Huma Akram

Keeping in view the basic necessity of the time, integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching-learning practices has become an integral part of higher education. In relation to English as a foreign language (EFL) learning, several forms of interactive platform have been applied to enhance students’ engagement, interest and learning satisfaction. Likewise, this quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the role of ClassPoint tool integrated activities in strengthening e-learning satisfaction of undergraduate female EFL learners in Saudi Arabia. The intervention, i.e., the ClassPoint tool-integrated instruction for the experimental group, lasted for around a month, whereas the students from the controlled group received non-ClassPoint integrated instructions. Subsequently, the data from both groups was analyzed statistically via a t-test. Based on the analysis, the use of ClassPoint tool activities showed a significant increase in the e-learning sa...

Although STEM is an essential feature of 21st-century education and learning, there is a lack of awareness about it in Pakistan, especially at the K-12 and tertiary levels. Recently many initiatives have been launched across Pakistan to create more interest in STEM education. In order to assist in raising the level of STEM awareness in Pakistan, this study sought to examine the current state of research and identify recent contributions and gaps in the literature. A systematic literature review was conducted using 22 research papers from five renowned databases. Results produced limited research in this area, with the majority being descriptive and only four being interventional studies. Regrettably, no research explored the engineering component of STEM education. Trends indicate that STEM education research has experienced a downward trend in Pakistan. The observed decline may have occurred due to a lack of understanding among Pakistani researchers regarding the importance of STEM...

The rapid expansion of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has transformed learners into digital learners, requiring teachers to integrate technology into their pedagogical approaches, where teachers’ attitudes, technological knowledge, and skills play a significant role in its effective integration. From this perspective, the current study presents teachers’ perceptions regarding technology integration in their teaching-learning practices at all educational levels in light of the previous studies performed in the last 5 years in Pakistan. The findings reveal that teachers exhibit positive perceptions regarding technology integration in teaching-learning practices. They believe that technology-incorporated teaching assists them in enhancing their instructional practices effectively, making the learning process exciting and interactive, and keeping learners motivated. Regarding barriers, the slow speed of the internet, load shedding, lack of infrastructure, online t...

Commitment and efficiency of teachers have an important input in the successful accomplishment of educational objectives of any nation; thus, highly motivated teachers are vital for an effective educational approach. By using a quantitative method, this study examined why teachers select the teaching as a profession for their life career. Through the purposive sampling, pre-service teachers from the University of Loralai were chosen in which 147 students participated in this research. Researchers collected the data through questionnaires and analyzed it by using descriptive and inferential statistical tests. The findings point out that majority of pre-service teachers choose the teaching profession as their life career due to the altruistic-intrinsic reasons because it received the highest mean as compared to the other reasons (i.e., extrinsic and reasons influenced by others). The extrinsic reasons and reasons influenced by others followed by in order of preference respectively. Re...

Aim/Purpose: This study seeks to investigate the factors that influence online students’ continued usage intention toward e-learning systems by presenting an extended model that is based on the Delone and McLean (2003) IS success model (D&M ISS model). Background: The use of e-learning systems in this era has become a vital element of delivering higher education. Learning via e-learning systems has significant benefits that support conventional learning. Thus, it is crucial to measure the success of e-learning systems’ implementation. Methodology: This study was conducted with 590 undergraduate and postgraduate students from three private universities in Jordan, and data was gathered via an online self-report questionnaire. Contribution: Theoretically, this study advances the literature and empirically examines a modified version of the D&M ISS model by including context-specific factors that are drivers of successful implementations of e-learning systems. Findings: The path analysi...

Introduction . The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to pause. One hundred and eighty-eight countries have imposed countrywide school closures, affecting more than 1.5 billion children and youths. The majority of academic leaders are currently encouraging online education to resolve this crisis. This study aimed to investigate international medical students’ (IMS) experiences of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Data were collected online using a validated questionnaire and one open-ended question, presented on the Google forms platform. The study attracted responses from 1,107 IMS volunteer participants. IBM SPSS v. 25, GraphPad Prism v. 9, and MindManager v. 2018 were used for data analysis. All variables were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. The Mann–Whitney U test was used in subgroup analysis and the Kruskal-Wallis test was also applied for year-wise comparisons. Open-ended text responses were analyzed qualitatively, extracting themes by w...

This study examines the impact of psychopathic and narcissist personalities on employees' adverse outcomes. Additionally, this study investigates the intervening mechanism of workplace incivility among the relationship of psychopathic and narcissist personalities and adverse outcomes. Furthermore, the interactive impact of Islamic work values was also tested between the association of workplace incivility and adverse outcomes. Using the purposive sampling technique, data was collected through a survey method from 404 permanent employees of a public sector organization in two different time-lags. PROCESS-macro was used to test indirect, interactive, and moderated mediation effects. The findings of this study confirm the direct effect relationship between that psychopathic and narcissist personalities and employees’ adverse outcomes. Further, this study confirms that workplace incivility indirectly enhances the adverse outcomes of employees. Finally, the study findings revealed th...

