of campus carry legislation and policies. Researchers have taken up the task of attempting to better understand the attitudes of those most affected by campus carry legislation – the campus community. The current project is a systematic review to synthesize 17 existing empirical studies regarding the attitudes of campus carry. Specifically, all published studies that examine the extent to which students and faculty/staff support or oppose campus carry and the factors underlying their attitudes were considered in the narrative review. Findings indicate that while a majority of individuals in the campus community are opposed to campus carry, the studies displayed a considerable degree of variation in campus carry attitudes based upon demographic variables, gun ownership, and fear of campus crime. With a thorough review of the literature and discussion of implications, a clear path for future inquiry and policymaking are presented.

Between the Cyclic Text – Context

Hermeneutics is chiefly related to the discipline of interpretation of a specific body of texts. The process of interpretation of literary texts hermeneutically is regarded as the consequence of the academic arena. It is a fact that literary hermeneutics shares mutual threads with various schools of literary criticism but what sets it apart from literary criticism proper are its philosophical leanings and its self reflexive and meta-critical character. Thus, this study is an attempt to concentrate on the application of hermeneutics to literary texts. It does reread Thomas Hardy’s most distinguished tragic novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) with the interpretive procedure of the hermeneutic circle as developed by Schleiermacher, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The study also examines the relationship between the text – context, and how they both occur as a dialogical space; and how this space of the text exists as a route of interpretation the part (Tess) and the whole (text).

Hot or Not: The Role of Instructor Quality and Gender on the Formation of Positive Illusions among Students Using RateMyProfessors.com.

Existing literature indicates that physical attractiveness positively affects variables such as income, perceived employee quality and performance evaluations. Similarly, in the academic arena, studies indicate instructors who are better looking receive better teaching evaluations from their students. Previous analysis of the website RateMyProfessors.com confirms this, indicating that instructors who are viewed by students as “hot” receive higher “quality” ratings than those who are “not.” However, psychology literature indicates that perceptions of attractiveness are influenced by positive illusions, a property whereby individuals with higher quality relationships view each other more positively than objective observers. This paper uses data from Rate My Professors to investigate the existence of positive illusions in the instructor-student relationship. It finds that positive illusions exist, suggesting that existing literature overestimates the premium associated with physical attractiveness. Furthermore, the source of these illusions varies significantly between male and female instructors with important implications for the role of gender in workplace evaluations, hiring, promotion, and tenure.

Use of Bilingualism in Teaching EFL in the Branches of Taibah University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Inequality has many faces. Giving recognition to a single language variety as standard creates a cadre of people who gain from the acquisition processing, storage, transmission, retrieval and other manipulations of language through various controls. The global shift towards the realization of effective communication in English and the need to empower prospective participants of the opportunities in the world marketplace and in the academic arena to make knowledge of English a prerequisite tool. To satisfy the increasing demand, qualified personnel in EFL pedagogy becomes essential in helping aspirant learners achieve their goal—linguistic competency and proficiency for better learning and professionalism across the world. The issue of bilingual education in EFL teaching in universities in Saudi Arabia has increasingly become a challenge. This study presents the perception of thirty-two male and female teachers selected from personnel engaged in teaching English language in Al Ula, Yanbu and Al Mahad Campuses of Taibah University, Madinah. The curriculum design process in Saudi Arabia managed by educational policies can take into consideration several important factors such as interests, motivations, and aspirations of the people in the Saudi Arabian societies.

Problematizing assumptions about interdisciplinary research: implications for health professions education research

This article critically examines three assumptions underlying recent efforts to advance interdisciplinary research—defined in this article as communication and collaboration between researchers across academic disciplines (e.g. Sociology, Psychology, Biology)—and examines these assumptions’ implications for health professions education research (HPER). These assumptions are: (1) disciplines are silos that inhibit the free flowing of knowledge across fields and stifle innovative thinking; (2) interdisciplinary research generates a better understanding of the world as it brings together researchers from various fields of expertise capable of tackling complex problems; and (3) interdisciplinary research reduces fragmentation across groups of researchers by eliminating boundaries. These assumptions are among the new beliefs shaping the contemporary academic arena; they orient academics’ and university administrators’ decisions toward expanding interdisciplinary research and training, but without solid empirical evidence. This article argues that the field of HPER has largely adopted the premises of interdisciplinary research but has not yet debated the potential effects of organizing around these premises. The authors hope to inspire members of the HPER community to critically examine the ubiquitous discourse promoting interdisciplinarity, and engage in reflection about the future of the field informed by evidence rather than by unsubstantiated assumptions. For example: Should research centres and graduate programs in HPER encourage the development of interdisciplinary or disciplinary-trained researchers? Should training predominantly focus on methods and methodologies or draw more on disciplinary-based knowledge? What is the best route toward increasing the field’s profile within academia and attracting the best students and researchers to engage in HPER? These are questions that merit attention at the current juncture as the future of the HPER field relies on decisions made in the present time.

