Pakistani Perspective Research Articles

Disaster Management and Community Development: A Pakistani Perspective

After making thorough on-ground observation it is observed that because of hazardous development of populace, evolving needs, financial rivalry and also inflation of the assets for social welfare administrations at the worldwide level are decreasing. Keeping in perspective the contracting position of assets for social welfare and group advancement the idea of investment rose in range of sociological areas and group improvement. Participatory approach gradually and steadily came into use in the group advancement discourse. It was trailed by a fast development in the advancement of techniques for including rustic individuals in looking at their own issues, setting their own objectives, and checking their own accomplishments. It is essential to note that an effectively included and enabled domestic populace is key for effective community development process. This paper deals with similar themes on community development and disaster management in Pakistan.It discusses the fundamental prologue to the worldview of involvement of local community; ontological transformation in disaster administration and procedure of community based disaster management in Pakistan.

Ethical Issues in Conducting Cross-Cultural Research in Low-Income Countries: A Pakistani Perspective.

The rapid growth of pharmaceutical markets in the 20th century has increased the demand for human research participants in clinical trials. However, with the globalization of clinical research, most clinical trials are conducted in low-income countries (LICs) with political and economic instability, andlack of basic healthcare, but easy access to human subjects. This paper explores the unique ethical challenges faced during the pre-enrollment phase of cross-cultural research in acountry like Pakistan, and how these challenges make the Pakistani population vulnerable to exploitation. It also outlines recommendations regarding conducting research in Pakistan within ethical parameters adopted according to local culture. This discussion is important because researchers must focus on the pre-enrollment phase of the research processfor it's cultural suitability and acceptability so that the research conducted is credible and valid and has social value for the research population.

Foreign Language Teaching and Development of Language skills :A Pakistani Perspective

Abstract The study was attempted to explore as to what extent English language teaching in Pakistan has been able to develop language skills among the target learners. The researcher intended to evaluate the limit to which the textbook helps in generating competence of all four integrated skills, especially as laid down in the standards of the National Curriculum (2006). The purpose of this study was to create pragmatic awareness among learners, teachers and educational professionals, working in the field of English as Foreign Language. By method , it was a qualitative study, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were the tools used to elicit the data. The participants of this research were selected from public sector schools and organizations including, teachers, policymakers, curriculum developers, subject specialists, and students to examine the effectiveness of grade VIII’s English language textbook on students’ performance . For data analysis themes were developed, coded and summarized in a descriptive mode. The findings of this study reflected that the relevant textbook does not cater to the target learners’ future academic and professional language needs. As a solution to the problems while teaching and learning English as foreign language in Pakistan; this study also offered a model to be followed by the policy makers and practitioners in order to make the existing English language textbook more effectives in terms of foreign language teaching and learning and language skill development. Key Words: Foreign language acquisition, Language skills, National Curriculum( 2006)

REVEALING THE EFFECTS OF TEACHERS STIMULATING TECHNOLOGICAL INCLUSION ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS EDUCATIONAL GAINS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of the current research was to measure the effect of male and female teachers technological inclusion used to stimulate university students educational gains. The research have intends to determine the effect of current practices occurring in public and private universities of District Lahore of the Province-Punjab.
 Methodology: The researchers structured quantitative research leading to a positivist paradigm adopting ex post facto design to determine the effect of public and private universities teachers stimulating technological inclusion on students educational gains. The researchers administered a self-constructed questionnaire on a sample of 600 respondents. The researchers ran regression analysis and independent-sample t-test to find out effect and comparison.
 Main findings: Findings of regression analysis revealed that teachers stimulating technological inclusion affect 68.70% of students educational gains whereas critical thinking and problem solving 66.70%, creativity and innovation 66.70% and, health issues affect 69.10% of students educational gains. Male teachers were more stimulating their technological inclusion as compared to female teachers. Likewise, private sector university teachers were more stimulating their technological inclusion on their students educational gains as compared to public sector university teachers.
 Applications of this study: The results of the current research will be applicable for male and female sector universities teachers working in public and private sectors. They will be realistically aware of the actual use of their technological inclusion used to stimulate their students enrolled in other provinces of the Pakistan including Punjab for acquiring better educational gains. The findings of the research will be pertinent to provoke the intends of future research scholars to establish the effect of technological inclusion on social, political, economical, and cultural transformations aspects, unfolding the technological dimensions of artifact, knowledge, process, and volition.
 Novelty/originality of this study: The researchers days-and-nights effort bring fruitful consequences in contributing to this evidence-based literature to the existing body of knowledge in the field of teachers technological inclusion. The authors have tremendously determined the effects of teachers technological inclusion used to stimulate university students didactic learning which was never done before from a Pakistani Perspective. The researchers have covered a similar topic to ensure the relevancy, accuracy, and uniformity to engage the attentions of the readers in data sharing.

