Research in Social Sciences and Technology

1-15

Authors: Inmaculada Garci­a Marti­nez, Pedro Jose Arrifano Tadeu

Educational Leadership has an international recognition as a factor in school improvement (OECD, 2009, 2014). The international investigations guarantee this. Within the multiplicity of investigative lines that concern this factor, there is one that alludes to its impact on school improvement, especially in contexts of the social inequality. Within the pedagogical leadership, it has been evidenced that the shared modalities of leadership that invite other members of the educational organization to be involved in a common project are associated with a greater commitment for the improvement and inclusion of all the students. At the same time, other factors come into play, such as the professional identity of both management and staff, professional capital (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2014) or the inclusive practices outlined in this type of context. This intervention oscillates around these issues, offering a vision about studies carried out in the international sphere that associate, on one hand, the impact of leadership on the educational organization and, on the other, positive effects in challenging contexts. Finally, the results obtained from a questionnaire designed specifically for this research will be presented, in which secondary school teachers were asked to respond to questions related to the collaboration in the center, if they received support from the management team to improve their practices if they perceived themselves as school leaders or teachers. Among the results found, it is observed that there is a positive trend towards the construction of a common educational project in secondary schools by the management team. Likewise, there is a positive predisposition on the part of the teaching staff to be more involved in the initiatives of the educational center and towards collaboration and coordination with other colleagues.

32-41

Authors: Sitti Fithriani Saleh, Purwanto Purwanto, Sudirman Sudirman, Erry Hidayanto, Susiswo Susiswo

This study aims to reveal mathematical connections of elementary school teachers in solving trigonometric problem. The subjects of this study were 22 elementary school teachers as the prospective participants of Professional Teacher Education and Training (PTET). They came from several districts of South Sulawesi Province. The teachers were given trigonometry problem. Trigonometry problems could encourage teachers to connect geometrical and algebraic concept, graphical representation and algebraic representation, as well as daily life context. The result shows that most of the subject teachers of this study solved the problem according to procedures they know without considering everyday life context. On the other hand, there were some subjects who connected problem with everyday life context using graphical, verbal, or numerical representation. Thus, subjects who were able to connect problem information with appropriate concepts and procedures are categorized as substantive connections. While the subjects who were able to connect problem information with mathematical concepts but less precise in using the procedure are categorized as classification connections.

68-91

Authors: Alexander Ivanovich Olefirenko, Alexey Galuschenko

The modern conditions of high-tech and highly competitive markets require the evolution of the enterprise automation systems. Such new, the post-ERP systems should meet the conditions for the provision of customer self-service and other counterparts, the dramatic decrease of the manual labour through automation, robotic application, integration with other systems and external contracting systems, multi-channel marketing and distribution, reduction of supply chains and other current trends. These systems should be built on the new IEM Automation Paradigm (Intelligent Enterprise Managing) and therefore belong to the IEM system class. As stated in the IEM paradigm article, a modern approach to solving the task of automation is based on the application of "best" solutions for each separate entity or business unit. In practice, however, this approach has resulted in a series of significant problems. The scale of the problems is increasing with the growth in transactional load, competitive pressures on the market, requirements for accelerate optimization, and business processes changes.

116-134

Authors: Cihangir Arslan, Burhan Mustafa Tanis

Vocabularies, the core of any language, is probably the most challenging and time-consuming part of learning a foreign language in a diverse and disperse community of learners. This study proposes an approach that can help a learner build up his/her English vocabulary volume by intensive article reading, inclusion of Google Cloud Natural Language API, Glosbe Dictionary API and the use of computing technology, the review value calculation. The review value calculation was able to determine the number of days where the new words should be reviewed and be part of the long-term memory. Result shows that students were able to increase their vocabulary acquisition skills by applying technology and computing to their study routines. Students were able to retain words fast and understand better, by employing an interactive monitoring process. If the system will be implemented carefully, it will hypothetically produce a faster technique in acquiring new vocabularies for foreign students.

i-ii

Authors: Bulent Tarman

Dear RESSAT readers and contributors, We are excited to be with you through the May 2018 issue (3/2) of Research in Social Sciences and Technology (RESSAT). We would like to extend our appreciations to all who contributes by submitting or reviewing manuscripts or have been readers of RESSAT. In our second issue of the third year, you will find the articles on various topics of social sciences specifically focusing on education.

14-39

Authors: Fouad Yehya Yehya, Aziz Barbar, Dr., Suzanne Abou Rjeily

This paper investigates the barriers affecting the success implementation of ICT in the Lebanese secondary physics classes. It is realistic based study adopted the descriptive quantitative method to collect data by attitude test survey from 94 Lebanese secondary schools from different Lebanese districts. The results indicated that the ICT implementation in physics courses was not attained. Physics teachers must improve their ICT skills. Moreover, the low technology periods per week and revealing curriculum content, inflexibility of the curriculum to ICT implementation, insufficient existence of computer labs, lack financial support, insufficient training, inadequate technical support, unavailability of internet connectivity and the crowded class rooms were main barriers that prevent the implementation of ICT.

