Polysemy in Quraan

Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor
Badli Esham Ahmad

Mohd Rozaidi Ismail
Hasnizawati Hashim
Mohd Amli Abdullah Baharum Editors
Proceedings of the
Regional Conference
on Science, Technology
and Social Sciences
(RCSTSS 2016)
Social Sciences
Proceedings of the Regional Conference on Science,
Technology and Social Sciences (RCSTSS 2016)
Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor
Badli Esham Ahmad
Mohd Rozaidi Ismail
Hasnizawati Hashim
Mohd Amli Abdullah Baharum
Editors
Proceedings of the Regional

Conference on Science,
Technology and Social
Sciences (RCSTSS 2016)
Social Sciences
123
Editors
Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor Hasnizawati Hashim
Universiti Teknologi MARA Universiti Teknologi MARA
Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang Raub, Pahang
Malaysia Malaysia
Badli Esham Ahmad Mohd Amli Abdullah Baharum

Universiti Teknologi MARA Universiti Teknologi MARA
Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang
Malaysia Malaysia
Mohd Rozaidi Ismail

Universiti Teknologi MARA
Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang
Malaysia
ISBN 978-981-13-0202-2 ISBN 978-981-13-0203-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018940884
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

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Preface
Science, technology, and social sciences play an important role in spurring the
development of the nation. In an effort to become a higher income nation, it is vital
to fully develop all fields in realizing the Vision 2020. All these efforts require
innovative ideas from scholars, scientists, practitioners, researchers, and engineers
especially in the South East Asia. In conjunction with that vision, Universiti
Teknologi MARA (Pahang) has taken the initiative to organize the Regional
Conference on Sciences, Technology and Social Sciences (RCSTSS). This volume
contains the written versions of most of the contributions presented during RCSTSS
2016. The event took place at the Copthorne Hotel, Cameron Highlands from
December 4 till 6, 2016. The Conference provided a setting for discussing recent
developments in a wide variety of social sciences and humanities fields including
Accounting, Art and Design, Business, Communication, Economics, Education,
Finance and e-Commerce, Human Resource, Humanities, Information
Management, Linguistics, Law, Marketing, Religious Studies, and Sustainable
Development. Academicians from numerous institutions local and international
have presented their research findings and reviews in their respective research areas,
thus enabling us to fulfill our objectives of providing a platform to exchange ideas,
information and expertise among science, technology and social sciences com-
munity, strengthening the cooperation between the academics, scientists, practi-
tioners, researchers and engineers all over the regions especially in the South East
Asia region, and disseminating the research outputs, information, knowledge and
activities in the various disciplines of sciences, technology and social sciences.
Pahang, Malaysia Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor

Badli Esham Ahmad
Mohd Rozaidi Ismail
Hasnizawati Hashim
Mohd Amli Abdullah Baharum
v
Acknowledgements
In the name of ALLAH, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be on Him
for giving the team courage, strength, patience, and resilience in completing the
proceedings of Regional Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences
(RCSTSS) 2016. This volume would not have been possible without the moral
support of the current Rector, Prof. Dr. Nazip Suratman, his predecessor Prof. Dr.
Jamaludin Kasim, and the RCSTSS 2016 Chair, Associate Professor Dr. Azhan
Hashim. Our sincerest gratitude goes to the editorial committee Dr. Hasni Abdullah,
Siti Fahazarina Hazudin, and Dr. Mohd Kamal Azman Jusoh, all RCTSS 2016
committee members and reviewers for their contributions and support, the technical
and financial support of the Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Pahang, and
we would like to thank all the participants for their contributions to the Conference
program and for their contributions to these proceedings. We are looking forward to
the next Regional Conference on Science, Technology and Social Sciences
(RCSTSS). We hope that it will continue to pave the way of providing a platform,
strengthening the cooperation, and disseminating the knowledge in the various
disciplines of sciences, technology, and social sciences.
InShaa’Allah.
vii
Contents
Part I Accounting
1 Voluntary Disclosure of Graphical Information in Annual
Reports: A Case of Government-Linked Companies
in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Sabariah Jamaluddin, Noor Hasimah M. Yacob, Lily Mazlifa Mustafa
and Yuzainizam Yusop
2 Ricardian Equivalence Theorem: What Other Studies Say? . . . . . . 15
Abu Bakar Jaafar and Abdul Ghafar Ismail
Part II Art & Design

3 Corporate Rebranding Design of Aviation Company in Malaysia:
Case Study of Rayani Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Amina Syarfina Abu Bakar, Azahar Harun
and Mohamed Razeef Abd Razak
4 Exploring Marbling Pattern Using Mirage Illusion with
Combination of DSLR Lenses Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Aidah Alias, Dona Lowii Madon, Nor Fariza Baharuddin,
Farihan Zahari and Shaharin Sulaiman
5 Images as an Indicator for Deaf Students’ Teaching and
Learning: An Exploratory Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Aidah Alias, Mustaffa Halabi Azahari, Norfadilah Kamaruddin,
Farihan Zahari and Fadli Abdul Razak
Part III Business

6 Trust and Intention to Share as Predictors of Online
Knowledge-Sharing Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Ida Rosnita Ismail, Norulhuda Tajuddin
and Nor Khairunnisa Mat Yunus
ix
x Contents
7 Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation and Perceived

Employability Among University Graduates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Wei-Loon Koe
Part IV Communication
8 Relationship Between Quality and Gossiping Behavior
at Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Audrey Anak John, Afi Roshezry Abu Bakar, Liana Mat Nayan,
Nor Ez-Zatul Hanani Mohammed Rosli and Norazimah Abd Rashid
9 Physical Attractiveness or Personal Achievements? Examining
Gender Differences of Online Identity Reconstruction in Terms
of Vanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Jiao Huang, Sameer Kumar and Chuan Hu
10 Social Network and Students: The Correlation Between Usage on
Academic Performance and Non-academic Engagement . . . . . . . . . 101
Abg Zainoren Abg Abdurahman, Ramraini Ali Hassan,
Nazura Mohamad Sayuti and Johari Abdullah
Part V Economics
11 Minimum Wages: Helping or Hurting Producers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Nor Aziah Abd Kadir, Adibah Hussin and Hasnizawati Hashim
Part VI Education
12 Student Learning Time: A Needs Analysis for University
Students’ Time Management Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Asmidar Alias, Nur Asmaliza Mohd Noor,
Norshariza Mohamad Bhkari and Kamisah Ariffin
13 Perceived Resources and Technology Acceptance Model
(PRATAM): Students’ Acceptance of e-Learning
in Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Nor Habibah Tarmuji, Salimah Ahmad,
Nur Hidayah Masni Abdullah, Asyura Abd Nassir
and Aminatul Solehah Idris
14 Calibrating Attitudes Towards Twenty-First Century Skills
Among Residential School Students: A Rasch Model Analysis . . . . 145
Hasni Shamsuddin and Ahmad Zamri Khairani
15 Students’ Perception on the Use of Code-Switching in
Mathematics Classroom: Looking at Gender Differences . . . . . . . . 155
Asyura Abd Nassir, Nor Habibah Tarmuji and Khairul Firhan Yusob
Contents xi
16 Facilitating Learning via AMIT (Aplikasi Mudah Istilah

