Journal of Education and Educational Development

25-42

Authors: Meltem Emen, Durmuş Aslan

Perspective taking is a fundamental skill that helps us to understand others’ thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Past studies have shown that there were significant relations between young children’s perspective taking abilities and age, gender, formal schooling and socioeconomic status. The present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perspective taking skills and language development in preschool children. The study sample included 98 three to five-year-old children (53 girls and 45 boys) attending six kindergartens located at the city center of Adana, Turkey. Children came from families with similar demographic characteristics. As data collection instruments, Perspective Taking Test for Children (PTC) and Peabody Picture-Vocabulary Test were used. Data were obtained by individual interviews. Firstly, children were presented the PTC. The next day, Peabody Picture-Vocabulary Test wasapplied to the children. The results show that there was a significant and positive correlation between perspective taking skills and language development of the children. These correlations were high value for the age of three years, moderate for four years old and high for five years old. It was also determined that language development of children predicted their perspective taking skills significantly.

62-77

Authors: Naeem Akhtar Rana, Nasreen Hussain

Effective Communication Skills demonstrate the capacity and efficacy of any business graduate. These skills allow the business students to express and utilize their knowledge to benefit any organization. However, the business industry have continuously raised their concerns on the lack of effective oral and written communication skills to serve the requirements of rapidly growing communication within and outside organizations. Among many factors, teaching methods, at higher education, have been identified that did not allow developing working skills to their full effects. Therefore, many methods have been developed and tested around the world to increase the necessary skills among business students. Scholars and researchers have tried to explore and test Experiential Learning (EL) techniques in teaching different courses of business administration programs. In the past few decades EL techniques have frequently been used in business pedagogies. EL theory presents a playfield where learners can learn the best by doing (Kolb, 1984). The traditional teaching pedagogies have proved insufficient to cater the needs of the learners and corporate world. Although business education around the world has already inculcated EL strategies into its system; however, in Pakistan EL theory is at its initial stage and the trainers and teachers are striving to find out appropriate tools and strategies to effectively utilize the theory. In this regard, the researcher developed an ERE cycle which was based on Kolb’s (1984) EL theory and tested its impact on the grades of the students oral and written communication skills. The study was conducted using one sample t-test in the paradigm of quantitative research. Three classes of BBA and MBA were selected for this study who were studying Oral and written communication courses. This research compared mean scores of these three classes with the population mean of the last three years. The results showed a significant positive difference between the sample mean scores and population mean. The study proved that EL based ERE cycle could prove very effective in enhancement of the skills of business communication students that was reflected in their performance in exams. The study would provide communication faculty, trainers and institutes to explore and utilize the effectiveness of ERE cycle and perform further researches to extend the utilities of EL based teaching methods.

95-110

Authors: Shirin Nooruddin, Shelina Bhamani

Teachers in the recent fast transforming technological era are required to regularly upgrade their knowledge, skills and attitudes to meet the needs of the 21st century learners & learning. This study explores the engagement of the school leaders in continuous professional development (CPD) by using a case study method. An elite school was selected as a sample case considering its recognition of CPD models and its constructive implications on learning. Two school leaders consisting of school headmistress and CPD convenor were selected using a purposive sampling method. The data were collected using an in-depth interview strategy and having a semi structured interview guide that could allow subjective detailed questioning and responses. Also, researchers own observations of CPD programmes provided relevant data for the study. The data analysis revealed that school leaders pursue CPD in a very systemic and process-oriented manner. The process starts from exploring individual teachers’ needs to providing them with avenues to upgrade their teaching with timely support and monitoring. This study synthesizes the findings and present essential characteristics of effective professional development. Strategies for policy makers, school leadership, school administrators and teachers to engage in continuous, relevant and contextualized professional development endeavours are discussed.