Preface

An International conference on Startup ventures: Technology Developments and Future Strategies (SV-TDFS) was held at Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, India during 8th-9th October, 2018 with the collaboration of Institute for Engineering Research and Publication (IFERP), Technocrat Research and Development professional association.The aim of SV-TDFS-2018 is to provide an international open forum for the researchers, academicians, practitioners, startup ventures and technocrats in academia as well as in industries from different parts of the world to interact, exchange concepts, prototypes, innovative research ideas and share the outcomes of their research work which could especially contribute to the academic arena and further benefit the business and industrial community, and as a whole helping the society. SV-TDFS-2018 is the first unique conference of its own kind which is trying to bring academicians, scientists and technocrats from various domains ranging from agriculture to industry, to provide the solution of the common man’s basic problem at one platform and also discuss the challenges in their respective domains.International Conference on Start-Up Ventures: Technological Development & Future Strategies (SV-TDFS) during 8th-9th Photographs and descriptions present in this pdf.

Academic integrity: Challenges and strategies for Asia and the Middle East

ABSTRACT There seems to be an awakening in Asia and the Middle East (ME) region in the fields of research and publication. In these regions, scholarship and research have not been keeping up with the technologically developed Western world. In response to this realization, governments are heavily investing in academia and rapid academic expansion and reforms are being made to gain a foothold in the academic and research arena. This has led academicians to clamber to publish, which, in turn, has led to issues of academic integrity and intellectual property. It is with this development in mind that the current paper examines the issue of academic integrity in Asia and the Middle East, presenting the challenges being confronted, and suggesting strategies that can be implemented.

Benchmarking agri-food sustainability certifications: Evidences from applying SAFA in the Ecuadorian banana agri-system

Abstract Certified products are a possible way to obtain and improve sustainability. Nevertheless, their effectiveness in enhancing agri-system sustainability is strongly questioned in the academic arena. This study aims to examine in depth the effect of certification on sustainability achievement. For this purpose, organic and Fairtrade Ecuadorian banana is analysed against the conventional banana. This study employs an original approach that operationalises SAFA (Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture). This tool was chosen for the analysis because of the wide spectrum of sustainability issues considered in the evaluation, along with the fact that it is easy for producers and decision makers to implement and understand, and offers the consequential possibility to identify precise measures to enhance sustainability in the short term. Results show that organic and Fairtrade farms achieve more sustainable performance than those of conventional farms in terms of governance, environmental and economic dimensions. Nevertheless, conventional farms display better outcomes in matters of social sustainability. The reason most likely lies in the size and processes of farms rather than their certification standards. This study may be used by practitioners as a valid benchmark for the implementation of SAFA to other agri-systems and by decision-makers as a guide for the regulation of agri-sector processes.

Revisiting ‘rural’

‘Rural’ is widely referred to across an array of disciplines. Often used to broadly describe study groups or areas, the definition of ‘rural’ has been subject to discussion and debate, triggering a diverse set of conceptual and practical meanings of the term. This has resulted in important ambiguity related to the concept of ‘rural’ and the pressing need to build an integral framework that allows its standardization. Here we assess the current conception from the academic arena through a global survey of researchers. Our results show that ‘rural’ is widely defined with no clear consensus even about the central components of its definition. We found marked variation in the conception of ‘rural’ among respondents, but area of expertise showed less influence than region of origin. We suggest a hierarchical, context-dependent, and integrative framework that considers an urban–non-urban dichotomy followed by a trichotomy based on human presence and activities, encompassing all social and ecological systems on Earth.

