IIUM Journal of Human Sciences (IJOHS)
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Political Discussions Among Young Malay Voters on WhatsApp During Malaysia’s 14th General Election: A Case Study of IIUM Students
Get PDFThis study was aimed to explore the usage of WhatsApp among young Malaysian voters in discussing political issues in Malaysia. In addition, it was also conducted to investigate the kinds of political and related issues discussed by the members of the created WhatsApp groups. WhatsApp, categorized as Mobile Messaging Applications (MMAs), was regarded in past studies as providing a new avenue for group of individuals to assemble virtually and discuss politics. In the context of this study, WhatsApp was expected to enable any politically savvy individuals to engage in prolong and detailed political discussions, regardless of their location and time. In the context of 14th Malaysian General Election (GE14), held on 9 May 2018, WhatsApp was seen by political observers and media practitioners as an attractive virtual gathering place for some Malaysians to express and share their opinions and observations of politics in Malaysia. This study employed a virtual focus group, with respondents assigned to two different WhatsApp groups, i.e. Group A and Group B. The discussions among the members of the groups were monitored and observed from 23 April 2018 until 10 May 2018. Both groups were exposed to political news i.e. pro-Barisan Nasional (BN) or/and pro-Opposition, reported by several news agencies. The Group A was fed with pro-BN new only, whereas the Group B was fed with pro-BN and pro-Opposition news. This was done to see whether or not the types of news fed influenced the topics or issues discussed by the respondents in the groups. The findings of the study showed that some respondents, in both groups, actively participated in political discussion on the WhatsApp. The interactive and user-friendly features of the application that allowed the respondents to express their opinions and at the same time attached additional information or evidence turned their discussions into evidence-based and detailed exchange of ideas on Malaysian politics. The results also indicated that WhatsApp also provided the ambience of real political discussions, similar to that of face-to-face group communication
Reviewing the Literature on Working Dual Jobs among Workers with Specific Discussion on Malaysian Women
Get PDFQuite recently, working dual jobs among workers in Malaysia was permitted by the government on the grounds of earning additional income as a substructure for daily living, managing household debts and soldiering on towards achieving a sustainable future. The Malaysian Central Bank’s report indicated that ‘gaji kehidupan wajar’ or the living wage is needed for a household to afford a minimum acceptable living standard as well as a substance for a developing nation. Concurrently, the living wage also was seen to be a potential tool in reviewing current salaries relevancies for Malaysian employees. Assuming that the national living wage is yet attainable, working dual jobs were allowed to certain working sectors. However, the permission was bound to a specific act and circular since it only involved primary official jobs. Working dual jobs can be one of the initiatives to supplement everyday living for most families. This article selects 10-year official-based and academic-content literature that review the relevant concepts of working dual jobs from both international and Malaysian situations. The compilation of this contemporary reviewed reading materials may be useful for the academics and researchers to undertake further deliberation in this pressing socio-financial situation among Malaysian workers, particularly women. As further, this compilation of study may have significance towards the organisational context in the prevalence of women’s empowerment and work-life balance today
Adaptation and Initial Validation of Student Stress Inventory for Use among Malaysian Secondary School Students
Get PDFThe paper discusses the process to adapt the Student Stress Inventory (SSI) and reports the finding of its content validation. The process entailed, firstly, forward and backward translation of items to be used in a new population of test takers whose culture is different from that of the original SSI standardisation sample. The translation process was accomplished by subject matter experts (SMEs) who are well-versed in the English and Malay languages. They too understand the nature and extent of culture in the destination and original culture. The second stage is the item verification process in which five SMEs (Clinical Psychologist, Counsellor, Linguist, English teacher, and Parent) verified and provided comments on every item before subjecting them to content and face validation stage. 10 SMEs, who were Psychology graduates, have been engaged to judge if the adapted Malay items are essential in measuring the construct-in-question among the Malay test takers. The SME judgments were calculated to obtain the content validity ratio of each item. Items that do not meet the minimum value of CVR will be further reviewed. Besides, the feedback provided in the validation was used by the researchers to improve the face validity of the items
How Did People Tweet in the 2018 Malaysian General Election: Analysis of Top Tweets in #PRU14
Get PDFSince 2008, Malaysian General Elections were often dubbed as “social media election”. Twitter's combination of brevity, immediacy, interactivity and virility has enabled it to become a go-to platform for political communication among politicians, journalists and citizens. To understand Twitter uptake among Malaysian citizen during the 2018 general election, this article adopts Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchy-of-influences model. The top 50 tweets from the political hashtag #pru14 between 28 April 2018 until 10 May 2018 will be analysed. The analysis will be based on two types of influences that may affect this mediation process; influences of political reality, the influences based on individual characteristics of users and the nature of communication on Twitter. This study found that when the mediated political event cannot be accessed directly by the public, tweets from influencers dominates the Top Tweets. However, when the public can get access to the mediated events directly, tweets from the public are catching the attention on the #PRU14. This study also found that there are more male twitters than female, and most of them appeared to be in their youth
The Effects of Perceived Threats and Social Media Exposure about COVID-19 on Mental Health in Malaysia
Get PDFThe objective of this study is to examine the effects of perceived threats and social media exposure of COVID-19 on mental health. For this cross-sectional design survey-based study, a sample of 315 university students in Malaysia, aged between 19 to 35 years (Mean age = 23.31, SD = 2.808), were recruited by cluster sampling. Sociodemographic variables, perception of threat level of COVID-19, social media exposure level of COVID-19 and mental health of individuals was measured through a collection of online self-reported data. Standard multiple regression and hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted. Results showed that individuals with higher levels of social media exposure had lower levels of mental health problems, whereas individuals with a higher level of perception of threat had more mental health problems. Findings of this study has great implementations in research as it shows that the pandemic-related perception of threat generates mental health problems. As such, for the purpose of strengthening mental health services, campaigns and interventions should be introduced by policy makers, the government and mental health practitioners