126-137

Authors: Sheikh Muhammad Irfan, Kamal Ahmed Soomro, Nasreen Hussain

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between metacognitive awareness of reading strategies (MARS), and academic attainments (AA) of undergraduate business students. It also investigated the relationship between reading practices (RP) and MARS. There are three different categories of MARS – global, problem solving, and support reading strategies. The Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), developed by Mokhtari and Reichard (2002) was used as the instrument for this study where the sample consisted of 571 male and female students of undergraduate business program from private and public universities of Karachi. The results showed Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies significantly predicts academic attainments of university students. The findings suggest that conducting workshops or training sessions for promoting MARS may be helpful to enhance students’ concentration towards the reading process that may affect their learning.

154-170

Authors: FIZZA ANWAR

This research was conducted to determine the effects of activity-based teaching on student motivation and academic achievement. Pretest and post-test control group design of experimental research was employed for this study. Two MCQ achievement tests were used as research tools for the data collection as pre-test and post-test. The first step in this project was to gather information about what motivates students to learn. Pre-test was conducted from both groups and results were tabulated. The second step of the project was to examine the effect of hands-on activities on student motivation and for analysis MCQ achievement test was used along with specially designed work sheets from both groups. T-test was used to analyze the data. The results of this study showed that a majority of students’ scores increased in experimental group as compared to the control group. The mean value indicated that participants from experimental group showed more achievement in post-test 15.6, while the control group students scored 10.7. The post-lesson survey showed that the majority students found the activity based teaching to be more interesting than lecture based teaching.

188-192

Authors: Abdulrauf Farooqui

21st Century learner can be described as ‘technowiredcompuchildren’. This refers to youth focused inquiry based learning system offered at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU). All learning systems involve the successful completion of high quality assignments indicating that the student has done additional reading beyond the course material and has made out all-out-effort towards completing assignments with ingenuity. The Commonwealth youth program (CYP), Post Graduate Diploma in ‘Youth in Development Work’ played a significant role in promoting the student’s based reading cum writing, speaking and listening skills, motivated thinking process and above capacity for critical thinking. This paper provides an insight into the value of completing high quality assignments at one’s own initiative.

28-44

Authors: Fatima Dar

The study addressed a cognitive-affective gap in the textual content of a primary English curriculum. The research design was qualitative in nature. In the first part of the study, document analysis of the textbooks from grades1-5 was done to prove that empathetic and pro-social themes were under represented in them. The second part of the study was an intervention in which teachers were apprised to highlight empathetic and pro social themes in texts and teach them. The third part of the study noticed if the use of cognitive-affective texts raised awareness among students about the said themes and significantly affected their interest in academic work. The findings from document analysis, observations and interviews indicated that empathetic and pro-social themes were under represented in the textual content. The observations of integrated cognitive-affective lessons brought forth a significant increase in student interest in academic work and raised awareness about the stated themes. This was also authenticated by teachers and students in focused group interviews. The study was significant in terms of raising the importance of the stated skills at the primary level and prove that cognitive-affective use of textual content in schools could raise awareness about affective skills and prepare helpful and caring individuals for the society.

60-74

Authors: Fahmeeda Gulnaz, Muhammad Umar Farooq, Shamim Ali

Learning styles are the differences in personal characteristics, strengths and preferences, describing how individuals acquire, process and store information. Learners approach information differently from each other due to their different instincts and natural dispositions. In the pretext of learning styles what is being taught has least importance than how’s being taught as in current scenario, teachers adapt their teaching techniques according to the learners preferred learning styles. Based on the review of previous context(s), the present study aims at investigating the learning style preferences of 200 Saudi male and female EFL learners at Taif University. For this purpose, a questionnaire was developed with closed ended questions by employing Likert’s five point scale to collect the data from 100 male and 100 female Saudi EFL learners that represents quantitative dimension of the work. The study probed into how different learners took in information by using their senses, intellect, force and physical movements. Furthermore, the research investigated what special measures teachers should take during teaching to develop the learners’ awareness about their dominant learning styles coupled with designing the strategies to promote learning according to their unique dispositions. The findings manifest significant differences in the learning style of Taif University’s male and female EFL learners because of the learners’ physical and biological differences as well as their diverse social and cultural norms.