CAREER ADVANCEMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION AMONG NON-ACADEMIC STAFF IN UNIVERSITY SETTINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Career advancement path of academic staff (also referred to as faculty members in this paper) is well spelt out in ranking for promotion policy guidelines. Emerging academic staff when well oriented into the academic arena, get to know what competences, skills and credentials to work on so as to move from one level of rank to another and within how much time. While rank equivalences exist for their counterparts, the non-academic staff‘s elaborate criteria on how to move from one level to another is usually lacking. Moreover, there are no clear guidelines for rank implications when one migrates from non-academic roles into academic roles. The disparity exists because of various reasons such as: limited financial resources, diversity of non-academic careers within universities and unclear appraisal mechanisms among others. Nonetheless, the need to have a career advancement path for non-academic staff is long overdue in addressing a major disparity between personnel of the same institutions. This is primarily an ethical issue in regard to human resource management. Ethical leadership therefore demands that this disparity is addressed even as higher education leadership seeks to create work environments where employees can thrive as they advance in their careers, regardless of their domain of operation, whether academic or non-academic. This paper therefore seeks to review literature on issues related to career advancement/promotion opportunities for non-academic staff, and their implications for ethical academic leadership in university settings. It is hoped that the discussions in this paper will lead to amicable solutions for clear and effective career advancement pathways for non-academic personnel in university settings. Article visualizations:

Using Cognitive Behavioural Techniques to Improve Academic Achievement in Student-Athletes

Improving academic grades within the core areas of English, Science and Mathematics has had a lot of previous research interest, but research has tended to mostly focus on students who are failing, non-athletically talented students or student athletes at collegiate level. The particular needs of athletically talented secondary school students who are academically underperforming have so far been neglected. This study addressed this issue by measuring the outcome of academic grades in these three core areas. Method: During a six week intervention programme, ninety four students were separated into 4 groups: control, heart rate variability biofeedback, performance psychology skills training and a combination of these two interventions. Changes in self-efficacy and self-regulation for all students were also measured. Results: Significant pre–post intervention differences in all academic subjects and generalised self-efficacy were found when compared to the control group. Results also showed that a combination of interventions with medium–large effect size was more effective in improving academic results than the single interventions on their own. All interventions improved self-efficacy, but were not significantly different from each other. Self-efficacy was found not to have any interaction effects. Conclusion: Sport psychological skills training can help student-athletes achieve higher scholastic grades and aid mindfulness intervention. Mindfulness on its own was not found to be the most effective intervention, and as such should be used as an adjunct to other psychological methods. Psychological skills training (PST) may help students generalize approaches used in sport to the academic arena.

My Path towards Teaching with an Attitude… A Testimony on Becoming a Critical Pedagogue (Note 1)

<p><em>This paper sets out to recount my journey in order to become a critical pedagogue in the field of English language teaching. I talk about core experiences as a student, teacher, and human being. I rely in tenets of critical pedagogy, Chicana studies and decolonial thought in order to find a voice of my own in the academic arena. I contend that writing our own testimonies towards transformation brings out little but significant changes in the way we exist in the world as teachers. Readers will encounter a reflection of my approach towards pedagogy and knowledge enriched with students’ own ideas and outcomes. </em></p>

School performance in childhood leukemia survivors

The progress in treating childhood leukemia over the last 50 years represents a remarkable success story. Once universally fatal, some subgroups of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia now have cure rates exceeding 90%. However, as survival improves, the burden presented by the long-term physical and cognitive sequalae of leukemia and its treatment have become more problematic. In this volume of The Journal, Bonneau et al report a large cohort of French childhood leukemia survivors and describe the factors associated with later school difficulties. They report on how many required additional help with school or changed academic track, but focused on those who repeated a grade, a more common response to academic difficulties in France compared with the US. Overall, survivors were twice as likely to repeat a grade as their siblings. In addition to the usual factors commonly associated with late cognitive defects (such as receiving CNS radiation or undergoing stem cell transplantation), school difficulties were more common among males, adolescents, and those with various family risk factors, particularly financial difficulties. Among adolescents, the only risk factor for repeating a grade that remained statistically significant was having family financial difficulties: an amazing 75% of those who, at the time of diagnosis, were adolescents from families with financial difficulties ended up repeating a grade. The authors conclude that children—particularly adolescents—being treated for leukemia experience significant short-term roadblocks to successfully competing in the academic arena, and that that families with economic challenges have fewer resources to help their children deal with these barriers. Looked at from the opposite perspective, more advantaged families seemed better able to help their children overcome the challenges posed by their illness. This in turn suggests that even the highest-risk children might benefit from early, aggressive, and focused interventions to ease the educational burden of their illness, and that socioeconomic conditions should be recognized as important co-factors influencing academic success or failure. Article page 168 ▶ Adolescence and Socioeconomic Factors: Key Factors in the Long-Term Impact of Leukemia on Scholastic Performance—A LEA StudyThe Journal of PediatricsVol. 205PreviewTo evaluate the association between medical and social environmental factors and the risk of repeating a grade in childhood leukemia survivors. Full-Text PDF

