Insurance penetration rate in Malaysia is low at only between 40% and 50%. Following the government's policy goal of increasing the rate, this study examined metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (MMPI) and drivers of the MMPI among Malaysian insurers. Over the 2009-2017 period, general insurers and life insurers were technology leaders. General insurers had progressive productivity (MMPI) on average, whereas the MMPI values of the life and general insurers and life insurers were in deterioration. Overall, long-term strategic planning and capital investment alongside government's liberalization to increase competition in the industry are thus necessary.

This chapter provides an overview of practices and innovations to take into consideration if you are developing an online earth science course from the bottom up or are updating components of an existing course. It begins with a glance at the state of earth science education and then reviews factors that impact the character of online instruction. Following this, technological trends and pedagogical approaches that support teaching earth science online are reviewed. In the final sections, specific instructional elements and techniques, including effective communication and assessment structures, are appraised to provide a road map to taking an earth science course online.

Undergraduate research (UR) has largely been viewed and advanced through the prism of learning activities, students, and faculty physically situated at a college with UR experiences taking place in an on-campus lab or supervised field area. This chapter reviews the current issues, efforts, and practices in UR to conceptualize how UR can be extended using Online Undergraduate Research Experiences in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (OURES) with the emerging student body that chooses to take online science courses or chooses to pursue a complete science degree through a fully online degree program. An incoming undergraduate student may have little understanding of or experience with authentic research beyond having written a research paper or carried out laboratory experiments as part of a high school course. Developing and supporting Undergraduate Research Experiences in Science and OURES for large numbers of students is implausible without significant institutional and faculty buy-in as well as directed resources.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which originated from China, went global within weeks. At the time of writing, almost 300 million people around the world have been infected by this potent and fast-spreading disease, which in many cases has paralysed economies and normal daily activities. University students are among the people that have been badly affected by the pandemic, as the movement control order (MCO) has resulted in university closure. Hence, many students are unable to proceed with their regular studies and have to be extra vigilant in dealing with the pandemic. During the MCO period, they rely heavily on media for guidance and information. This study was conducted to examine media exposure, attitude, anxiety, and practices towards COVID-19 amongst the students of Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI), Perak, Malaysia. A quantitative research design was used to achieve the research objective. A total of 505 respondents answered an online survey and the findings revealed that respondents were highly dependent on various media for updated information about the pandemic, with the majority of them anxious about their safety. These findings are useful for higher education institutions in developing a better learning environment for students and understand the impact of the pandemic on students.

This study aims to complement existing literature on Asian students' motivation through the adoption of person-centred approach in understanding Chinese and Filipino students' motivational profile using self-determination theory. By means of cluster analysis, both Study 1 involving Chinese college students (N = 306) and Study 2 involving Filipino high school students (N = 893) identified four clusters: 1) high autonomous-high controlled, 2) high autonomous-low-controlled, 3) moderate autonomous-moderate controlled and 4) low autonomous-low controlled. These clusters were significantly different when compared across various outcomes. Specifically, the high autonomous-low controlled motivation and high autonomous, high controlled motivation groups demonstrated the most favourable outcomes whilst moderate autonomous-moderate controlled, and low autonomous-low controlled motivation had the least favourable outcomes. The study yielded both etic and emic findings different from western findings. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed within the cultural context in which the participants operate.

This research analyzes the studies on using Google Meet to conduct online classes for educational sustainability purposes. When a series of lockdowns were implemented to handle the Covid-19 pandemic, all educational institutions were physically closed. This gives rise to the issues of continuity and sustainability of education. Teachers turned to online meeting applications to connect to students and ensure teaching and learning continue despite the physical school closure. Data for this research were taken from articles published in the Scopus database, starting from 2019; the start of the pandemic on a global scale. Thematic analysis resulted in four primary themes: students’ perception, teachers’ perception, teachers’ experience, and teaching and learning challenges. Both positive and negative points were uncovered regarding the use of Google Meet during the lockdown. This paper will help identify the benefits and challenges of Google Meet use and guide those attempting to improve their online learning experiences.

There is a dramatic increase in the number of mainland Chinese students coming to Hong Kong to attend various courses. With the aim of developing a profound understanding of the adaptation of the mainland Chinese students (N = 210), this study tested the relationship between types of motivation and goal content when studying abroad with a wide array of adaptation and achievement outcomes within the framework of self-determination theory (SDT). Our results demonstrated that autonomous motivation emerged as the strongest predictor of various adaptation outcomes whilst preservation as a goal for studying abroad served as an important predictor of adaptation. Autonomous motivation is strongly linked to self-development while controlled motivation is strongly linked to preservation. Findings are discussed from cultural perspectives in order to better understand the dynamics of mainland Chinese students' adaptation.