92-106

Authors: Aasir Ali, Arshad Khushi Muhammad

Activity based learning is a successful educational model in various disciplines and recently it has been proved very effective in business institutes also. This paper was intended to explore the effects of internship in the university students of Pakistan as an activity based learning in order to boost their skills and abilities. Qualitative research as research design was adopted for the study following interpretivist paradigm. For the purpose of data collection, 30 students from business institutes were interviewed. Only those candidates were chosen who had recently completed their internship in well-known organizations of Pakistan. Data analyses was done through NVivo software version 11, suggested for qualitative data analyses. Findings propose that industrial internship is a viable activity for the learning and growth of university students. Practical experience, teamwork, understanding strengths and weaknesses, financial support for further studies and exposure to real world problems were found chief outcomes of internship in terms of professional development. Likewise, goal setting, internal motivation, confidence, punctuality, regularity and understanding responsibility in terms of personality development were found as key outcomes of internship for business students.

126-145

Authors: Haroon Bakari, Ahmed Imran Hunjra

Access to higher education has been the subject of considerable debate among policy makers and academicians. But the concept lacks empirical evidence regarding its impact upon students and societal outcomes. This study provides empirical answer to the research question: how do access to higher education and teachers’ support relate to graduates’ self-perceived employability and psychological wellbeing? The data were collected from 520 students of bachelors and master’s programs in rural campuses of an oldest University of Pakistan and analyzed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS and SPSS software. Results reveal that access to higher education and teachers support are positively related with selfperceived employability of graduating student with little or no difference among gender. Whereas, teachers support also contributes to psychological wellbeing of the students. The impact of access to higher education on psychological wellbeing was insignificant. This study provides implications for universities, policy makers, and human resource management professionals regarding enhancement of graduate employability.

162-177

Authors: Fareeda Ibad

The study attempts to explore higher education students’ perceptions of proficient teachers, which is of importance to them in their learning. Since no effective system of teacher evaluation was in place in Pakistan until recently to distinguish between good and poor teachers, research shows that poor teaching quality is pervasive in higher education institutions in the country. The study analyzed students’ views of good and poor teaching through two focus group discussions with students from two engineering schools in Pakistan. The thematic coding of data yielded the desired outcomes of students’ views according to the personality and ability traits their teachers demonstrated. It was revealed that teachers possessed both categories of characteristics to a certain extent with the shortcomings of approachability, ability to bring knowledge to the level of the students, low emotional intelligence and poor communication ability resulting there from. It is expected that action to improve teaching quality would result in awareness of the problem.

194-210

Authors: Samiullah Sarwar, Shelina Bhamani

Schools label themselves to be English medium considering that by implementing textbooks in English language and adopting English as a medium of instruction is sufficient to be English. In this regard, there is a need for a checklist or selfassessment tool to enable the schools to evaluate themselves to see their positioning as an English medium school as well as understanding their role in it. This study aimed to develop a scale to enable the English language teaching practitioners to explore if the non-elite schools successfully fulfilled this claim. The scale construction methodology was used to carry out this investigation. The sample comprised of 134 participants including school principals, coordinators and teachers randomly selected using convenient sampling methods. A reliability analysis was carried out to establish the authenticity and applicability of the tool. A satisfactory score of test-retest reliability revealed the scale as a good fit to evaluate school support for English language learning; therefore, the scale can be stated as acceptable based on its psychometric properties.

227-239

Authors: Uzma Shakoor, Dr. Irshad Ahmad Farrukh

The process of education is shaped and made by the teachers who play a pivotal role in web of educational system. Teaching characteristically is a moral enterprise and its function is aimed at guiding and working desirable growth in others. The need to know more about teacher and teaching stems not only from the commonness of the phenomenon, but also from the realization that our notion of teacher and teaching guides our future endeavors. There is a dearth of empirical evidence about the attitude of teachers towards their profession. Quantitative research methodology was deployed using descriptive design. The study included 160 pre and in-service elementary school teachers for which equal representative was given to pre and inservice teachers and both genders. The participants included 80 male and 80 female teachers. A three point validated and reliable attitude scale was used to gather the data which comprised 30 statements. The results of the present study revealed that the majority of teachers working in the elementary school and also the prospective one’s had less or not favorable attitude towards the teaching profession. The reasons for such attitude seemed to be justifiable, because of the working conditions and academic environment in schools as mentioned by the teachers were sufficient enough to be the great source of influence, development and reinforcement of a particular type of attitude. The study recommends the induction of teachers with the positive and more favorable attitude towards teaching profession.