Teknikal) in Civil Engineering Course: Users’ Perception . . . . . . . 163
Nur Asmaliza Mohd Noor, Kamisah Ariffin, Asmidar Alias
and Anis Hasliza Abu Hashim
17 Development of an Online Peer Assessment System in Teamwork
Skills—A Preliminary Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Nur’Ain Ismail, Thuraiya Mohd, Nor A’aini Othman,
Mohammad Nasir Abdullah and Nur Hasni Nasrudin
18 Undergraduate Computer Science Students’ Perception and
Motivation: A Feasibility Study and a Proposed Technique for
Multimedia Approach in Teaching and Learning Introductory
Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Norahimah Hj Hamzah, Nazrul Azha Mohamed Shaari
and Hayati Abd Rahman
19 Design of the Icon-Based Interactive Video for English
Vocabulary Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Siti Norakmal Md Ariffin and Marina Ismail
20 Turn-Taking Strategies Adopted by Low Proficient ESL
Learners in Group Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Ahmad Nazri Jelani, Norhidayah Md Yusof, Khairul Firhan Yusob,
Khairunisa Nikman and Iza Nurhidayah Ismail
21 Game-Based Approach in Teaching and Learning: Fun,
Knowledge or Both? A Case Study of MDAB Students . . . . . . . . . 223
Mohd Aidil Riduan Awang Kader, Suhanom Mohd Zaki,
Mohd Faizal Azrul Azwan Muhamed, Roslina Ali
and Mustafa Kamal Mat
22 Gender Differences in Perceived Usefulness and Attitudes
Towards VocBlast in Learning Specialized Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . 237
Zuraina Ali and Nurul Nadia Muhammad
23 Determining Factors Influencing Self-employed Intention Among
Tertiary Education Students in East Coast Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Musramaini Mustapha, Suhanom Mohd Zaki, Faizan Abd Jabar,
Muhammad Zahran Abd Rahman and Sharifah Norhuda Syed Wahid
24 Plagiarism and Originality: Student’s Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Suhaila Osman, Rohayu Ahmad, Mohammed Nor Rashidah,
Nurul Huda Mat Yatim and Muna Kameelah Sauid
xii Contents
Part VII Finance/Banking/e-Commerce

25 Corporate Governance Accountable to Financial Distress . . . . . . . . 269
Azizah Abdullah, Noorhafizah Abdul Aziz, Nurul Afzan Najid
and Nafsiah Mohamed
26 Case Study of Taxpayers Usage on E-Filing System . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Suhana Mohamed, Jarinah Hitam, Nurul Farhana Mazlan
and Nurul Aien Abd Aziz
27 Capital Structure: Focusing on Communication
and Technology Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Zuraidah Ahmad, Zuraidah Sipon, Nur Liyana Mohamed Yousop,
Nur ’Asyiqin Ramdhan, Ruziah A. Latif,
Norhasniza Mohd Hasan Abdullah, Nurulashikin Romli,
Shashazrina Roslan, Muhammad Almu’izz Abdul Rahim
and Suhana Mohamed
28 User Acceptance and Adaptation Towards M-Commerce . . . . . . . . 303
Kasthuri Subaramaniam and Raenu Kolandaisamy
Part VIII General Papers

29 The Efficiency Evaluation of the Community Allocation
to Healthcare Facilities in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Fandi Zulrofli and S. Sarifah Radiah Shariff
30 Challenges of Single, Middle-Aged Mothers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Anura Ibrahim, Ruhani Mat Min and Zakaria Mohamad
31 Malaysian Life Expectancy by Gender and Ethnic Group:
A Comparative Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Sharifah Norhuda Syed Wahid, Siti Noorul Ain Nor Azemi,
Saharani Abdul Rashid, Zulkifli Ab Ghani Hilmi, Mohd Rizal Razak
and Puzziawati Ab Ghani
Part IX Human Resource

32 Utilizing Crowdsourcing in Education: Academic Retiree
and Professional Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Mohd. Ikhsan Md. Raus, Suzaini Harmiruslin Supian,
Mohd Khairul Ikhwan Bin Zolkefley
and Muhd Eizan Shafiq Abd Aziz
33 Sustainable Global Human Resource: The Impact of Power
Distance on Work–Family Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Hooi Ching Khor and Azura Abdullah Effendi
Contents xiii
34 Cultural Adjustment and Work Productivity Among Migrant

Academics in Higher Educational Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
A. M. Sultana
Part X Humanity
35 The Influence of Workplace Support on Job Satisfaction
Among Academic Staff in Five Malaysian Public Research
Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Zarina Begum Ebrahim, Muhammad Khawari Mustapa,
Nurul Ain Mustakim, Noorzalyla Mokhtar and Muna Kameelah Sauid
36 Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction of Nurses at a Private
Healthcare Center in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Noorzalyla Mokhtar, Megat Fadzil Megat Khairi Azman,
Muna Kameelah Sauid, Zarina Begum Ebrahim
and Nurul Ain Mustakim
Part XI Information Management

37 The Level of University Reporting in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
Mohd Noor Azli Ali Khan and Nurul Afiqah Rozaini
Part XII Language/Linguistic

38 Using YouTube to Encourage English Learning
in ESL Classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Sulaila Bakar, Rosita Aminullah, Jun Nirlawati Mohd Sahidol,
Nik Ismail Harun and Azlini Razali
39 Using Tools in the Virtual World to Teach New Words in the
Chinese Fantasy Novel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Bok Check Meng, Goh Ying Soon and Soo Yew Phong
40 Linguistic Landscapes in Putrajaya: Competing Codes
and Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Kamisah Ariffin, Geraldine de Mello, Misyana Susanti Husin,
Aini Andria Shirin Anuardin and Nur Hidayatulshima Omar
41 Ambiguity in Holy Quran Commentaries: The Use of Polysemic
Words “Imam & Ummah” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Saiful Johari Musahar, Husna Talib, Roselina Musahar, Fauzi Azmi
and Muhammad Zaidi Zakaria
xiv Contents
42 Eliciting Elements of Higher Order Thinking Skills in the Higher

Secondary Examination Question Structure in Japan and
Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Aznur Aisyah, Khazriyati Salehuddin, Idris Aman,
Ruhizan Mohammad Yasin and Nezu Mimiko
Part XIII Law

