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The Role of School Leaders in Facilitating Continuous Professional Development to Empower Teachers in Private Schools in Dubai
No full textBuilding a collaborative culture and empowering schoolteachers; could have a significant positive impact on the quality of learning and promote the progress of the school education in the UAE. Sharing leadership by the heads with schoolteachers permits teachers to become highly responsible, leading to higher fecundity and impacting students' achievement. School teachers in the recent decade regularly upgraded their skills, attitude, and knowledge to meet the demands of 21st-Century learners. Education reforms have generated an urgent need for a stronger emphasis on developing strong leadership skills for promoting well-qualified teaching for students and the progress of school education in Dubai.
The study illustrated the role of school leaders in CPD to empower schoolteachers in Dubai through a mixed-method approach using a semi-structured questionnaire. The study enunciated quantitative and qualitative method analysis by examining the impact of school leadership and identifying the school leadership's role in enhancing teachers' performance. The study examined the behaviours of leadership aid in the development and promotion of positive capabilities of teachers and a positive ethical learning environment in Private Schools in Dubai. It obtained the respondents through a purposive sampling technique consisting of School teachers, middle leaders, SEND specialists and two principals working in different schools in Dubai.
The observations of the responses in quantitative and qualitative approaches were made to reflect the changing paradigm in leadership competencies to handle the issues of teachers and promote professional development. The outcomes of quantitative assessment by One-ANOVA analysis explicated that the leadership role had significant impacts on the professional empowerment of teachers through CPD implementation. The correlation test enunciated a stronger correlation between the teacher's competencies and leadership role for the school's progress and student quality learning. The inferences of the qualitative approach imply that the impact of leadership attributes paves the way to enhance the professional development of the teachers, concerning staff support, CPD organisation, pedagogy practices improvisation, innovations, and rectifying the aspects of teaching. The study commenced by insisting that teachers' competencies changes with CPD implementation provide them with sufficient avenues to upgrade quality teaching practices by monitoring and timely support through the vital role of leadership
Investigating Perceptions of Pre-Service Teachers and Instructors about Field Experience: An Explanatory Study from a Federal University in the UAE
No full textQuality of the field experience provided to pre-service teachers is a decisive factor in producing efficient and skilled teachers after graduation. To implement field experience of quality in pre-teacher training, it is first important to understand stakeholders’ perceptions about it. If any drawbacks in the programme are identified, then proper measures, programs and courses should be applied to enhance effectiveness of the field experience program. In federal universities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), research work on pre-service teachers’ perceptions of pre-service training is lacking. Therefore, the present study attempted to investigate the perceptions of pre-service teachers and instructors about their field experience. To do so, this research work employed Bem’s self-perception theory and Danielson’s framework for assessing the efficacy of the pre-service teachers’ teaching quality. Using these theoretical backgrounds, this research work used mixed methodology of quantitative surveys, followed by qualitative open-ended unstructured interviews in which 113 pre-service teachers and 13 instructors provided their perceptions about the field experience. Further, suggestions for improving the program were also collected. The surveys and interviews were conducted as per international ethical guidelines. After analysing the collected data, it was revealed that most of the pre-service teachers and instructors have highly positive perceptions about the field experience. However, some areas were identified which needed improvement, as a considerable fraction of the pre-service teachers and instructors provided negative feedback about these areas. These crucial drawbacks identified were discussed and suggestions for rectification are provided in the present study. Based on the results, the present study made proposals for improving field experience programs in UAE, which can be optimized further to provide world-class training for pre-service teachers in the UAE before they graduated as certified teachers. It is anticipated that the findings of the present research study will also help policymakers in the education sector to implement appropriate programs and training to achieve the highest skill levels, to strengthen the pre-service teachers’ preparation program. Furthermore, it is expected that the present study will add on to the essential knowledgebase for achieving the goals set for the education sector in the UAE’s Vision 2030
Examining the factors affecting users’ cybersecurity behaviour in mobile payment contactless technologies: A hybrid SEM-ANN approach
Get PDFModern businesses have adopted a plethora of advancements due to the emergence of digital transformation where the recent lifestyle requires to have a robust platform to process all the communication in an effective and secure way. Advanced technologies adopted by the society purely concentrated on the software and cybersecurity enhancements from the software perspective ignoring the fact that a human behaviour can be the most major and severe threat for these advanced technologies. The adoption of any new technology in the society has been turned into a must rather than a complimentary due to the rapid growth of the technology advancements and people curiosity to investigate new trends. Technology adoption depends on the behaviour of the end users in dealing with the technology. Mobile payment contactless technologies are one of the fast-growing technologies specially after the appearance of the COVID-19 where all the payments and transactions are performed using RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) or NFC (Near Field Communication) techniques. The individual’s cybersecurity behaviour is a major concern in these technologies. A quick review of literature showed that none of the studies discussed the individual’s cybersecurity behaviour toward this technology. Therefore, this research has three main objectives. First, conducting a systematic of systematic reviews on cybersecurity through a multidisciplinary perspective to address the research gaps in the existing literature of human cybersecurity behaviour. The systematic review of systematic review included empirical studies published between January 2015 and February 2022 on the topic of cybersecurity. A total of 794 studies have been reviewed, and 60 studies were found qualified and considered in the analysis. Through the analysis, little attention has been paid to cybersecurity behaviour in general and mobile payment contactless technologies in specific. Moreover, the existing literature discussed the utilization of mobile payment contactless technologies in terms of adoption and use in a certain criteria or environment and do not measure or explore the cybersecurity behaviour towards this technology. To bridge this literature gap, this research builds an integrated theoretical model by combining factors from the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), Technology Threat Avoidance Theory (TTAT), Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), along with cybersecurity awareness to measure the cybersecurity behaviour in mobile payment contactless technologies.