259-275

Authors: Tehseen Zahra, Akhtar Abbas

The advent of corpora has opened new vistas for language study and restructured linguists’ and academicians’ approaches to lexicography and English language teaching (ELT). After 1980s, the use of online language corpora and computer tools garnered tremendous attention of English language teachers and academicians. Keeping in view the modern trends and needs of learners, this research focused on the practical implications of online corpora for ELT and its utility in the Pakistani context. Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) is used as a reference corpus for this research. MICASE is a collection of nearly 1.8 million words of transcribed speech (almost two hundred hours of recording). The transcribed data of MICASE includes wide range of speech events like seminars, lectures, advisory meetings and lab sessions. The study identified the utility of lexical items at syntactic level and its usage in various contexts. Furthermore, the layers of meanings and uses of lexicons through in-depth study of right and left collocates were explored in the reference corpus. The results showed that lexicons can be used as noun, verb and adjective depending upon the context of the study and right and left collocates play a significant role in understanding the meanings of lexical items in various contexts. Thus, this strategy can be fruitful for English language learners and academic discourse community who are interested in understanding the versatile uses of lexical items and their contextual meaning.

289-305

Authors: Nauman A Abdullah, Nargis Bhatti

Concerns have been raised about the failure of students in quality of academic performance in public sector schools over the past many years. Therefore, this research study was conducted to explore the factors which affect the quality of academic performance of students in public sector schools. Mixed methods research design was used to explore this phenomenon in Sheikhupura, Punjab. 10 boys’ and 10 girls’ schools were randomly selected using multi-stage random sampling techniques. From different strata all stakeholders, which included students, parents, teachers, and heads were randomly selected totaling to 300 participants. Close ended questionnaires were developed by the researchers for data collection from 120 students and 120 parents. Semi-structured interviews were used to generate data from 40 teachers and 20 heads of the schools. Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques on quantitative data and thematic description approach for interview analysis were used to analyze different data sets. Various causes of students’ failure such as, rote based education and assessment system, outdated curricula, old teaching methodologies were discovered. The results have serious implications for school education department in the province of Punjab.

25-41

Authors: Tayyaba Tamim

This paper is based on some key findings of an original research carried out to explore the issue of inequitable access to education within caste-based social structures in rural Punjab, Pakistan. Data from 36 interviews with low and high caste parents, school heads and four key informant focus groups in two villages in southern and central Punjab revealed that schooling costs remained difficult to manage for the poorest low-castes despite provision of government sponsored free schools. Bourdieu’s social critical framework used with specific reference to his notion of capitals reveals processes of social reproduction. The economic capital transubstantiates into social and cultural capital, refracting into schooling costs that are not just economic but also temporal, psychological and social for the lowest caste groups. This limits the impact of economic subsidies offered by the government for expanding educational access. The paper contributes to the current literature by arguing that policies aimed at equitable educational access must conceptualize educational costs as multidimensional, just as poverty itself is not just economic but multifaceted.

60-79

Authors: Zehra Habib

This qualitative study endeavored to examine higher education faculty members’ understanding of international mindedness and intercultural competence and sought their views on professional development programs competency in evolving an internationally minded stance. The focus of this study was on international mindedness because in the current era of globalization, it has become imperative to inculcate world mindedness in students and to prepare them for global citizenship. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews held with eight faculty members teaching at two higher education institutions in Karachi, Pakistan. Dominant findings demonstrated that most participants had limited insight regarding the concepts and that these were applied minimally in their current teaching practices. Although, lauding an international minded approach, most participants considered understanding of local cultures more relevant before moving on to international visions. Participating faculty also reflected that there was lack of professional development and that for understanding local and international dynamics, specialized education programs were an important factor. The study concluded with implications for professional growth platforms to foster global mindedness in educators in order for them to promote international mindedness in students.