Feminism and Emancipation: Influence of Feminist Ideas on Women’s Socio-Economic and Political Liberation in Sri Lanka

Study of women’s socio-economic and political liberation in the academic arena is significant theme with continuous feminists’ ideas in the modern world. Focusing the Asian patriarchal society like Sri Lanka, women’s liberation is decided by gender disparities which emerged through socialization process, internalizing social norms, cultural values and expectations. Hence, in the traditional society, women were discriminated from high positions in society, political leadership, decision making and economic top management. However, with the spreading out of feminist ideas and changes that took place in Sri Lanka after independence of the country, some educated women started to address women’s issues and developed a discourse regarding women’s liberation in the contemporary society. The major objective of this study is to examine what are the challenges that women face in getting their socio-economic and political liberation in Sri Lanka, and to investigate how feminists contribute to achieve equal rights for women in the country. The study was based on secondary data gathered from literature surveys which are directly related to the issues addressed in this study. The study revealed that the factors affect discrimination of women from socio-economic and political sectors in contrast to males in the society. In Sri Lanka, traditional women have much less social, economic and political and domestic power than men. However, after independence, successive governments have devoted greatly to education, health and welfare programs. Due to this situation, the status of women in Sri Lanka has changed dramatically. At the same time, feminist scholars are showing that, women play a significant role in the family as homemakers and working women’s contribution to the economic development of the country. Furthermore, they have emphasized the importance of equal rights of women in socio-economic and political sectors as well as women’s liberation against the patriarchal views in the society. However, women are still facing several problems due to unequal opportunities of political participation, labor force and decision making in the country. To overcome this situation, it is important to increase feminist activities and should change their direction to empower women in all sections through policymakers in the country.

The value of organs-on-chip for regulatory safety assessment.

Organs-on-chip (OC) have gained much interest as animal-free toxicity testing methods due to their closer resemblance to human tissues and longer culture viability than conventional in vitro methods. The current paper discusses where and how OCs may take a role in the transition to a more predictive, animal-free safety assessment for regulatory purposes. From a preliminary analysis of a repeated dose toxicity database, ten organs of priority for OC development for regu­latory use have been identified. For a number of these organs (lung, skin, liver, kidney, heart, and intestine), OCs are already at rather advanced stages of development, such that involvement of regulators becomes of value in the optimi­zation towards fitness-for-purpose of these methods. For organs such as testis, spleen, brain, and stomach, OCs are much more premature, if existing at all. Therefore, developmental work on OCs for these latter organs is expected to stay in the academic arena for the coming time. A number of technical recommendations and some challenges to reaching final implementation are discussed. We recommend that the development of OCs goes forward together with the development of adverse outcome pathways (AOP) and that they are combined with other methods into integrated testing strategies. Overall, opportunities exist, but much still needs to be done. In our view, regular interactions in multi-stakeholder work­shops on the application of animal-free innovations such as OCs will be beneficial.

‘Pay for It Heavily’: Does U.S. Support for Israel Lead to Anti-American Terrorism?

ABSTRACTAfter the 9/11 attacks in particular, there has been a controversial discussion in the academic and public arena on whether the United States’ close relationship with Israel has made it a likelier target of transnational terrorism. Indeed, foreign terrorist organizations with various ideological profiles have repeatedly justified attacks against U.S. interests as punishment for the (purported) special relationship between the United States and Israel. We analyze the effect of various measures of U.S. support for Israel (e.g. U.S. military assistance to Israel) on anti-American terrorism for the period 1970–2014. Using both time-series and panel approaches, we do not find that more U.S. support for Israel systematically translates into more anti-American terrorism. Rather, other systemic (e.g. U.S. dominance in the international system) and local conditions (e.g. local state failure) are found to predict the patterns of anti-American terrorism. However, as a qualification to these general findings, we also provide some (preliminary) evidence that for terrorism originating from the Middle East and Northern Africa a favorable U.S. policy stance towards Israel may indeed contribute to more anti-American terrorism.