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to examine the challenges faculty members face with online teaching practices in public universities in Karachi, Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty members’ pedagogical experiences were examined by following the approach of the technology acceptance model (TAM) framework presented by Davis in 1986 and 1989. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected educational activities and disrupted the traditional norms of education at colleges and universities in the world, and, as a result, teaching and learning have shifted to online. Accordingly, the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic has unexpectedly forced educators and educational leaders to analyze pedagogical measures to offer quality education to students and make changes to their curriculum and instruction. Methodology: This study used a mixed-method research design with closed-ended surveys and interviews. The researchers distributed online questionnaires and conducted phone ca...

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly shifted education from traditional to an online version, which was an emergent state for teachers and students. The substantive situation thus raises the importance of technology integration in education, and teachers are required to update their competencies, respectively. In this regard, the study assessed online teaching competencies of faculty members following, technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) model. Closed-ended surveys were employed for quantitative analysis of randomly selected 256 faculty members from public universities in Karachi, Pakistan. Results indicated that teachers possessed adequate levels of knowledge across all the domains of TPACK. The highest competency was obtained by content knowledge (CK), while technological knowledge (TK) was reported at the lowest level. Furthermore, a significant difference was noted in terms of gender and teaching experience. Correspondingly, the study proposes that the TPACK model...

International education has become an essential component of Chinese universities, and its importance is growing as a result of government funding. Academic exchange and collaboration with international universities are becoming more relevant in Chinese universities. This research aimed to develop a holistic understanding of international students’ perceptions of socioeconomic, cultural, and intellectual issues in China. The study was qualitative, and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Five international students were recruited from different schools of the normal university, and all were from different countries. The overall cultural difference did not affect their life in china. The learning environment in a normal university was good—Chinese Language, a big problem everyone suffered. Availability of English language instructions in the university offices, canteens, etc. found very low. Course instructions need to improve. English taught programs should have full access to...

The current technology era has provided education with a significant position to survive a society in this globalized world. However, Pakistan has made several efforts to raise the country’s education status but still unsuccessful in achieving the targets, for instance, struggling with low literacy. The current situation is mainly due to the poor implementation of educational policies. Therefore, a critical analysis of Pakistan education policies was done to understand the root causes of poor implementation and provide suggestions to resolve the weak areas. The study was followed by adopting a retrospective approach to review past literature, i.e., Education policies, research articles, project reports, and related literature. The study identified several barriers: excessive expectations, centralized targets, ambiguous objectives, political influence, inadequate funding and resources, lack of collaboration, scarcity of teachers’ professional development, and poor supervision. In con...

Introduction . The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to pause. One hundred and eighty-eight countries have imposed countrywide school closures, affecting more than 1.5 billion children and youths. The majority of academic leaders are currently encouraging online education to resolve this crisis. This study aimed to investigate international medical students’ (IMS) experiences of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Data were collected online using a validated questionnaire and one open-ended question, presented on the Google forms platform. The study attracted responses from 1,107 IMS volunteer participants. IBM SPSS v. 25, GraphPad Prism v. 9, and MindManager v. 2018 were used for data analysis. All variables were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. The Mann–Whitney U test was used in subgroup analysis and the Kruskal-Wallis test was also applied for year-wise comparisons. Open-ended text responses were analyzed qualitatively, extracting themes by which responses were classified. Results Among 1,107 respondents, a total of 67.8% were males, and the majority (63.1%) of the IMS were in the age group of 21–23 years. The results show that more than half of the respondents reported their Internet connection quality as poor to average. Poor Internet connection severely affected IMS online learning experience. Persistent and recurrent issues with Internet access became a significant concern for IMS. Lack of electricity is one of the factors that can contribute to poor learning output and dissatisfaction with online teaching. IMS perceive online medical education as unhelpful in several phases of the training, such as improving their clinical skills, knowledge, and discussion skills. Conclusions During these unprecedented periods, online teaching has allowed medical education to continue. However, IMS are generally dissatisfied with online teaching. Medical students must visualize the human body, so supportive technologies are important to compensate for the lack of clinical practices. Medical institutions may need to invest in faculty training programs and continually adjust to enhance the content of online training and international partnerships. A switch from conventional face-to-face teaching to a fully functional virtual education framework in the medical education field will take time and experience.