What does Breast Cancer Screening mean from economy point of view- a Pakistani Perspective

What does Breast Cancer Screening mean from economy point of view- a Pakistani Perspective?

Resilience, Psychological Well-being, and Emotional Regulation: A Comparative Study of Military Personnel Vs. Civilian Population

Present research aimed to know the difference between military personnel with endurance training and civilian population (with no endurance training), with respect to resilience, psychological well-being, and emotional regulation. Correlation and comparative design was used for this study. A sample of 180 participants with age range of 20-55 years was taken from different walks of military units and civilian population by using snowball sampling, and purposive sampling strategies respectively. The Adult Resilience Measure (Ungar & Liebenberg, 2011), Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (Hills & Argyle, 2002), and Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003) were used to assess variables. The results indicated that the military personnel with endurance training were significantly higher on psychological well-being than the civilian population (with no endurance training); while, the civilian population was significantly higher on expressive suppression facet of emotional regulation than the military personnel. There was a significant positive relationship of resilience with psychological well-being and emotional regulation in each group. Additionally, resilience predicted psychological well-being and emotional regulation in both groups, after controlling the effect of demographic characteristics. This research gives an insight into resilience, psychological well-being, and emotional regulation in military personnel with endurance training and the civilian populations with no endurance training. This research also adds to the body of literature in counselling and clinical psychology especially, in Pakistani perspective.

Coping Strategies Used by Tax-paying Male Bankers During COVID-19 Induced Lockdown-A Bangladeshi and Pakistani Perspective

The main way to deal with COVID-19 is social distancing. As a result, the governments of differentcountries imposed lockdowns. Bangladesh Government directed shutdown of offices and public transporton 26th March, 2020 opening everything on limited scale from 31st May, 2020. Pakistan governmentordered lockdown in the middle of March, 2020 easing to restore economic activities on 10th August 2020.The current cross-sectional study aims to look at how and what type of coping strategies were taken bytax-paying male bankers in patriarchal countries of Bangladesh and Pakistan when they were faced withlockdown at home due to COVID-19 with data collected by Coping Strategy Indicator. The men were seento have more emotion based coping due to a different sort of exposure which is unlike of men. This is thefirst study to assess the effect of lockdown of COVID-19 on coping of highly paid tax-paying bankers inBangladesh and Pakistan.

Glocalization of Media Education in Post-Colonial Countries: Challenges andProspects

The term ‘glocalization’ mediates with the concepts of ‘global’ and ‘local’ by suggesting how macro and micro interact with each other and sometimes merge and mingle up in the form of glocalization. This study explores the challenges and opportunities of post-colonial countries for getting glocal in media education which means simultaneously getting global while addressing the needs of the local. The major challenges for glocalization of media education from Pakistani perspectives are; westofixation, de-westernization, political economy of knowledge and research, language imperialism, intellectual dependency, geopolitics of emotions, colonial legacy, ethnocentrism of the west, hegemony in published research, and technological determinism..