43 Difficulties in Conforming to the Common Law Duties
of Innkeepers and the Innkeepers Act 1952 Among Hoteliers
in Melaka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Yuhanza Othman, Mimi Sofiah Ahmad Mustafa, Ida Rahayu Mahat,
Ekmil Krisnawati Erlen Joni and Najihah Hanisah Marmaya
44 Legal Framework Governing Waqf Implementation
in Malaysian Universities: Lessons Learnt from Turkish
Legal Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
Rohayati Hussin, Rusnadewi Abdul Rashid and Noor Inayah Yaakub
45 Corrective and Retributive Justice Model for Trespass
of Waqf Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Rusnadewi Abdul Rashid and Rohayati Hussin
46 Legal Awareness on Copyright Protection Among Tertiary
Students in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Ida Rosnita Ismail and Zeti Zuryani Mohd Zakuan
47 Negligence in Child Care Centres: Law Versus Reality
in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Ekmil Krisnawati Erlen Joni, Salmiah Salleh, Mimi Sofiah Ahmad
Mustafa, Aliyah Abdullah, Ida Rahayu Mahat and Yuhanza Othman
48 A Need for Regulatory Framework of Nominated Property in
Malaysia: An Issue of Rights and Duties of Nominee . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Siti Asishah Hassan and Rusnadewi Abdul Rashid
Part XIV Marketing

49 The Relationship Between Management Competencies and
Internal Marketing Knowledge Towards Internal Marketing
Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Samsudin Wahab, Muhamad Fairos bin Mohamad Shah
and Syafiqah Nasuha Faisalmein
Contents xv
Part XV Natural Heritage

50 Culture and Ethnic Impressions: Decorative Arts of Batek
Tembeling, Pahang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor, Tengku Intan Suzila Tengku Sharif
and Liza Marziana Mohamad
Part XVI Religious Studies

51 Usefulness and Effectiveness of Mind Mapping: An Analysis
of CTU101 and CTU151 Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Norazmi Anas, Shahril Nizam Zulkipli, Mohd. Syukri Mohd Noor,
Abd. Munir Mohamed Noh, Mohamed Imran Mohamed Ariff,
Zulkifli Mohd. Ghazali, Intan Noorazlina Abdul Rahim
and Hartini Mohd Rosli
52 Understanding of the Islamic Debt Concept Among
Government Servants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Mohd Kamal Azman Jusoh, Norhapizah Mohd Burhan,
Asjad Mohamed, Wan Azmi Wan Ahmad, Amiruldin Md Sham
and Mohammad Yusof Hassan
Part XVII Sustainable Development

53 Malaysian Household Perception Towards Recycling
and Waste Generation: A Case Study at Northern Region
Housing Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Adrina Rosseira Abu Talip, Nik Zunaidi Draman, Juliana Martin,
Herda Balqis Ismail, Asmawati Che Hasan
and Mohammad Hazizi Jamal
54 Sustainable Management of Setiu Wetlands Ecosystem Services:
The Attitude and Perception Analysis of Mangrove Forest
Conservation from Non-users Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Wan Noorwatie W. Ibrahim, Roseliza Mat Alipiah
and Nik Fuad Nik Mohd Kamil
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Part I
Accounting
Chapter 1
Voluntary Disclosure of Graphical
Information in Annual Reports: A Case
of Government-Linked Companies
in Malaysia
Sabariah Jamaluddin, Noor Hasimah M. Yacob, Lily Mazlifa Mustafa

and Yuzainizam Yusop
Abstract The disclosure of information in the annual report is one form of com-
munications between management and stakeholders as a way to reduce information
asymmetry. This information asymmetry would only be reduced if the information
provided can be understood by the users. Thus, the graphical information is able to
enhance the communication process accurately and effectively. This study inves-
tigates the use of graphs in presenting the selected information in the annual report
by government-linked companies (GLCs). Specifically, this study examines the
voluntary practice of GLCs in disclosing graphical information in the annual report.
This graphical information is said to be much easier to digest as compared to the
conventional way of presenting data. The selection of GLCs in this study was made
on the basis that the accountability of these companies is higher as compared to
other companies as they need to discharge their accountability to the public. The
selected data were collected from the annual report for 3 years that were 2013, 2014
and 2015, and the instrument used has been developed in the previous study. There
were 30 items or information had been considered in this study. The result shows
that in the years 2013 and 2015, all companies in the sample disclosed at least one
graphical information in the annual report. A bar chart is the most frequent type of
graph used by GLCs. The study has made two important contributions in the areas
of accounting research. First, this study provides insight into the practice of cor-
porate reporting in respect of graphical information by GLCs in Malaysia. Second,
S. Jamaluddin (&) N. H. M. Yacob L. M. Mustafa Y. Yusop

Faculty of Accountancy, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Pahang,
26400 Bandar Tun Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: sabariahj@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. H. M. Yacob
e-mail: noorhasimah@pahang.uitm.edu.my
L. M. Mustafa
e-mail: mazlifa@pahang.uitm.edu.my
Y. Yusop
e-mail: yuzainizam@pahang.uitm.edu.my
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 3

