Bahria Journal of Professional Psychology

11-34

Authors: Fatima Afsar and Dr. Humaira Jami

Research has shown a decreased readiness and motivation of students to pursue engineering fields despite of increased demand for trained workforce for economic growth and development. The present study was undertaken to explore the factors influencing students at their high school level to pursue engineering as a career or not. The objective was to explore students’ perception of psychosocial factors involved in their academic satisfaction, and persistence intention to pursue career in engineering while studying at pre-engineering level. Twelve focus group discussions with students from BS engineering (7) and non-engineering (5) educational fields from different public universities of Islamabad were conducted. Thematic analysis was done to analyze the data. The major themes emerged were academic and vocational interest, motivation, social support, personality characteristics, barriers etc. The result suggests the importance of these factors in pursuing career in engineering where there must be interest of the students in the field opted; they must be motivated to learn in context of social support extended by friends, family and teachers. Beside this, there are some barriers from different sources like academia, parents, teachers, etc. that restrain the students from perusing and getting into engineering field. There were some major group differences among engineering and non-engineering students regarding perception of different themes. Conclusively, both groups differed in their interest, motivation, support, and barriers although students from non-engineering academic fields had high grades and potential to continue engineering, but barriers were stronger in some situations or interest and motivational factors were lacking that inhibited them to pursue career in engineering.

61-74

Authors: Sidra Shoaib and Dr. Amena Zehra Ali

The current study is aimed at exploring the teachers’ perspective of academic dishonesty in higher education institutes of Karachi, Pakistan by employing qualitative research method. Data was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews with university teachers (N=4) working in public (n=2) and private (n=2) sector universities of Karachi, belonging to faculty of social sciences who were approached through convenient sampling technique. The data was analysed through critical reflective thematic analysis. Three major themes have been generated i.e. acts, reasons of AD and characteristics of individuals (teachers, students & administration) who are engaged in it. The findings showed that AD was defined as a lack or absence of certain tangible and intangible practices and actions. As far as the reasons of AD are concerned, different reasons have been identified for teachers, students and administration. Teachers are engaged in AD as they want to maintain their self-image or are incompetent. The students indulge in these acts because of their personal and social reasons. Lastly, administrative staff is involved in AD because they either want money or they are ineligible for the job and its requirements. To control AD, strict measures need to be taken with the help of administration, teachers and parents of students. Finally, if the intangible acts can be controlled then separate measures should be taken for teachers, students and administration. The findings of the current study are important for the policymaking and its implementation to control AD.

88-98

Authors: Rimsha Tanveer Malik, Dr. Zainab Hussain Bhutto and Dr. Zainab F. Zadeh

The present study aimed to explore the efficacy of schema therapy for young adults with features of borderline personality. It was hypothesized that features of borderline personality of participants would significantly reduce in posttest followed by schema therapy sessions. The participants of this study comprised of 9 young adult female (Age M=23.44; SD=2.12)from Karachi, Pakistan who were approached through a purposive convenient sampling technique. In a pre-post experimental design the participants were selected after their screening with the help of Borderline Symptom List-95 (BSL-95; Bohus et al., 2007). Twelve individual schema therapy-based sessions (adaptation of The Schema Therapy: Clinician’s Guide [Farrell, Reiss & Shaw, 2014]) were conducted. Features of borderline personality of the participants were once again assessed in posttest with the same tool. The statistical analysis of pretest and posttest scores showed a significant decrease in features of borderline personality of the participants. Therefore, the results of the study put forth schema therapy as a promising therapeutic modality for enhancing mental health of individuals with borderline personality features.