Over the centuries, China still respectfully treasures rich Asian cultures, traditions, and customs. China is now famous all over the world for its mysterious wonders and cultural & natural heritages such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Army, etc. The Chinese history is full with the exposition of outstanding features of Chinese culture such as great thoughts of Confucius, religious beliefs, traditional festivals and customs e.g., Chinese new year, language and calligraphy e.g., Shu Fa, four great inventions of ancient China e.g., papermaking, printing, gunpowder and the compass, traditional architecture and sculpture, traditional art forms, etc. The era of history of China before the time in power of Qin dynasty is known by name as the period of Warring States. This period started from 475 BC and ends at 221 BC. Seven Warring States were included in it i.e. Qin, Wei, Han, Yan, Chu, Zhao, and Qi. Zheng was the King of Qin, who started his journey to triumph ove...

The socioeconomic development of a country depends upon a sound education system. The current era of technology increases its demand to survive in this globalized world. However, several drastic measures have been taken by Pakistan’s government but are still unable to acquire the goals and struggle with low literacy. On this account, a critical analysis was done to understand the root causes of bad governance of education and propose suggestions to resolve those challenges. The study specified several challenges such as unequal access to education, insufficient resources, unavailability of trained teachers, scared accountability and examination system, socioeconomic gap and private supplementary education. In accordance with the findings, the study also proposed useful suggestions for policymakers and educationists.

Aim/Purpose This study aims to examine the challenges faculty members face with online teaching practices in public universities in Karachi, Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty members’ pedagogical experiences were examined by following the approach of the technology acceptance model (TAM) framework presented by Davis in 1986 and 1989. Background The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected educational activities and disrupted the traditional norms of education at colleges and universities in the world, and, as a result, teaching and learning have shifted to online. Accordingly, the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic has unexpectedly forced educators and educational leaders to analyze pedagogical measures to offer quality education to students and make changes to their curriculum and instruction. Methodology This study used a mixed-method research design with closed-ended surveys and interviews. The researchers distributed online questionnaires and conducted phone call ...

The Covid-19 Pandemic forced the global closure of numerous activities along with education and shifted traditional education to an online version via two e-learning platforms, i.e., synchronous and asynchronous. This transition was unplanned for all educational institutions, due to which teachers and students had to face several teaching/learning challenges. Thereby a quantitative study was designed to investigate the learning satisfaction of students in both synchronous and asynchronous learning environments from public universities of Karachi, Pakistan. The participants of the study were selected through simple random sampling, and 108 students from different universities filled the complete questionnaires. The data were analyzed through various statistical tests, i.e., (mean, standard deviation and Pearson correlation, and T-test. The Findings identified that students showed significantly higher satisfaction in the synchronous learning environment. Thereby, the study mainly sugg...

The current technology era has provided education with a significant position to survive a society in this globalized world. However, Pakistan has made several efforts to raise the country’s education status but still struggle with low literacy due to the poor implementation of educational policies. Therefore, a critical analysis of Pakistan education policies was done to understand the root causes of poor implementation and provide suggestions to resolve the weak areas. The study identified several barriers such as excessive expectations, centralized targets, ambiguous objectives, political influence, inadequate funding and resources, lack of collaboration, scarcity of teachers’ professional development and poor supervision. In conformity with the findings, some recommendations are also proposed. It is further claimed that local needs should be taken under consideration at the time of policy formulation to prevent policy failure.

The choice of the most appropriate method for learning and teaching any foreign language is of vital importance. This study aims to investigate student teachers' achievements in English language learning. A quasi-experimental research design was used to compare and identify the effective English language teaching method in a distance teacher education program at the university level in Pakistan. Moreover, semi-structured interviews were conducted to follow up on the experimental findings and enlighten the distance tutors' English language teaching practices. A sample of sixty student teachers enrolled in the B.Ed. Program of Allama Iqbal Open University Pakistan was randomly selected and divided into a control group (CG) and experimental group (EG). Furthermore, eleven distance tutors were also interviewed. Pre-test and post-test were used in both groups. Findings revealed that the grammar-translation method (GTM) is not encouraged for English language teaching; however, it is still in practice at the university level in Pakistan. Moreover, tutors reflected that the English language syllabus could be modified to meet modern needs. Furthermore, communication on the part of the learners also needs to be addressed. The examination system should not focus only on writing skills, but also on evaluating all language skills, including reading, speaking, and listening.

Education prepares individuals to contribute constructively in this globalised world. Apart from this, several factors make English learning essential as a part of the educational practice and receive particular importance. Unfortunately, Pakistan is still lagging in achieving English literacy, especially in rural areas. The present study aims to explore the challenges and to suggest solutions to improve English learning and teaching in rural primary schools of Karachi, Pakistan. By employing qualitative design, eighteen teachers (12 females and 6 males) were selected through convenient sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. All the interviews were analysed through thematic analysis technique and the views of teachers were confirmed by observing their classes for two days. The findings reveal that teachers and students encounter several obstacles that hinder them in acquiring effective English learning. These Include the weak bac...