M. Y. Mohamad Noor et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Regional Conference
on Science, Technology and Social Sciences (RCSTSS 2016),
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_1
4 S. Jamaluddin et al.
the result of the study might be used by accounting regulatory bodies to provide a
minimum guideline for the GLCs in disclosing graphical information in the annual
report.
Keywords Annual report Graphical information GLCs Voluntary disclosure
1 Introduction
Recently, research regarding financial reporting has gained much attention. Most of
the issues concern the disclosure of annual report which comprises a mandatory and
voluntary disclosure. The disclosure which is required by laws and regulation is
classified as mandatory. On the other hand, voluntary disclosures are not neces-
sarily required; their availability is made possible by corporate consent, which
depends on the decision of company (Uyar 2011). Such disclosure acts as a medium
of communication between the company and their stakeholders. Companies com-
municate with their stakeholders through various ways such as face-to-face meet-
ings, written and visual media, and corporate websites. However, one of the most
important communication tools used by the corporations is the annual report (Uyar
2011). The use of annual report in such research is much preferred due to its easy
access and or availability (Abdul Rahman et al. 2014).
Annual reports are considered as imperative tools of communication between
companies and the users, since they provide information on the health of the
company to shareholders, stakeholders, media and community. They convey
financial information such as revenues, earnings, revenue growth, return on asset
(ROA), capital structure, stock returns as well as non-financial information that
covers environmental considerations, social responsibility, profiles of employees,
boards of directors, investment in research and development, productivity, etc.
(Uyar 2009).
The users include investors, creditors, employees, lenders, government and
public at large. Users having no accounting background have to rely on the
director’s report or chairman’s statement as the alternative source of financial
information. Since then much has been done to change the face of corporate
reporting, among that is the introduction of graphics to present quantitative data.
Wilson and Stanton (1996) suggest that the use of graphical information would be
able to enhance the communication process in a more precise and effective manner.
Companies commonly use graphs to communicate information. Graphs, when used
accurately, have several benefits: they have the ability to focus and attract the
readers’ attention, facilitate understanding, highlight patterns and trends, help
memory recall and break down language barriers (Courtis 1997). On the other hand,
the use of graphs by management represents part of the ‘impression management’
process (Beattie and Jones 1999). Due to the high usage of graphs and investors’
tendency to focus on them, accurate graph use becomes very important
(Guddal 2016).
1 Voluntary Disclosure of Graphical Information in Annual … 5
According to Beattie and Jones (2001), graphs have been used in many technical
and everyday contexts to communicate information effectively, for over 200 years
ago. Therefore, voluntarily presentation graphics are increasingly used in the cor-
porate annual report of large companies in many countries. Approximately, 80% of
large companies include at least one financial variable graph in their annual report
(Beattie and Jones 1999). Beattie and Jones (2002) added that the increasing usage
of the graph can be attributed largely to the changing role of the corporate annual
report, from a formal statutory document for shareholders to a major advertising
and public relations document serving multiple purposes and multiple audiences.
Graphs visually communicate statistical data and relationships using the pre-
sentation of symbols, numbers, and words. Graphs potentially have several
advantages over the more traditional alphanumeric tables combined with continu-
ous narrative texts (Beattie and Jones 1997). Some of the advantages are that they
attract and hold the attention of readers, facilitate understanding, save time in
analysing data, highlight trends, and clarify the relationship, and also break down
language barriers. For these reasons, the graphical display makes the communica-
tion process more direct and immediate since it allows readers to ‘see’ the data
(Beattie and Jones 2000).
This paper aims to examine the extent of voluntary disclosure of graphical
information in the annual reports of Malaysian GLC. In achieving the objective of
the study, the data were gathered and analysed by counting the number of graphs
disclosed, information and types of graphs used. The selection of GLCs in this
study was made on the basis that the accountability of these companies is higher as
compared to other companies as they need to discharge their accountability to the
public. The use of graph is proven by previous studies as one of the ways to
communicate information effectively. Therefore, this study has made two important
contributions in the areas of accounting research. First, this study can be considered
among the earliest research on GLC in Malaysia in respect of voluntarily graphical
information. Second, the result of the study might be used by accounting regulatory
bodies to provide a minimum guideline for the GLCs in disclosing graphical
information in the annual report.
2 Literature Review
Graphical information in the annual report has been widely discussed (Dilla and
Janvrin 2010; Uyar 2009; Huang et al. 2011; Beattie and Jones 2001; Mohd Isa
2006) and well accepted as an important medium of communication between the
readers and the preparers of the annual report (Abdul Rahman et al. 2014).
Stakeholders would be able to digest the information provided in the annual report
through graphical information in a clear and detailed approach. Therefore, graphs
are often used by companies to exhibit their performance especially financial graphs
(Huang et al. 2011).
Prior researches documented numerous benefits of using graphical information

in order to communicate with the readers. Huang et al. (2011) state that in com-
parison to the traditional approach of financial information, graphical information
would be able to attract the visualisation of the investors, highlighting and effec-
tively displaying important performance variables. In addition, graphs are often
used to summarise or to illustrate compulsory or voluntary information, and thus
enhance the communication process in a more accurate and effective manner
(Beattie and Jones 2001; Wilson and Stanton 1996). Moreover, Mohd Isa (2006)
indicates potential returns of disclosing graphical information would be to ‘increase
the credibility of the company’ and ‘improve relations with stakeholders’.
Nevertheless, the graphical information would only be highly useful if it is designed
according to the principles of graphical design and construction (Abdul Rahman
et al. 2014).
Companies are expected to construct graphs appropriately and carefully so that
readers could obtain accurate and truthful information. Well-informed readers
would be able to make a fair decision. Deficiency in preparing graphs has been a
tool of manipulation of company performance, and thus, companies must refrain
from exaggerating the financial and non-financial position in annual reports (Uyar
2009).
Several researches have associated the use of graphs with the performance of the
companies. Dilla and Janvrin (2010) surveyed 184 top U.S. companies that were in
continual existence from 1999 to 2005, and companies with larger decrease in key
financial performance variables will be less likely to disclose these in graphs which
is consistent with earlier theories of the graphical disclosure. Mohd Isa (2006)
disclosed results from two surveys made to users and preparers of corporate annual
reports of non-financial companies listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia
regarding graphical information. More than 75% of the respondents (users) agreed
on the reasons to refer to graphical information ‘portrayed company’s performance
over time simply and effectively’. The majority also agreed that the usefulness of
graphs is to evaluate company’s performance overtime.
Uyar (2009) discovers that the bigger the company in size and the more profit
the company makes, the more graphs the company discloses in the annual report.
The decision to disclose information voluntarily encourages management to
enhance corporate transparency (Ho and Taylor 2013). The separation of ownership
and control of a firm creates a natural conflict of interest between the managers
(agents) and shareholders (principals). Therefore, managers can use their discretion
to disclose or not disclose information to ease their commitment to opportunistic
behaviour for personal advantage (Ho and Taylor 2013). Disclosing more infor-
mation may evade fraudulent financial reporting as well as to protect investors’
rights and enhance information transparency, hence mitigating the adverse occur-
rence due to information asymmetry (Alhazaimeh et al. 2014). Ho and Taylor
(2013) ascertain that Malaysian firms recognise voluntary disclosure as a type of
monitoring system to encourage management to provide greater disclosures so as to

narrow the information asymmetry. Investors’ confidence is also said to be posi-
tively affected by improvement of the high level of disclosure information
(Alhazaimeh et al. 2014).
The most common topics graphed for financial variables are profit, turnover, and
EPS (Abdul Rahman et al. 2014; Uyar 2009; Mohd Isa 2006), while the non-key
financial variables are shareholders’ fund, total assets, and net tangible asset per
share (Abdul Rahman et al. 2014). Mohd Isa (2006) highlights that cash flow and
forecast graphs are more of value to readers of corporate annual reports because
they permit readers to see the proportion of firm generated cash and the money
utilised, whereas forecast graph indicates the direction of the company.
Furthermore, Guddal (2016) indicates that accounting and capital market variables
are the most commonly graphed variables. The reason why a large percentage of
companies choose to graph accounting and capital market variables might be
because these variables are of importance and interest to shareholders.
3 Methodology
This study focuses on the voluntary disclosure in annual reports of GLCs in