Educating students and future researchers about academic misconduct and questionable collaboration practices

Academic education largely concerns knowledge and skills. Where there is attention to ethics, this tends to focus on study-related misconduct such as plagiarising assignments and, more recently, methodological misconduct. The current paper argues that it is also essential to teach students about social misconduct in science, with a focus on questionable collaboration practices. First, this would increase future early career researchers’ ability to succeed and avoid academic snares. Enhancing this ability would appear to be an ethical responsibility going hand-in-hand with our attempts at endowing students with skills that we know could be exploited. Second, such teaching would establish authoritative norms about collaborative practices that are and are not acceptable. This would help to adjust scientific attitudes in next generations of graduates, to the benefit of both themselves and science. Teaching on science-specific social misconduct would also naturally tie in with addressing general forms of antisocial conduct which also occur in academia, such as bullying or sexual harassment. The paper provides a framework for defining and recognizing questionable collaboration practices, and for how to provide students with the attitudes, concepts and skills necessary to protect themselves as they enter the reality of the academic arena.

PERAN PENDIDIKAN DAN PENGENALAN SISTEM EKONOMI SYARIAH KEPADA GENERASI MUDA DI ERA PERKEMBANGAN EKONOMI SYARIAH

Abstract : This study aims to determine the extent of the role of education and teaching of Islamic economics to the younger generation towards the younger generation in the era of increasingly massive Islamic economic development. The role of education and teaching of Islamic economics as well as business practices based on sharia principles today is no longer a necessity, but has become a reality and is increasingly widespread. Economic institutions and Islamic business products are emerging and growing in various parts of the world, even among non-Muslim communities. Likewise training and education that prepares personnel for it. In the academic arena, scientific studies on the concept of Islamic economics also continue to roll and deepen. This is a result of the weakness of the existing economic system that is not able to prosper the community, on the other hand the occurrence of a dichotomy in the education system that seems to belong only to the economics faculty in terms of economics is the fulfillment of human needs in its life, so that Islamic economic education should be introduced to all young people, especially the Muslim generation. Based on the explanation above, it is obvious that the development of Islamic economic practices in various aspects is so rapid that it is very necessary to prepare a young generation of Islamic economics that can maintain and continue the existence of Islamic economics. Government support is getting better and accommodating towards the development of Islamic economic practices.
 
 Keywords: education, the development of Islamic economics, the younger generation

Teaching Literature Enhances Communication Skills – a Study with Special Emphasis on Poetry

The term communication is one of the most analyzed terms in the academic arena and it has been studied systematically since ancient times. Communication is an everyday social activity that is an essential and inherent component of every human being. It is a key to human development because the quality of the existence is linked directly to the quality of the communication. This article focuses on how literature in general and poetry in particular enhances the communication skills of the students. Every literary person knows about language and literature. However, they are most common to learn the vocabulary. Literature plays a key role in language classroom. It provides not only pleasure to readers but also builds experience and creates thinking ability. Moreover, literature has several literary forms such as prose, poetry, drama, novel, short stories, etc. Though there are several forms in literature, the most interesting genre is poetry. Poetry can be the works of great beauty due to its meter and rhyme scheme like the ebb and flow of an ocean. This really helps the student to show more involvement towards poetry. On the other hand, the students can try to know more vocabulary from the lines of the poems. Through different terms of poetry used in the classroom, the students get more benefits of knowing new terms and words.

Multiliteracies Project Approach: Dated or a Worthy Learning Tool?

In the midst of the popularity of massive open online learning approach and the fourth industrial revolution, it seems that multiliteracies approach is losing its significance in the educational setting of Malaysia. This paper discusses the relevance of multiliteracies project approach in the current Malaysian academic arena since its introduction in the early 21 st century. This paper will begin by outlining the significance of the multiliteracies approach at the local and global educational settings. The current study is part of a larger action research project that involved four action research cycles investigating multiliteracies approach in ESL (English for the Second Language) contexts. The data for the current study were collected from the second action research cycle, involving 28 participants who were learners of ESL at Bakti Polytechnic (pseudonym). Data were collected through classroom observation, semi-structured interviews and classroom documents. The data show that multiliteracies approach still provides students with evocative learning experience and promotes the acquisition of necessary skills for students to participate in the 21 st century particularly technological, critical thinking and teamwork skills. Findings suggest that multiliteracies approach has the potential to be expanded to further include the properties of the current sensation of the fourth industrial revolution.