Comparison of English Writing Skill between Public and Private Sector Schools Students at Secondary Level: In Pakistani Perspective

Purpose: The objective of the study was to compare the English writing skills of English in the classroom at secondary level.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: The study was carried on sample of hundred students of secondary level drawn from simple randomly selected from five private and five public secondary schools of Lahore. Self-structured test was used to compare English writing skill at secondary level. There were two sections of test, essay type and translation of ten sentences into English. The data collected was analyzed by using percentage and results obtained were converted to descriptive findings.
 Findings: The result showed English writing skill of private school students is better than public schools students because majority of the private school students have correct sentence structure, Subject verb agreement in essay writing, correct Translations of Urdu sentences into English as compared to the public school students. In addition, most of the public schools student’s spelling, use of tenses and uses of auxiliaries are good and correct in essay writing rather than the private school students.
 Implications/Originality/Value: So it is concluded that exercises for the English writing skill may be maximized in both public and private schools by using various teaching techniques.

COVID-19 and Anxiety amongst Doctors: A Pakistani Perspective.

Objective To assess anxiety in Pakistani doctors in context of COVID-19 pandemic and evaluate possible causes. Study design Cross-sectional study. Place and duration of study Departments of Nephrology, Combined Military Hospital Peshawar and Combined Military Hospital Malir, Karachi, during March 2020. Methodology Doctors working in different parts of Pakistan were approached online through snowball sampling technique. Those with history of psychiatric disorders were excluded. They were administered a questionnaire including Seven-item Generalised Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7). Reasons why they felt anxious were also explored. Results Responses from 431 doctors, including 238 (55.2%) males, were evaluated. Most of them were younger than 30 years (286; 66.4%), in training (335; 77.7%), and working in public hospitals (347; 80.5%). Mild, moderate and severe anxiety was seen in 120 (27.8%), 103 (23.9%) and 42 (9.7%) doctors, respectively. Median score on GAD-7 was 6 (interquartile range = 3 - 11). Lady doctors had higher scores than males (7 vs. 5; p=0.024). No significant differences in scores were found amongst doctors from different workplaces or of different professional status. A greater proportion of females had anxiety as compared to males (67.9% vs. 56.3%; p=0.014). Frequency of anxiety was not different amongst doctors of different professional status, types of workplace and amongst different age groups. Commonest reasons for anxiety were lack of personal protective equipment (83.8% doctors); and the fear that they could spread infection to family members (79.8% doctors). Conclusion COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the psychological well-being of doctors. Greater attention needs to be paid towards lady doctors to ensure their mental well-being. Key Words: Anxiety disorders, Pandemic, Personal protective equipment, Workforce.

COVID-19 and Anxiety amongst Doctors: A Pakistani Perspective.

To assess anxiety in Pakistani doctors in context of COVID-19 pandemic and evaluate possible causes. Cross-sectional study. Departments of Nephrology, Combined Military Hospital Peshawar and Combined Military Hospital Malir, Karachi, during March 2020. Doctors working in different parts of Pakistan were approached online through snowball sampling technique. Those with history of psychiatric disorders were excluded. They were administered a questionnaire including Seven-item Generalised Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7). Reasons why they felt anxious were also explored. Responses from 431 doctors, including 238 (55.2%) males, were evaluated. Most of them were younger than 30 years (286; 66.4%), in training (335; 77.7%), and working in public hospitals (347; 80.5%). Mild, moderate and severe anxiety was seen in 120 (27.8%), 103 (23.9%) and 42 (9.7%) doctors, respectively. Median score on GAD-7 was 6 (interquartile range = 3 - 11). Lady doctors had higher scores than males (7 vs. 5; p=0.024). No significant differences in scores were found amongst doctors from different workplaces or of different professional status. A greater proportion of females had anxiety as compared to males (67.9% vs. 56.3%; p=0.014). Frequency of anxiety was not different amongst doctors of different professional status, types of workplace and amongst different age groups. Commonest reasons for anxiety were lack of personal protective equipment (83.8% doctors); and the fear that they could spread infection to family members (79.8% doctors). COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the psychological well-being of doctors. Greater attention needs to be paid towards lady doctors to ensure their mental well-being. Key Words: Anxiety disorders, Pandemic, Personal protective equipment, Workforce.