Malaysia by investigating the use of graphs in presenting information. The sample
of this study was selected based on the top 20 GLCs (known as G20) included
under the 10-year GLC transformation (GLCT) programme announced by the
government in 2004. As stated by Md Sharif (2015), GLCT was an initiative to
transform the G20 into high-performing entities and push them to greater heights.
G20 is a selection of large GLCs, controlled by government-linked investment
companies (GLICs) under the GLCT programme and is used as a proxy for the
performance of the GLCs. In the year 2015, the G20 graduated from the programme
and it currently consists of sixteen (16) GLCs (from the original 20) due to the
various mergers, demerges, divestments and other corporate exercises over the
years. For the purpose of the study, annual reports from the year 2013 to 2015 of
the 16 GLCs were analysed. The selection of GLCs in this study was made on the
basis that the accountability of these companies is higher as compared to other
companies as they need to discharge their accountability to the public.
The objective of the study is to examine the extent of voluntary disclosure of
graphical information in the annual report. On that ground, the disclosure of
graphical information was analysed by counting the number of graphs disclosed in
annual reports and types of graphs used. This study used the list of items developed
by Abdul Rahman et al. (2014) with minor modification in gathering the data as
shown in Table 1.
In order to simplify the process of collecting data, a scoring sheet contained a list
of items analysed that was designed for scoring the companies. A score of one (1) is
Table 1 List of items analysed

Sl. no Item analysed
1 Profit before tax
2 Turnover
3 EPS
4 Dividend per share
5 Shareholders’ funds
6 Total assets
7 Net assets per share
8 Net profit after tax
9 Share capital
10 Share price
11 Tangible assets
12 Employees
13 Depreciation
14 Production volume
15 Total liabilities
16 Share volume
17 Profit from operation
18 Profit after tax and minority interest
19 Operating cash flows
20 Operating profit before interest, depreciation, amortisation
and extraordinary item
21 Plantation acreage
22 Capital expenditure
23 Asset employed
24 Turnover by activity
25 Profit by activity
26 Income tax
27 Borrowings
28 Returns on shareholders’ funds
29 Retained earnings
30 Breakdown of expenses
given if an item is disclosed using graph and score of zero (0) if an item is not
disclosed using graph. The common types of graphs used by companies are the bar
graph, line graph, pie chart, and pictorial (Abdul Rahman et al. 2014; Uyar 2009;
Mohd Isa 2006).
The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
version 23. The analysis was mainly conducted using the descriptive statistics that
emphasised the frequencies and percentage of the results.
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 The Disclosure of Graphical Information in the Years

2013, 2014 and 2015
In general, the disclosure of graphical information in the annual report shows an

increasing trend. In specific, Table 2 shows that in the years 2013 to 2015, all
companies in the sample disclosed at least one variable in the annual report using
graphs. This result may indicate that the companies believed that the use of graphs
in the annual report would enhance the communication process as compared to the
conventional ways. However, the result shows a declining trend in the percentage of
disclosure among the sample. In 2013, the percentage of graphical information
(> 50% disclosure) was 62.5% and declined to 37.5% in 2014. And in 2015, there
was an increasing trend of disclosure of graphical information. The means for
graphical information in the year 2013, 2014 and 2015 were 0.2833, 0.2458 and
0.2667, respectively. The maximum score for the graphical information in 2013,
2014 and 2015 is almost 50%. These findings demonstrate that the GLCs used
graphical disclosure to convey financial and non-financial information as a way to
discharge their accountability to the external users. In addition, this finding also
shows that there is a room for the companies especially GLCs to increase the
disclosure of graphical information in the annual report. Mohd Isa (2006) indicates
that the users of corporate annual report use graphs to evaluate company’s per-
formance over time. The readers are able to see the movement and trends inherent
in the data easier than other presentations in which financial information is
conveyed.
4.2 The Disclosure of Information According to the Types

of Graphs Used
The result presented in Table 3 shows the types of graphs used by the sample for
the year 2013, 2014 and 2015. The types of graphs are divided into line, bar, pie,
Table 2 General overview of graphical information of GLC

2013 2014 2015
Disclosure of graphical information (at least one variable) (%) 100 93.75 100
Disclosure of graphical information more than 50% in the 62.5 37.5 43.75
annual report (%)
Mean disclosure 0.2833 0.2458 0.2667
Maximum disclosure 0.5000 0.4667 0.5000
Minimum disclosure 0.1000 0.000 0.0667
n = 16
Table 3 Types of graphs Types of 2013 2014 2015

used graph No. % No. % No. %
Line 13 9.6 7 5.9 10 7.9
Bar 106 77.9 97 81.5 86 68.3
Pie 2 1.5 5 4.2 0 0.0
Pictorial 0 0.0 0 0.0 7 5.6
Other 15 11.0 10 8.4 23 18.3
Total 136 100 119 100 126 100
n = 16
pictorial and others. The choice of the types of graphs was based on a study
conducted by Abdul Rahman et al. (2014). The findings show that bar graphs were
most frequently used by the companies to disclose information voluntarily. The use
of bar graphs shows an increasing trend that was 77.9% in 2013 and increased by
3.6% in 2014. However, in the year 2015, the use of bar graphs has reduced to
68.3%.
The use of bar graphs to display information in the annual report is supported by
the previous studies. Falschunger et al. (2015), Abdul Rahman et al. (2014), Uyar
(2009) and Mohd Isa (2006) stated that bar graphs were the most popular graphs
used to display selected information in the annual report. This may be due to the
nature of the bar graph, which is easy to be understood and to make the comparison
of large data more effective. The use of other types of graphs is considered to be the
second in terms of graphs used by the companies in the sample. In addition, this
type of graphs shows an increasing trend in the year 2015 of 18.3%. The use of line
graphs in the disclosure of information was basically to show the movement of
share price and share volume.
4.3 Analysis According to the Items
There were 30 items used in the disclosure index. The mean for each item is
presented in Table 4. In 2013, there were eight items by which the graphical
disclosure was 50% and above. Meanwhile, in 2014, there were six items and seven
items in 2015. The items that have been presented in graphs were profit before tax,
turnover, EPS, dividend per share, shareholders’ funds, total assets, assets
employed and turnover by activity. Most of these items are considered to be the key
financial variable (KFV) in previous studies (Falschunger et al. 2015; Abdul
Rahman et al. 2014; Uyar 2009; Mohd Isa 2006). Meanwhile, there were seven
items not disclosed at all by using graphs. The items were tangible assets, depre-
ciation, profit from operation, operating cash flows, plantation acreage, capital
expenditure and income tax. All the items with the mean of 0.000 were financial
information except plantation acreage. This finding is not supported by previous
Table 4 Mean for each item in the disclosure index