96-107

Authors: Edith Biamah Agyepong, Enoch Danso Okyere

The term continuing education is extensively used throughout nursing education literature. This paper sought to re-examine the concept ‘continuing education’ for its meaning, relevance and appropriateness of application. The authors examined the definitions of continuing education from dictionaries, thesauruses, and current nursing education literature for meanings, usages, attributes, antecedents and consequences in line with Walker and Avant (2005) method of concept analysis. Model, borderline, and contrary cases were also presented. The paper concludes that the development of a theory of continuing education is usually preceded by a logical analysis of the concept which includes distinguishing properties, antecedents and outcomes of further education. The subsequent step in the development of the theory of lifelong education requires establishing theoretical relationships between perceptions, motivation and barriers to continuing education. It recommends that empirical studies of further education, whether qualitative or quantitative can be carried out to find out the effects of lifelong education on the nursing profession to enhance research in nursing and advance professionalism in nursing.

123-138

Authors: Ashfaque Hussain Soomro, Zaheer Ahmed Bango, Imran Khan Mahesar

Foreign language learning is a complex process and is influenced by various factors. The attitude of students towards language learning is a major decisive factor in this process; therefore, the current study was carried out to explore this phenomenon. The students of English Works Program Sukkur, Sindh, Pakistan were the target population for the current study. The said program was initiated by a Karachi based organization which enrolled fifty students for a 240 hours certificate course in English language. The students already had some formal education ranging from Intermediate to Masters level and belonged to different age groups. The aim of this quantitative study was to investigate their language learning attitudes from three aspects: behavioral, cognitive and emotional. For data collection purposes, a questionnaire comprising 30 closed-ended items was adapted from Eshghinejad, (2016), Boonrangsri, Chuaymankhong, Rermyindee, & Vongchittpinyo, (2004) and Gardner (1985). This was followed by descriptive and inferential statistical analysis by using independent sample t-test (SPSS-22). The results show that the students have positive attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language.

156-171

Authors: Isra Irshad, Behzad Anwar

The aim of this study was to design English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course for University students enrolled in the Computer Science Department. For this purpose, academic English language needs of the students were analyzed by using a 5 point Likert scale questionnaire. Additionally, interviews were also conducted with four faculty members of the department and the data were analyzed qualitatively. Thus, mixed methods were used for collection and analyses of data. The results of the analysis of questionnaire and interviews indicate that the four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing are frequently used in students’ academic context and among the four, speaking is the most frequently used skill. Students are deficient in writing and speaking skills as compared to listening and reading; therefore, speaking and writing should be given preference while designing the syllabus.

189-206

Authors: Shamsa Aziz, Munazza Mahmood, Zahra Rehman

Evaluation denotes the monitoring of progress towards desired goals and objectives. The purpose of this study was to evaluate educational quality at schools using Stufflebeam’s CIPP evaluation model (1983). The population comprised the principal, heads of each wing and teachers of various branches of a Welfare School System in Rawalpindi. Data were collected through the CIPP evaluation checklist (2002), semi structured interviews, document analysis and observations. Data were analyzed via content and thematic analysis. Findings indicated that this group of welfare schools focused on quality education by using different means, such as advanced technology, effective communication, relevant courses as well as teaching and learning strategies; however, it was found that teachers focused more on theoretical work and rote learning, which put pressure on students and had a negative effect on their intellectual abilities. Moreover, there was lack of proper space, effective environment and the schools were situated in rented buildings.

32-47

Authors: Itfaq Khaliq Khan, Shujahat Haider Hashmi, Nabeela Khanum

The perceptions of primary school teachers towards inclusive education was investigated in mainstream government schools of Islamabad capital territory where inclusive education was being supported by Sight savers and other international organizations. The study was carried out involving 54 teachers in six randomly selected primary schools. The sampled group comprised both, teachers trained in inclusive education and teachers working in same schools, but not trained in inclusive education. Purposive sampling method was used to select the teachers. Structured questionnaire (Likert Scale) and structured interview method was used for data collection. The results of the study revealed that inclusive education is considered to be a desirable practice. The teachers believed that all learners regardless of their disabilities should be in regular classrooms and they showed more favorable attitude towards children with mild disabilities, but were not very optimistic about children with severe disabilities. The study also recognized teachers’ capacity as an essential component of inclusive education and recommends that inclusive education should be a part of pre and in-service teacher education.