Risk Factors of Radicalisation towards Violent Extremism: Challenges and Progress
Get PDFStatistics have shown that violent extremism was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, destructions of properties, and billions of economic losses to multiple nations for years. Despite a wide array of research conducted since the early 1940s, some academics in the past decades believe that studies on risk factors of radicalisation towards violent extremism are hindered by many setbacks causing the field to be at infancy stage in research and knowledge compared to other areas of studies. Challenges faced by academics in the field had caused stagnation in reaching a holistic understanding of the risk factors of radicalisation. However, some academics have stressed that it is untrue to refer to the research field as stagnant as it dismisses a multitude of empirical studies which have been published for decades. Some scholars had found that progress has been made, but it is relatively slow due to some research challenges imposed on the field. This paper highlights the challenges that remain true and prevalent to many academics that attempted to study the risk factors of radicalisation towards violent extremism. Also, this paper provides some relevant evidence which shows that the notion regarding the challenges may be true
The Relationship between the Instagram Usage and Self-esteem among IIUM Students
Get PDFThis study aims to determine the effects of Instagram usage on the self-esteem of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) students. The specific objectives of this study are: (1) to assess IIUM students’ level of Instagram usage; (2) to assess IIUM students’ level of perception of Instagram usage; (3) to assess IIUM students’ level of attitude in using Instagram; (4) to assess IIUM students’ level of behaviour in using Instagram; and (5) to determine the relationships of usage, perception, attitude, and behaviour in using Instagram with self-esteem. A quantitative research design was employed in this research. For data collection, network sampling was used as a sampling technique and an online survey questionnaire was used as the research instrument. A total of 160 undergraduate and postgraduate students participated in this study. The results show a high level of Instagram usage among students, where most of them used it more than five times a day. Therefore, their usage of the platform had a positive impact on their self-esteem. The findings also show that the students tended to have a positive perception, attitude, and behaviour towards self-esteem in using Instagram. The relationships between Instagram usage, perception, attitude, behaviour, and self-esteem were strong and statistically significant. Hence, when all the students have a highest level of Instagram usage, they will have a positive perception, attitude, and behaviour towards their self-esteem. This study tested the social comparison theory, and all the developed hypotheses were accepted.
The Subjective Burden of Caregivers of Patients with Schizophrenia in Pekanbaru
Get PDFSchizophrenia is a severe mental disorder experienced for a long time and accompanied by several times relapse. It gives negative impacts, recognised as the objective and subjective burdens, on families who care for schizophrenic patients (caregiver). The objective burdens were related to high medical costs, while the subjective burdens were related to emotional and social pressure in treating a schizophrenic patient. This study aimed to identify the subjective burden of caregivers of patients with schizophrenia in Pekanbaru City. It will be the basis for determining the appropriate treatment for schizophrenic patients in the community. The method used was a survey involving 31 caregivers as research samples determined using cluster sampling techniques, obtained from 6 sub-districts of 12 subdistricts, namely Rumbai, Rumbai Pesisir, Senapelan, Payung Sekaki, Sukajadi, and Marpoyan Damai. Researchers used the Indonesian version of the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale as a research instrument, validated by Utami (2011). The statistical analysis used was a descriptive statistical analysis. This research showed that most caregivers suffered from subjective burden in the moderate category (38.70%). The main burden includes the feeling of unable to care while feeling overburdened occupied the second position and the lowest was the feeling of rejection. Female caregivers mostly felt a higher burden than males. Furthermore, caregivers aged over 60 years old showed the feeling of overburdened and unable to care higher than other ages, but lower in rejection than others
Preliminary Study: Validation of Measure for Psychology Students Employability Skills
Get PDFThe purpose of this study is to validate the measurement of Psychology students Employability Skills. This research used quantitative method by conducting two studies, exploratory and confirmatory studies. The sample used in this study was 206 Psychology students. The references in developing this measurement are SCANS (1992), The Conference Board of Canada (1992), Cotton (1993), Robinson (2000), Rosenberg (2012), Hamid (2014) which produced 87 questionnaire items with six aspects. The result of the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) showed 27 items that are grouped together into five factors namely thinking skills, basic academic, interpersonal skills, technology skills, and personal qualities. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) yields 16 items (CR = 0.81) with three factors namely Basic Academic (CR = 0.74), Thinking Skills (CR = 0.70), Sociability (CR = 0.64). The model of measurement is fit for the first-order (Chi-Square = 105.95, df = 93, p-value = 0.12, RMSEA = 0.029) and for second-order (Chi-Square = 101.21, df = 83, p-value = 0.066, RMSEA = 0.034). This measurement is able to provide an evaluation for Psychology students employability skills. Implication of this evaluation can be used to design intervention in enhancing employability skills among Psychology students
A Literature Discourse on the Development of Islamisation of Knowledge Models: Strategising New Project Based Implementation Approach to Benefit Human Sciences
Get PDFThe movement of Islamisation of Human Knowledge is no more a new issue among the Muslims. This intellectual movement involves a desecularisation of knowledge in order to show the Muslim Ummah the true path of leading life. A major objective of this article is to identify the problems and prospects in the implementation of Islamisation of Knowledge on human sciences. This article first highlights the proposed methodologies of Islamisation of Knowledge suggested by different prominent Muslim scholars. Then a critical evaluation of all these models is presented. The study concludes that though many scholars suggested many models of Islamisation of Knowledge, implementation of these models is still passing through an early stage with some irregularities to consolidate between Islamic component and human sciences. The article proposes a time bound project based approach for the implementation of Islamisation of Knowledge at educational institutions