58-78

Authors: Ronald Maraden Silalahi, Untung Yuwono

Pancasila as the ideological foundation of Indonesia is inseparable from education. In the implementation level, education is directed to build the values of Pancasila through learning programs. However, Indonesian education is still at an alarming condition, because the competencies of the graduates are not equivalent to the graduates from the other countries. This phenomenon underlies the formation of 2013 Curricula that emphasizes on the development of Pancasila values as the core competencies. This research was aimed at reconstructing Pancasila ideology and discussing the steps to revitalize Pancasila in Indonesian education system. Critical Discourse Analysis was conducted in three stages, namely text description, discursive practice, and socio-cultural practice to reconstruct Pancasila ideology in 2013 Curricula and their juridical foundations. Focus Group Discussions were conducted to review the application of the 2013 curriculum as well as the revitalization of Pancasila in Indonesian education system. The analysis revealed that the revitalization in Indonesian education system is absolutely needed, because the values of Pancasila as one of the core competencies that must be owned by the students have not been fundamentally and appropriately implemented in education and learning process.

93-114

Authors: Nasser Tolba

This article aims to explore the phenomenon of political violence at Egyptian universities after the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime on June 30, 2013. It is a critical analysis to identify the underlying causes and factors leading to this excessive violence and its impact on the Egyptian universities. The article drew on qualitative methods by interviewing 16 Muslim Brotherhood students from four public universities. The results indicate that frustration, injustice, the collapse of democracy, and interference of the security in universities played an initial role in the students’ violent behaviors. The forms of violence varied from clashes, throwing stones, and destroying university facilities and infrastructure. The effects of violence on the university were large such as, cancelling study several times, eliminating student political and cultural activities, infrastructure losses, and many arrests, injuries and victims between students and staff. Keywords: 30 June events 2013, political violence, Egypt revolution, student protests

i-ii

Authors: Bulent Tarman & Smitha Dev

In the academic world “Real learning†in any form is an active interaction of human mind with past experience, and that relates to man, machine, materials and ideas. Therefore any teaching and learning process should be aimed at providing ample scope for the learners mind to interact and acquire fruitful experience. Only through this active interaction, the learners and educators can reconstruct his/her experience in light of new experience leading to “Real learningâ€. This enables to enhance the competency, tenacity and inquisitiveness among the scholars. A dedicated and focused approach towards different teaching and learning experience of educators from different parts of the world, especially from the Middle East has been widely discussed in this Special Issue of general Education Conference.

16-35

Authors: Zalina Mohd Tahir, Nabihah Mohd Salleh

School administrators consisting of Principals and Headmasters (PGB) play a significant role in leading the school to achieve excellence. To ensure that excellence is achieved within the timeframe stipulated, the PGB received guidance from fellow coaches known as School Improvement Partners (SIP). The coaching process requires mutual understanding between the two parties so that it can work smoothly and effectively (Narimawati, 2007) without any conflict of ideologies. This study is to identify the effectiveness of the coaching of SIP through the good relations and professional skills practiced during the ongoing coaching. A total of 212 PGB as respondents and data were analyzed using SPSS version 23 for the descriptive analysis, while AMOS version 22 is used for advanced statistics Structural Equation Modeling. The study found that the goodness of fit model by SIP coaching is good with reading of chi-square/df=2.203, CFI= .969, p=0.00 and RMSEA=.076. Good relationship with professional coaching sessions have contributed a total of 71% (R2=.71) to the effectiveness of the coaching as well as it helps to increase the PGB confidence in the development of schools. This finding confirms that coaching by SIP directly acts as a catalyst for the success of the school and to complete the needs of mission and vision of the Ministry of Education, Malaysia.

54-73

Authors: Azizah Alogali

This paper discusses the ways that the publications of multilingual and non-native speakers of English are treated in academic publications. Using the World Englishes theory as a framework, it attempts to enumerate which overt and hidden advantages native speakers may have over non-native speakers in academic writing communities, and how these can be deconstructed. It also explores possible solutions to this problem, both to improve non-native students' written scholarly work and to restructure global perceptions and biases towards different regional varieties of English. The paper focuses on certain gatekeeping behaviors performed by institutions of knowledge production, and on how the World Englishes theory can be applied to help improve parity in international academia.

86-108

Authors: Beena Vijayavalsalan

Purpose: The study has evaluated the effectiveness of online discussion forums among the students of Abu Dhabi University, UAE. Results: The results have shown strong association between positive learning experience and frequency of student participation in discussion forums. However, no statistical significance (p-value=0.306) has been observed among online forums and age of the participants for developing critical thinking skills. Moreover, a significant difference has been identified in students’ participation on the effectiveness of online discussion (p-value=0.000). Conclusion: It is concluded that online discussion forums serve as an efficient and effective tool for interaction among the participants.

122-133

Authors: Salvacion Mata-Domingo

A Collaborative Interaction Management System (CIMS) is a system that potentially provide some assistance to the teachers in managing the student’s collaborative interaction in forum discussions. The projected main function of the CIMS is to provide tools that automatically gauge the quality of interaction as reflected in student’s individual contributions so as to make it easier for the instructor to make judgments on the effectiveness of the collaborative process. This study aims to assess how effective and usable is the developed CIMS based on the evaluation of faculty and students. The descriptive research design is utilized in this study. The five-point Likert scale is used and the gathered data are statistically interpreted through the utilisation of a weighted mean. The sample population of this study is the one hundred twenty participants coming from the different universities in the area where the survey was conducted. The researcher adopted a survey instrument made by some software specialists. The bases of the instrument are some of the characteristics listed on the software quality model of ISO 9126. These are the functionality, usability and the reliability. Each of these software characteristics is described by some indicators to obtain the responses of the participants. The overall evaluation of the participants displayed the weighted mean of 4.0, thus it can be concluded that the functionality, usability and reliability of the software is very good.