Clinical and Demographic Profile of Cutaneous Melanoma: Pakistani Perspective

BACKGROUNDCutaneous melanomas (CMs) account for only a small proportion of skin cancers, however these are responsible for most skin cancer deaths. There has been a consistently increasing trend in their incidence across the globe.METHODSThis prospective case series study spanned over a period of three years. All patients with histologically confirmed CMs were included.RESULTSThere were 31 patients including 28 males and 3 females with the mean age of 58.25±11.33 years. The histological subtypes included 13 cases (41.93%) of nodular melanoma (NM), 11 patients (35.5%) of acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM), 3 cases (9.67%) of superficial spreading melanoma (SSM) and lentigo maligna melanoma (LMM) and one case (3.22%) of desmoplastic melanoma. Two patients (6.45%) presented with stage II, whereas 21 patients had (67.74%) stage III melanoma. There were 8 patients (25.80%) with stage IV. Time interval between onset of the lesion and first presentation to hospital ranged from 6 to 17 weeks with a mean of 12.45±3.2 weeks. The overall median survival for patients with stage III and IV was 8.75 months. The overall survival for stage II at one year was 100%.CONCLUSIONCMs more frequently affected males aged ≥58 years. Feet, face, trunk, hands and scalp were the affected anatomical body parts in decreasing order of frequency. NM and ALM were the more common histological subtypes. Majority of patients presented late and advanced stages of melanoma. Awareness about the sinister course of the disease will ensure early presentation with better treatment outcome.

Transformational Leadership, Organizational Innovation and Performance: The Role of CSR from Pakistani Perspective

The study focuses and examines the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation and organizational performance with the mediation analysis of CSR. We modified Khan et. al. (2017) model, by including different dimensions of CRS namely customers, employees, shareholders, and society. This study presents CSR and organizational innovation as potential mediators of affiliations between the key constructs of transformational leadership and organizational performance. Data was collected by means of a close-ended questionnaire, from 201 respondents from more than 50 different organizations comprising of top and middle management level positions, working in the banking sector, FMCGs, Consulting firms, Services Industry, operating in Karachi. The direct and mediation effects of predictors were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results illustrate the direct effect of transformational leadership is significant and positive for all elements of CRS. The mediation analysis showed that customers, shareholders, and society dimensions significantly mediate the Transformational Leadership (TL) and Organizational Innovation (OI) relationship. Moreover, shareholders' dimensions also mediate TL and performance. Lastly, (OI) effectively mediate society and performance nexus. This study discusses the findings and provides theoretical, managerial, and research implications.

Why We Watch: Factors affecting Exposure to Tragic Television News. A Pakistani Perspective

The study examined empathically individual difference of tragic news viewing motives (surveillance and reassurance) and the positive relationship between personal distress and reassurance regarding suicide attacks news in Pakistan. Simple random sample of 50 respondents was taken. The results reveal that if affective motivations are taken under consideration then the causes of people’s exposure of media can be explored which are uses and gratification, selective exposure and mood management.

Mediating Role of Perception of Job Insecurity on the Relationship between Despotic Leadership and Work Engagement: Pakistani Perspective

The importance of work engagement (vigor, dedication, absorption) in enhancing employee performance is a recognized area of research. In this competitive and hyper turbulent work environment, disengaged workforce is costly for any organization. Despite its importance, a very low rate of work engagement (i.e.5%) has been found in Pakistan. Drawing on conservation of resource theory (COR), this paper proposes a conceptual framework to find out the impact of despotic leadership behavior on work engagement of employees with a mediating mechanism of employee’s perception of job insecurity. In previous literature little research has been done on despotic leadership and no study has found on this relationship before.