The model was then empirically validated using a hybrid Structural Equation Modelling-Artificial Neural Network (SEM-ANN) approach based on data collected through questionnaire surveys from mobile payment contactless technologies users in the UAE. The results indicated that the attitude, subjective norm, cybersecurity awareness, perceived behavioural control and response efficacy have a significant influence on cybersecurity behaviour. On the other side, the results indicated that perceived threat, response cost, and self-efficacy have insignificant influence on cybersecurity behaviour. The model explained 53% of the total variance in cybersecurity behaviour. Additionally, the ANN results showed that cybersecurity awareness is the most important factor affecting cybersecurity behaviour, with a normalized importance of 100%. Theoretical contributions, practical implications, and limitations and future research were also discussed
Measuring Critical Thinking Aptitudes of High School Students in a Private School in Dubai
Get PDFFor nearly 60 years and more, educators and policymakers have highlighted the need to graduate students who are good critical thinkers, from classrooms to workplaces.
To meet the demands of the twenty-first century, critical thinking abilities are essential.
Critical thinking is defined as a collection of basic skills that must be mastered before moving on to more complex thinking. In order to gain a better insight into various aspects of critical thinking, the current study specifically measures the critical thinking aptitude of high school students in a private school in Dubai. From a population size of 291 students, 91 students from grades 10 and 11 were taken as a sample size for high school students in this private school. This is a unique study whose hypothesis stressed the science online instructions for students and teachers in the school context. This research is a quantitative, descriptive case study using a modified 40-question W-GCTA test to collect the data. Norms and scoring analysis were done by conducting one-sample t tests, section analysis was done by conducting one-way repeated-measures ANOVA, while independent-sample t tests were used to test demographic differences. The study's findings revealed that the students possess a critical thinking aptitude above the average percentage, with a total score of 76%. This is in contrast with studies discussed in literature. However, other implications regarding curriculum modifications, educational teaching strategies, and teachers’ readiness are needed to foster students’ critical thinking skills. For future research, increasing the sample size by involving more schools would be better, since the present study is focused exclusively on the quantitative data. It is also recommended that qualitative research might also be conducted to obtain reliable and rigorous results
Nondestructive testing of rails using nonlinear Rayleigh waves
No full textThe present research focuses on evaluating the dislocation-induced material nonlinearity in rails caused by falling of parapets
or large rocks during an earthquake or land-slide and consequently appraising their health status using an amplitude-based
nonlinear parameter based on Rayleigh wave propagation. The falling of parapets or large rocks onto the rail is simulated
through a laboratory experiment. Several cases are considered here with impacts of varying intensities to demonstrate the
capability of the nonlinear parameter in diagnosing such damages in the rails. It is found that for a pristine specimen, the first
peak of the amplitude-based nonlinear parameter matches well with the physics-based nonlinear parameter, whereas there is
a considerable deviation between the two for the specimen with impact damage. Moreover, the linear ultrasonic parameter is
also evaluated for different states of damage for studying its effectiveness in diagnosing impact damages in rails. The results
reveal that the nonlinear ultrasonic-based method proposed here is very sensitive and helps characterize the health status of
the rails in a baseline-free manner
From interactive control to IT project performance: examining the mediating role of stakeholder analysis effectiveness
No full textPurpose–Thispaperaimstounpacktherelationshipbetweentheinteractiveuseof project control systems
(PCS) and project performance by examining the role of stakeholder analysis effectiveness in enacting this
relationship. A conceptual framework was developed based on the stakeholder theory and the levers of
control framework.
Design/methodology/approach– Partial least square-structural equation modelling analysis was
conducted onthecross-sectional questionnaire data collected from 109 information technology (IT) projects.
Findings– The interactive use of PCS enables project managers to effectively deal with the stakeholders
related uncertainty, and stakeholder analysis effectiveness partially mediates the positive relationship
between theinteractive use of PCSandIT projectperformance.
Originality/value– This study extends the project control literature by explaining the positive
relationship between the interactive use of PCS and project performance. The findings contribute to the
stakeholder analysis literature by operationalizing the stakeholder analysis effectiveness construct and
identifying it as a new mediator between theinteractive useof PCSandproject performance.