Sl. Item/Year 2013 2014 2015
no
1 Profit before tax 0.75 0.6875 0.75
2 Turnover 0.75 0.625 0.1875
3 EPS 0.625 0.625 0.625
4 Dividend per share 0.5625 0.5625 0.5625
5 Shareholders’ funds 0.6875 0.6875 0.625
6 Total assets 0.625 0.5625 0.5625
7 Net assets per share 0.375 0.3125 0.375
8 Net profit after tax 0.25 0.3125 0.3125
9 Share capital 0.0625 0.0625 0.0625
10 Share price 0.500 0.3125 0.4375
11 Tangible assets 0.000 0.000 0.0000
12 Employees 0.375 0.3125 0.375
13 Depreciation 0.0000 0.000 0.000
14 Production volume 0.1875 0.0625 0.125
15 Total liabilities 0.125 0.0625 0.1875
16 Share volume 0.25 0.25 0.25
17 Profit from operation 0.000 0.000 0.000
18 Profit after tax and minority interest 0.3125 0.25 0.4375
19 Operating cash flows 0.000 0.000 0.000
20 Operating profit before interest, depreciation, 0.0625 0.000 0.0625
amortisation and extraordinary item
21 Plantation acreage 0.000 0.000 0.000
22 Capital expenditure 0.000 0.000 0.000
23 Asset employed 0.5625 0.4375 0.5625
24 Turnover by activity 0.4375 0.3125 0.5000
25 Profit by activity 0.3125 0.125 0.1875
26 Income tax 0.000 0.000 0.000
27 Borrowings 0.3125 0.4375 0.375
28 Returns on shareholders’ funds 0.3125 0.25 0.375
29 Retained earnings 0.000 0.0625 0.000
30 Breakdown of expenses 0.0625 0.0625 0.0625
n = 16
studies. For instance, Abdul Rahman et al. (2014) found that information regarding
depreciation, capital expenditure and tangible assets were disclosed graphically in
the annual report. However, the different findings may be justified by the selection
of sample and time period concerning the studies conducted (Dilla and Janvrin
2010). In addition, the decision on whether to disclose the information voluntarily
relies on the discretion of the management. Some companies may have a view that
the existing compulsory numerical and narrative disclosure is sufficient.

Furthermore, there is no guideline given by the regulated entities for the companies
in disclosing graphical information in the corporate annual report (Mohd Isa 2006).
4.4 Discussion on Key Financial Variable (KFV)
Abdul Rahman et al. (2014) identify four variables in the disclosure index as key
financial variable (KFV) or key financial performance. It comprises profit before
tax, turnover, earnings per share (EPS) and dividends per share. Meanwhile, Dilla
and Janvrin (2010) identify five items as KFV. The items were sales, net income,
EPS, dividend per share and operating income. Furthermore, Falschunger et al.
(2015) consider cash flow item as one of the KFVs. Since the operating profit and
operating cash flows for this study show a mean disclosure of 0.000 each, both
items were excluded from the discussion of KFV. Table 5 shows the finding with
respect to the KFV.
The selection of bar graph in presenting the financial information seems to be
dominant as compared to other types of graphs. Specifically, the purpose of using
Table 5 Key financial variable (KFV) and types of graphs used

Sl. Item Type of 2013 2014 2015
no graph No. % No. % No. %
1. Profit before tax Line 1 6.3 – – – –
Bar 11 68.7 9 56.3 9 56.3
Pie – – 1 6.3 – –
Pictorial – – – – 1 6.3
Other – – 1 6.3 2 12.5
2. Turnover Line – – – – – –
Bar 11 68.7 10 62.5 3 18.7
Pie – – – – – –
Pictorial – – – – – –
Other 1 6.3 – – – –
3. Earnings per share Line – – – – – –
EPS Bar 10 62.5 10 62.5 9 56.3
Pie – – – – – –
Pictorial – – – – 1 6.3
Other – – – – – –
4. Dividend per share Line 1 6.3 3 18.7 – –
Bar 8 50 6 37.5 9 56.3
Pie – – – – – –
Pictorial – – – – – –
Other – – – – – –
bar graph is to enable the users to make the comparison of the past performance.
Normally, the data on the profit before tax, turnover, EPS or dividend per share are
presented to show the trends of those KFV. In addition, line graph was also used to
indicate the changes in the performance of the business entity. Mohd Isa (2006)
demonstrates that the turnover graph, earnings graph, EPS graph, share price graph
and cash flows graph are the most important graphs to the users of the corporate
annual report. Therefore, the inclusion of graphs with respect to KFV is likely to
improve the readers’ understanding of the performance of the firm (Uyar 2011).
5 Conclusion
This study has examined the use of graphs in voluntary disclosure part of the annual
report. Disclosure index developed by Abdul Rahman et al. (2014) is used in
collecting the data and it consists of 30 items. The finding from this study indicates
that companies used graphs in disclosing voluntary information in the annual
report. There are several types of graphs such as line, bar, pie and pictorial. A bar
graph is most frequently used by the companies as it is easy to understand and make
the comparison. Out of 30 items analysed, 8 items have been considered as the most
frequent items disclosed using graph by all companies, namely profit before tax,
turnover, EPS and dividend per share, shareholders’ funds, total assets, assets
employed and turnover by activity. Most of these items are considered to be the
KFV in the previous studies. The finding is supported by previous studies as KFV
was the most important item in evaluating the company performance and many
companies used graphical tools to disclose this information in the annual report
(Mohd Isa 2006; Falschunger et al. 2015; Guddal 2016). The use of the graph in
disclosing this information will help them in understanding the information as it is a
powerful tool which affects readers’ impression and decision making (Falschunger
et al. 2015).
The results of this study provide additional evidence to voluntary disclosure
literature and are useful for researchers studying the disclosure issues and reporting
practices by the company. It can be considered among the earliest research on GLC
in Malaysia in respect of voluntarily graphical information. By examining the
voluntary disclosure using graphs, the result of the study might be used by
accounting regulatory bodies to provide a minimum guideline for the GLCs in
disclosing graphical information in the annual report. It is very important in order to
achieve the main purpose of the annual report which is to communicate information
to shareholders. Previous literature indicates that graphs can give a clear picture and
better understanding of the firm performance to the readers of the annual report.
This study is focusing on analysing the number of graphs presented in the annual
report based on the list of items chosen and types of graphs used in presenting the
information. Therefore, it only provides an overview of voluntary disclosure using
graphs in annual reports by GLCs in Malaysia. Further research should be extended
to the various aspects of voluntary disclosure using graphs such as measurement
distortion, quality of graph disclosure and presentational formats in order to get

more information about the use of graphs in voluntary disclosure. This study can
also be extended to assess the effect of firms’ performance and earning quality to the
graphical disclosure in the annual report.
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Chapter 2
Ricardian Equivalence Theorem: What
Other Studies Say?
Abu Bakar Jaafar and Abdul Ghafar Ismail
Abstract The debate on Ricardian Equivalence has been discussed by many

researchers. In particular the debate about the government debt/tax is among the
popular topics. This study is an effort to evaluate the findings of previous studies
about Ricardian Equivalence. This study will look at the debates that look into the
impact of taxes on consumption. This impact is very important because the impact
of taxation will also affect the level of savings and bequest in the economy. The
impact, then, will used to test the following hypotheses: tax might reduce the per
capita saving and income. The hypotheses will use sample of several countries. The
results will tell us about what happens if the debt/tax becomes permanent.