73-93

Authors: Ishtiaq Hussain, Qaiser Suleman, Muhammad Naseer-ud-Din, Farhan Shafique

The current paper investigated the effects of information and communication technology on the students’ academic achievement and retention in chemistry. Fifty students of 9th grade were selected randomly from Kohsar Public School and College Latamber Karak. The students were grouped into equivalent groups based on pretest score. In order to collect data, pretest posttest equivalent groups design was used. Mean, standard deviation and independent samples t-test were applied through SPSS for data analysis. Based on statistical analysis, it came to light that information and communication technology positively affects students’ academic achievement and retention and ICT was found more compelling, effective and valuable in teaching of chemistry when contrasted with conventional techniques of teaching. It is recommended that information and communication technology should be used in teaching chemistry for enhancing students’ academic achievement at secondary level.

111-129

Authors: Ambreen Ahmed, Nawaz Ahmad

A survey was conducted to study the preferred learning strategies; that is, surface learning or deep learning of undergraduate and graduate male and female students and the impact of the preferred strategy on their academic performance. Both learning strategies help university students to get good scores in their examinations to meet the demands of industry in workforce. Quantitative research method was used to determine the impact of learning strategy on academic achievements. The R-SPQ2F questionnaire was sent to 103 students through Google forms and hard copies through snowball sampling technique. The results show that rote learning and academic performance are inversely related to each other. In high achievers, deep learning is significant as compared to low achievers. Furthermore, comparative analysis of learning styles on males and females showed that both preferred deep learning strategy equally. Learning strategy is not related to education level of students because there is no difference among preferred learning strategies of graduate and undergraduate students.

177-199

Authors: Mahendar Kumar

Normally, effectiveness of any object or thing is judged by two values; intrinsic and instrumental. To compare intrinsic value of education with instrumental value, this study has used the following variables: getting knowledge for its own sake, getting knowledge for social status, getting knowledge for job or business endeavor and getting knowledge for both purposes, which is for its own sake and also for job, business or status. For this research quantitative method was used and a questionnaire was deployed to collect responses from 465 bachelor degree students from all over Pakistan (combining all provinces including Gilgit & AJK). It was found that the students gave mixed responses of acknowledging both values of education during the survey. The research has significant relationship between each of its independent and dependent variables, although the strength of those relationships was weak in nature. However, 60% of the respondents when asked whether they will get their first or bachelor’s degree even if there is no instrumental value attached with it, responded in affirmative. This concludes that bachelor degree students in Pakistan give more value to intrinsic nature of education than its instrumental value.

227-243

Authors: Dr. Zarina Waheed, Munazza Saeed, Rafey Ahmad Jameel

The aim of this study is to evaluate the extent of awareness and practices of oral hygiene among undergraduate female students in a residential college of a university at Malaysia and to assess the need for awareness programs about oral hygiene. The study was carried out using a self-administered questionnaire. Hundred undergraduate female Malay students were selected as sample through convenience sampling. The results indicated that a majority of the respondents used toothpaste and toothbrush as primary tools for cleaning their teeth twice a day and was found that they had never used Miswak (a wooden teeth-cleaning stick made from tree twigs). They had adequate knowledge about periodontal and gingival health and were aware of the importance of visiting dentist regularly; however, most of them visited dentists when having a toothache. They had also reported need for organizing oral hygiene awareness programs by college administration and showed adequate oral hygiene knowledge and practices. Nevertheless, few inadequate practices were also identified which were being considered under oral hygiene along with lack of awareness programs being organized in college for which recommendations are suggested.