Keywords Stakeholder analysis, Uncertainty, Project control systems, Interactive use,
Project performance, Levers of control
PapertypeResearch pape
Calibration of building model based on indoor temperature for overheating assessment using genetic algorithm: Methodology, evaluation criteria, and case study
No full textWith the increased severity, intensity, and frequency of “heatwaves” due to climate change, it has become
imperative to study the overheating risks in existing buildings. To do so, a building simulation model needs to be
calibrated based on measured indoor temperatures under the current weather conditions. This paper presents a
robust automated methodology that can calibrate a building simulation model based on the indoor hourly
temperature in multiple rooms simultaneously with high accuracy. This methodology includes a variance-based
sensitivity analysis to determine building parameters that significantly influence indoor air temperatures, the
Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm to calibrate different rooms simultaneously based on the significant param eters identified by the sensitivity analysis, and new evaluation criteria to achieve a high-accuracy calibrated
model. Maximum Absolute Difference (MAD), a new metric, that calculates the maximum absolute difference
between simulated and measured hourly indoor temperatures, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Normalized
Mean Bias Error (NMBE) were used as the evaluation criteria. Another new metric is introduced, 1 ◦C Percentage
Error criterion that calculates the percentage of the number of hours with an error over 1 ◦C during the cali bration period, to select the best solutions from the Pareto Front solutions. 0.5 ◦C Percentage Error criterion is
also used for the level of accuracy the model can achieve. It was found that the calibrated model achieved these
metrics with RMSE of 0.3 ◦C, and MAD of 0.8 ◦C, and 85% of data points with an error less than 0.5 ◦C for a
school building case
A Correlational Investigation of Personal Medical Data Safety and Blockchains
No full textAny emerging technology needs a catalyst to help
its adoption into mainstream utilization. The blockchain has
been around for over 10 years now and although it has been
widely adopted in the crypto asset world, its real-world
implementation in the healthcare domain has been relatively
slow. Considering the advantages possessed inherently by
blockchains, it is perplexing as to why it has not found
widespread acceptance. With most of the proposed
implementations focusing on health records and patient
centered access control, it was necessary to gain status of
public perception of firstly, their health records, secondly,
their outlook on the security aspects of their health data and
finally understand to what extent have blockchains and its
existence has infiltrated into the general populous. The Box’s
M test significance value, p-value= 0.613, helps establish a
correlation between an individual knowledge of blockchains
and their ease in use of electronic devices. The ANOVA test
was used to reject any correlation between an individual’s age
and their perception of healthcare data safety and
accessibility. The results of this analysis would help provide
understanding on the feasibility of healthcare blockchain
implementation
AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF EMOTIONAL LABOR ON CUSTOMER LOYALTY INTENTIONS WITH MEDIATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY IN BANKING SECTOR
No full textThe study aimed to investigate the relationship between emotional labor strategies
and customer loyalty intentions with mediating role of perceived service quality between them. A
theoretical model was developed to test the association among emotional labor strategies (surface
acting and deep acting), customer loyalty intentions and perceived service quality. A causal
research design was employed, while quantitative data provided support for the hypotheses from
participants of 350 bank customers recruited by convivence sampling in Malakand division KP,
Pakistan. The results demonstrated that emotional labor strategies i.e., deep acting and surface
acting differentially affect customers' loyalty intentions. Likewise, the effect of deep acting on
customer loyalty intentions is comparatively more than the effect of surface acting. Furthermore,
perceived service quality significantly mediates the relationship between emotional labor and
customer loyalty. The findings of this study suggest that employers need to regulate deep acting
instead of surface acting among employees to gain long term customer loyalty. Therefore, the
efforts to build long term customer relationship by customer loyalty might effectively be
accomplished. Despite contribution this study has few limitations. first the collected data of this
study is not from all provinces of pakistan, because of large geographical dispersion and less
financial resources. Second the less understanding of respondents about study variables such as
emotional labor and service quality. Third, the study is limited to customers and employs
quantitative research method. To understand the topic more holistically and thoroughly explanatory
mixed-method research approach and data from both customer and employees will be required.
Future studies may consider these limitations as a gap for further research
Toward automatic motivator selection for autism behavior intervention therapy
No full textChildren with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) usually show little interest in academic activities and may display disruptive
behavior when presented with assignments. Research indicates that incorporating motivational variables during interven tions results in improvements in behavior and academic performance. However, the impact of such motivational variables
varies between children. In this paper, we aim to address the problem of selecting the right motivator for children with
ASD using reinforcement learning by adapting to the most infuential factors impacting the efectiveness of the contingent
motivator used. We model the task of selecting a motivator as a Markov decision process problem. The states, actions and
rewards design consider the factors that impact the efectiveness of a motivator based on applied behavior analysis as well
as learners’ individual preferences. We use a Q-learning algorithm to solve the modeled problem. Our proposed solution
is then implemented as a mobile application developed for special education plans coordination. To evaluate the motivator
selection feature, we conduct a study involving a group of teachers and therapists and assess how the added feature aids
the participants in their decision-making process of selecting a motivator. Preliminary results indicated that the motivator
selection feature improved the usability of the mobile app. Analysis of the algorithm performance showed promising results
and indicated improvement of the recommendations over time