The concept of metacognition, which can most simply be defined as 'thinking about thinking,' has long historical roots in philosophy. In the 1970s, the term 'metacognition' came into common use in education and psychology. Specifically, it involves reflection and analysis of one's own thinking process, inferences about its workings, and application of the resulting knowledge into practices through learning strategies and heuristics. In our research, metacognition is typically measured by the Learning and Study Strategies The concept of metacognition, which can most simply be defined as 'thinking about thinking,' has long historical roots in philosophy. In the 1970s, the term 'metacognition' came into common use in education and psychology. Specifically, it involves reflection and analysis of one's own thinking process, inferences about its workings, and application of the resulting knowledge into practices through learning strategies and heuristics. In our research, metacognition is typically measured by the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI). In this chapter, we describe our research programs on the subject of metacognition, its development in naturalistic and academic environments, its empirically derived components, and their relations to academic performance and learning experiences.

The ranking of higher education institutions is a growing phenomenon around the world, with ranking systems in place in more than 40 countries. The emergence of world ranking systems that compare higher education institutions across national boundaries and the proliferation of these since the past decade, are indeed a reality now, and are already exerting substantial influence on both short and long term developments of higher education institutions. Rankings are being used by a variety of stakeholders for different purposes. Rankings are no doubt, useful for fostering institutional strategic planning and management, and their communication externally as well as their own institutional community and the national interest.

Dialogic reading (DR) has been identified as an effective strategy for enhancing children's literacy skills in Western and Asian contexts. Given that storytelling is a shared experience between adults and children, parent-child relationships is hypothesised to be enhanced by DR. Despite this possibility, there has been no systematic attempt to examine the possible impacts of DR on the parent-child relationship. This study bridges this gap in the literature by studying the relationship between adults and children before and after training in the practice of dialogic reading techniques. Forty-eight Cantonese-speaking parents with children aged between 3 and 12 were recruited from schools. They were assessed prior to and after undergoing a four-hour dialogic reading training programme with a two-hour follow-up session using the Parent-Child Relationship Inventory. The results of this study suggest that DR has considerable potential for improving parent-child relationships. The findings are discussed in relation to the situation of Chinese learners in the Hong Kong context.

Based on self-reported cognitive, metacognitive, and behavioural strategy measures obtained from 828 final-year students from a university in Hong Kong, latent profile analysis (LPA) identified four distinct types of students with differential self-regulated learning strategy orientations: competent self-regulated learners, cognitive-oriented self-regulated learners, behavioural-oriented self-regulated learners, and minimal self-regulated learners. Students in the competent SRL profile demonstrated the highest levels of academic self-concept, motivation, attitude, and the lowest level of test anxiety and best academic performance. Multinomial logistic regression analysis also indicated that learning experience factors (teaching quality, clear goals and standards, appropriate assessment and workload) were significant predictors of SRL profile membership. The profiling of student self-regulated learning strategies resulted in enhanced understanding of the complex range of processes students employ and offered new insights into this emerging area of student learning.

The objective of this study was to describe the translation procedure and examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Parent–child Relationship Inventory (PCRI)—an instrument used for assessing parenting competencies for child custody evaluation (Gerard 1994). This instrument measures the parenting skills, attitudes towards parenting and parental attitudes towards their children. Mainland China and Hong Kong Chinese parents (N = 222) who have children ages 3 to 15 y old studying in Hong Kong completed the PCRI. Both within-network and between-network approaches to construct validation were used. Responses to this questionnaire were shown to have good internal consistency reliability, and support is provided for its construct validity in terms of its correlations PSI—a theoretically relevant measure. Implications for education and cross-cultural research are discussed.

This study examined the mediator and moderator roles of self-regulation and motivation constructs in the relationship between learning experience and academic success. Self-reported measures of learning experience, self-regulation and motivation were obtained from 384 undergraduate students from a university in Hong Kong. Structural equation modelling indicated that self-regulation and motivation fully mediated the learning experience—academic performance relation. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis also showed that both self-regulation and motivation had small moderating effects on the link between learning experience and academic performance. That is, the association between learning experience and cumulative GPA was stronger for students with lower levels of self-regulation and motivation. The implications of fostering motivation and enhancing university learning experience are discussed.

This study examined the influence of integrative motivation, instrumental motivation and second language (L2) proficiency on socio-cultural/academic adaptation in a sample of two groups of international students studying Chinese in China. Results revealed that the non-Asian student group reported higher levels of integrative motivation, socio-cultural adaptation and Chinese language proficiency than the Asian student group, who reported a higher level of instrumental motivation. No significant difference was found in academic adaptation between the two groups. Moreover, the relationships between study variables are the same across Asian and non-Asian student groups. Further evidence from this research indicated that socio-cultural adaptation was influenced more by integrative motivation and less by L2 proficiency. Integrative motivation was found to be the only significant predictor of academic adaptation. Implications for future research are discussed.

As a member of the Editorial Board, largely as the education expert, for the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, it is my pleasure to be invited to write the Editoria...