270-283

Authors: Perveen Saif, Amjad - Reba, Jalal ud Din

This study was designed to compare the subject knowledge of B.Ed graduates of formal and non-formal teacher education systems. The population of the study included all teachers from Girls High and Higher Secondary Schools both from private and public sectors from the district of Peshawar. Out of the total population, twenty schools were randomly selected from which 60 teachers from formal and 60 from non-formal system (6 teachers from each school) were randomly selected. A test was prepared and personally distributed among 120 teachers. The data were organized and analyzed through descriptive analysis. It was found that B.Ed. graduates from formal system had more subject knowledge as compared to B.Ed. graduates from non-formal teacher education system. It is recommended that the graduates as well as the teacher educators need to update their knowledge and work for continuous professional development

301-320

Authors: Munazza Mahmood, Syed Asad Rizvi, Uzma Perveen

Values play a vital role in any teacher-training program. The value practices, used by teacher educators affect students’ understanding and practicing of values. This study aimed to explore the value related practices of teacher educators and to rank the value practices of education programs at a public sector university. Survey method was used for the study and the population comprised prospective teachers of education program at the university.100 prospective teachers were selected through simple random sampling technique. Data were collected through questionnaire and analyzed by using mean. It was found that there were several value related practices used by teacher educators such as realness, prizing, empathic understanding, fully functioning person, humility, lovingness,courage – overcoming one’s own fears, tolerance, decisiveness, living the tension between patience and impatience and the joy of living. With reference to ranking, realness stood above all other values. It is recommended that there may be more focus on different value related practices and that these are introduced in contents of teacher education program.

346-367

Authors: Aliya Sikandar

This qualitative case study is an exploration of the phenomenon of the ways in which Urdu as the national language is represented in discursive practices of senior business academia. The research design, built on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model (2009) is of dialectical-relational approach. The participant in this single case study is a senior member of the academia from a business school. Methodologically, the analysis trailed four stages and followed CDA’s transdisciplinary traditional methods of social practices in three semiotic categories: genre, discourse and style. Findings of the study indicated that despite strong emotional links with the national language, the participant recognized the utilitarian value of English in academic and in professional domains; additionally, his perspective was that Urdu was largely marginalized due to its perceived lack of utilitarian value. The participant also expressed the viewpoint that this social injustice was needed by the social order because the business school requires English for academic and professional purposes. The study recommends a more inclusive addition of Urdu courses in business studies.

30-51

Authors: Sehrish Liaquat, Anjum Naz

Teaching metaphor is an important phenomenon which can be used to determine teachers’ perceptions regarding their job and their workplace (Turunen, 2003). This study was aimed to explore the metaphors of junior and senior teacher educators to get insights of what teaching was for them. A comparative analysis between the junior and senior teacher educators helped to understand how these metaphors changed over time. Data for the qualitative study were collected from the districts of Sargodha, Khushab and Mianwali situated in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. Fifty teacher educators teaching at postgraduate level participated in the study and filled in the survey questionnaire. The data were coded and analysed qualitatively. Six themes emerged from the data: religious obligations, economic activities, nature compatibility, life processes, emotional affiliations, and thought provoking activities.These themes were compatible with Chen’s (2013) classification of teachers’ personal metaphors. The implications of metaphors could be used to enhance critical thinking of teacher educators to improve the quality of education.

74-99

Authors: Rida Ahmed

This paper investigates the adequacy of social media implementation in the context of secondary education in Pakistan and highlights the importance and necessity of social media in secondary education. This research has helped in understanding the pros and cons of social media implementation in classrooms and also facilitated in analyzing whether social media helps in student learning, classroom performances, competencies and academic grow. The qualitative study paradigm was used for this research. Six phenomenological interviews were conducted from secondary school teachers.In the light of the derived results. It was concluded that social media was an essential tool that could be used to make classrooms more engaging and ethnically diverse. Results suggested that teachers spent time implementing social media in their classrooms for academic purposes and teachers used these forums for self-education and to interact with like-minded people. Social media can serve the most momentous purposes in education system as today’s digitalized world is all about the Internet and technology, and hence it becomes compulsory for the educationist to understand the importance social networking