Fostering knowledge sharing through HR practices: a Pakistani perspective

Fostering knowledge sharing through HR practices: a Pakistani perspective

The International Open Access Movement and Its Status in Pakistan

The objective of this study is to analyze the present status of the open access movement in Pakistan, identify challenges, and make recommendations for the effective use of this publishing model. The article looks primarily at the open access movement in Asia, with special reference to Pakistan, India, and China. Findings show that, since the emergence of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2001, the open access movement has developed rapidly at the international level. From the Pakistani perspective, gold open access, in which articles or monographs are freely available in their original form on publishers' websites, developed quickly. However, green open access, which relies on authors to self-archive their articles in institutional or subject repositories, has been relatively slow to develop. A lack of support from educational institutions, libraries, library associations, and funding bodies may explain the slow growth of green open access in Pakistan. The author recommends that Pakistani universities, research institutions, and funding agencies develop open access policies, set up institutional repositories, and encourage publishing in open access journals and self-archiving in institutional repositories.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Implicit Beliefs Measure and the Role of Demographics among Pakistani Sample.

Implicit theories (also referred to self-theories) represent a cognitive conceptualization about a matter, generally raised as a belief. It is marked as the primary aspect of cognitive processing among living beings affecting their overall behavior towards others'. In the present study, it is attempted to consider a Pakistani perspective on this phenomenon of self-theories and also to validate the implicit theories Scale. It is a measure of people's beliefs about things to be fixed or changeable. A quantitative approach of correlational methodology was employed. Participants of the study were 355 Pakistani young adults with an age range of 20-30 years (M = 23.08, SD = 1.99). There were 175 males and 180 females (as they reported their gender) from Islamabad. Confirmatory factor analysis was computed to assess the dimensionality of the scale. An adequate model fit indices were found as Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = .04, Comparative Fit Index = .99, Tucker-Lewis Index = .98, Goodness of Fit Index = .97, and Incremental Fit Index = .99, confirming a bidimensional implicit theories measure. The reliability coefficients of Entity Theory and Incremental Theory subscales were assessed through internal consistency and test-retest methods which are found to be in an acceptable range. Demographic specifications are also addressed to reflect upon the indigenous importance of this concept. This will be an additive feature in the literature to consider the cultural specification enabling individuals to align their mindsets in the desired direction of growth and achievement.

Fostering knowledge sharing through HR practices: a Pakistani perspective

The relationship between human resource practices (HRPs) and knowledge sharing has been achieving a significant attention in recent era. However, there has been a lack of a meta-theoretical framework which could relate the HRP with individual ability and motivation in organisational setting to engage in knowledge sharing. The current study is an attempt to explain the human resource practices that are significant in evoking the knowledge sharing behaviour of individuals in organisations. The motivation, opportunity and ability model of human behaviour has been used as a theoretical framework linking the HRP with individual abilities and motivation to engage in the knowledge sharing behaviour. The diffusion of specific human resource practices in the MOA model and its relationship with the elements of the MOA model has been discussed comprehensively. In addition, the theoretical and practical implications have also been highlighted.

Mapping the obstacles to brownfield redevelopment adoption in developing economies: Pakistani Perspective

Brownfields located in urban centers are potential resources for urban development projects. In developed economies, brownfield redevelopment (BR) is considered an effective strategy and an important instrument in urban planning. However, BR in developing counties, especially Pakistan, has not received the same attention due to different obstacles, and it is still in its infancy. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the obstacles to BR adoption in Pakistan through a review of previous studies and to analyze these obstacles through expert opinion. After an extensive literature review, this study develops a contextual relationship-based model using an integrated methodology of Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and MICMAC (cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification) analysis. The results of ISM outlined ownership constraints, public protests, lack of transparent communication among stakeholders, and lack of environmental justice as dependent obstacles. However, financial constraints including lack of capital and cost consideration were identified as independent obstacles and the most critical ones. The results of this study can be a stepping stone to overcome obstacles to BR and promote urban sustainability. Considerable incentives and subsidies will foster BR implementation resulting in the integration of sustainable urban development in Pakistan.