Keywords Ricardian equivalence Debt/tax Consumption Fiscal sustainability
Overlapping generation
1 Introduction
Taxation occupies a prominent position in David Ricardo’s writings. According to

Ricardo (1817), tax is a portion of the produce of the land and labor of a country,
placed at the disposal of the government and is always ultimately paid, either from
the capital, or from the revenue of the country. For land however, he also (1772–
1823) stated that it is used for other alternative uses like livestock raising, growing
other crops, industrial applications and housing. So from the point of view of any
one use, part of the payment made for the use of land would necessarily be a
transfer payment to keep it in its present use, for example grain growing. For labor
A. B. Jaafar (&)
Academy of Contemporary Islamic Studies (ACIS), Universiti
Teknologi MARA Pahang (Kampus Raub), Raub, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: drabubakar@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. G. Ismail
Sultan Sharif Ali Islamic University, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam
e-mail: agibab62@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_2
16 A. B. Jaafar and A. G. Ismail
was also applied to other factors of production, especially including various forms
of labor. Like a movie star with a talent in very scarce and fixed supply and
enjoying a very high demand will earn a very large rent over and above his transfer
earnings for example if his opportunity cost is low, when any other available
alternative occupation would pay so much less.
Ricardo (1817) also stressed that when the annual productions of a country more
than replace its annual consumption, it is said to increase its capital when its annual
consumption is not at least replaced by its annual production, it is said to diminish
its capital. Capital may therefore be increased by an increased production, or by a
diminished unproductive consumption. Therefore, capital should also be taxed.
Landsburg (2008) argued that government spending may cause the demand for
current consumption to fall. Demand falls by the same amount regardless of
whether the spending is financed by taxation or by debt. He discussed those rela-
tionships by giving an attention from demand to supply. According to him, when
the government spends USD1 to purchase and then wastes USD1 worth of goods,
the supply of current consumption falls by exactly USD1 worth, regardless of
where the government finds the USD1. It showed that the two plans cause the
supply of current consumption to fall by the same amount. Therefore, they both
lead to the same interest rate. This result show that the government taxes or borrows
is doesn’t matter. Sometimes, it can be summarized in the slogan “deficits don’t
matter”, is also called the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem.
Hence, the increase in production has a relationship with consumers via taxation
which later known as Ricardian Equivalence. Therefore, the discussion on
Ricardian Equivalence Theorem will provide an understanding of the tax impact on
consumption. However, not all studies support this Theorem. According to
Economic Logician (2008) the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem states that, under
certain conditions, the inter-temporal substitution of taxes has no impact on con-
sumption and interest rates, and thus on other real macroeconomic aggregates
except savings and government debt. Indeed, households realize after a tax cut that
they will have to pay to pay higher taxes in the future, and thus save the tax cut for
the future tax increase. Barro (1974) said that the nature of the tax system also can
give the impact in household balance sheets. However, it is depend on the risk
characteristics of government debt and of the tax liabilities associated with the debt
financing and increase in government bonds.
Ritschl (1996) refer the condition in the preceding paragraph as the world of debt
neutrality. Here, there is no incentive for government to borrow or retire debt, so the
question about debt is not an issue. He said that in the classical doctrines of David
Ricardo hold, governments which borrow only fool themselves. As taxpayers fully
discount the future flow of taxes generated by additional borrowing, they will be
indifferent between taxation and borrowing, so their reaction to either measure is
the same. He argued that the government debt becomes more interesting if the real
world departs from Ricardo’s simple truths. This argument will become our concern
in this paper because we think about how the countries always in debt to spending
2 Ricardian Equivalence Theorem: What Other Studies Say? 17
for their countries and what will happen to the future generations of the countries.
But Mueser and Kim (2003) stated from a Ricardian’s assertion, when the agents
are looking forward to and are fully aware of the government’s inter-temporal
budget constraint, they will anticipate that tax cuts today will result in higher taxes
being imposed on their future generation.
Therefore the agents, who take care of their descendants’ utilities as well as their
own, will not increase their consumption based on increased current disposable
income due to today’s tax cuts. With the assumption of free access to credit, the
agents decide their consumption based on permanent income which is not affected
by the timing of taxes. Thus, there is Ricardian Equivalence Theorem between taxes
and debt. Perfect Ricardian Equivalence Theorem implies that a reduction in
government saving due to tax cuts is fully offset by higher private saving, so the
aggregate demand is not affected. The main logic of Ricardian is that deficits
correspond only to postponement of taxes. This logic results the indifference
between paying one dollar for taxes in current period and paying one dollar plus
interest in future period. Since the timing of taxes does not change the agents’
permanent income or lifetime budget constraint, a change in timing of taxes can not
alter their consumption decisions.
Our paper is aimed to find out: what do the previous studies say about the impact
of tax on consumption and the implication of Ricardian Equivalence Theorem on
saving, inflationary finance, taxation on private pensions, debt and altruism, debt
and sukuk/bond, Ricardian Equivalence Theorem and cyclical deficits, and optimal
tax and debt. The remaining discussion of this paper will be divided into four
sections. Section one is an introduction. Section 2 will discuss how far the study on
Ricardian Equivalence has gone. Section 3 will discuss about the Recardian
Equivalence Theorem and Inter-temporal fiscal policy. Finally, section four will
discuss about the implication of Ricardian Equivalence.
2 Literature Review
2.1 How Far the Study on Ricardian Equivalence

Theorem has gone?
Many studies have been done on the Ricardian Equivalence. Barro (1974, 1989),
Buchanan (1976), Landsburg (2008) and Dut (2012) have given good reviews but
among the missing points are: the impact of tax on consumption and savings, and is
the Ricardian Equivalence relevant or irrelevant. The discussion starts by asking
several questions:(based on chronological events) (i) What is Ricardian
Equivalence? (ii) Is Ricardian Equivalence always true? We will try to get the
answers.
2.2 What is Ricardian Equivalence Theorem?
Ricardian Equivalence, sometimes called Barro-Ricardo Equivalence, is a

hypothesis used to suggest that deficit spending cannot stimulate the economy. The
proposed Equivalence is between taxes in the present and taxes in the future.
According to Ricardian Equivalence, deficit spending is equivalent to an immediate
increase in taxes because participants in the economy will recognize that the deficit
requires future taxes.The theory receives its name from David Ricardo, who sug-
gested it in 1820. Ricardo himself, however, did not fully endorse the idea. The
modern formulation was developed in 1974 by Robert Barro. Barro actively pro-
moted the theory, and expressed it in a general form, stating that interest rates
would not be affected by the distribution of deficit between debt and taxation. The
logic behind Ricardian Equivalence is that households will recognize that gov-
ernment debt requires future taxation. The amount of taxation necessary in the
future to pay off debt initiated in the present will expand as a function of time and
the interest rate. Private wealth will expand in the same way. Thus, a household
planning perfectly for the future should set aside precisely the amount of money it
would pay in taxes now, since this money will earn interest at the same rate at
which the government’s debt grows.
An interesting discussion about the tax impact on consumption from Ricardian
view is the debate about Ricardian Equivalence Theorem. An economic theory
suggests that when a government tries to stimulate demand by increasing
debt-financed government spending, demand remains unchanged. This is because
the public will save its excess money in order to pay for future tax increases that
will be initiated to pay off the debt. Barro (1989) has argued that the Ricardian view
support by empirical findings on interest rates, consumption and saving, and the
current-account balance. He also predicts that the Ricardian approach will become
the benchmark model for assessing fiscal policy. He not predicts that most analysts
will embrace Ricardian Equivalence Theorem in the sense of concluding that fiscal
policy is irrelevant. But satisfactory analyses will feature explicit modeling of
elements that lead to departures from Ricardian Equivalence, and the predicted
consequences of fiscal policies will flow directly from these elements. Dadkhah
(2009) said the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem is that the way government
finances its expenditures. It is no effect on the economy would be the same whether
the government increases taxes or borrows from the public to pay for its additional
expenses.
According to Cunningham and Harberger (2005), Ricardian Equivalence
Theorem follows quite standard economic principles in viewing individual and
household behavior as resulting from a process of maximizing the entity’s utility
subject to a lifetime budget constraint. Niple (2006) said that the idea of Ricardian
Equivalence Theorem came about because of Ricardo’s examination of the reality
consumers lived in. The use of borrowing and taxation to repay interest skewed the
scope of the government debt. Consumers are rational, however, they understand
that in time of war the government needs to borrow money, but they do not want to
pay the total amount. Consumers see this positively because it saves their money in
the present, giving them time to save their money to pay for future taxes. Now the
justifications to this belief with the time value of money. A dollar today is worth
more than a dollar tomorrow due to inflation. When the government during
Ricardo’s time borrowed to spend on the war, consumers would save for future
taxes. The net result would be zero, and government borrowing would not change
the economy.
The similar view also forward by Ricciuti (2001). He said that Ricardian
Equivalence Theorem means that taxes and debt have the same effect on private
consumption. In different words, debt is said to be neutral with respect to con-
sumption. He stressed that the Ricardian Equivalence hypothesis could be gener-
alized to both the short and the long-run, which put no weight on the real effects of
fiscal policy on aggregate demand. Because, he propose that economic analysis on
government debt and deficit usually maintains that deficit-financed tax cuts raise
disposable income and then stimulate aggregate demand at least in the short-run and
then has a negative effect in the long run. In the case of borrowing, he assumes that
the government remains solvent. In his study showed that extra government
spending will always be financed by higher taxes at some point in time. Therefore,
deficits are just deferred taxes, and consumption is totally unaffected by government
deficits. In the long run government debt does not crowd out capital, since extra
consumption by spenders reduces investments and then increases the marginal
product of capital and the interest rate. The higher interest rate induces savers to
save more until the marginal product of the capital equals the savers’ rate of time
preference, which is the steady-state Ricardian condition. Once Ricardian
Equivalence Theorem holds, government bonds become a completely unimportant
issue, neither their level, nor their form affect the economy in any manner. Indeed
no reason seems to be left for governments to issue bonds.
3 Discussion
3.1 Is Ricardian Equivalence Theorem always true?
Several studies on Ricardian Equivalence Theorem give us the different answer

about it whether true or not. Both answers have a different implication about
Ricardian Equivalence Theorem. Let we see the argument of Ricardian Equivalence
Theorem from the economist. Feldstein (1980) argues about the Equivalence of
debt and taxes that implies that government deficits have no effect on aggregate
demand. More specifically, the pre- Ricardian Equivalence hypothesis asserts that
consumers respond in exactly the same way to a change in taxes and a change in the
government deficit. A tax cut that leads to a change in the government deficit
therefore has no effect on consumer demand. A key prediction of the pre-Ricardian
hypothesis is that a change in taxes has no effect when the levels of government
spending and transfers are held constant. According to this view, since an increase
in taxes also lowers the size of the public debt, consumer spending remains
unchanged. The pre-Ricardian line of reasoning also suggests that an increase in
transfer payments financed by a government deficit should have no effect on current
consumption. The current transfer payment is equivalent to a reduction in taxes.
While households currently have more spendable income, they also have a new
future tax liability. The pre- Ricardian Equivalence view implies that these two
effects should just balance to leave current consumption unchanged.
Dadkhah (2009) and Dut (2012) have agreed that the Ricardian Equivalence
Theorem is true. They argue that when government borrows to pay for its expen-
ditures the taxpayers consider the amount owed as their own debt, which has to be
paid sometime in the future. Similarly, they do not consider the government bonds
as an addition to their assets. Since the debt has to be paid back, the taxpayers start
savings for the day when the bill comes due. Thus, government expenditures
financed by borrowing would not affect consumption because the additional income
is cancelled by saving to pay back the debt. More generally, however, there are
several reasons for expecting transfers to be a powerful fiscal stimulus. First,
temporary transfers such as unemployment insurance and some permanent transfers
such as welfare payments and disability payments are frequently given to indi-
viduals with binding liquidity constraints. Second, an increase in veterans’ benefits,
social security or other permanent transfers is likely to be regarded by the recipients
as a permanent increase in income. Third, an increase in the level of transfer
payments will induce some individuals who are not currently eligible for benefits
but who anticipate receiving benefits in the future to regard themselves as richer and
therefore to increase their current consumption. This applies to all types of social
insurance benefits that have replaced private saving for a rainy day.
According to common view, deficits are harm full because they crowd out or
displace private spending. Both the type of private spending that is crowded out and
the mechanism by which the spending is crowded out depend on the extent to
which capital is internationally mobile. For example, a reduction in lump-sum taxes
causes the government to borrow additional funds. In a closed economy, when no
capital mobility, the interest rates rise because the government now competes with
private investors the available private saving. The increase in interest rates dis-
courages private investment and lowers the economy’s long-run growth path.
Ricardian Equivalence predicts that interest rates will be unaffected by deficits
because individuals responds to an increase in government debt with an
Equivalence increase in saving. The Ricardian Equivalence Theorem recommends
that lump-sum taxes and government deficits are equivalent methods of financing a
given government spending path. This view is based on the following framework.
First, since government must ultimately pay for their expenditures, the present value
of their expected stream of tax receipt i.e. there exists a government budget con-
straint. Thus, for a given spending path, a cut in today’s taxes simply implies an
increase in future taxes so that the present value of tax receipts remains constant.
Second, consumers maximize the present value of lifetime consumption (in
accordance with the permanent income/life cycle hypothesis). In this model, a
reduction in current taxes leads to an increase in current private saving so that the
consumption path can remain undisturbed. Simply put, a decrease in government
saving (an increase in the deficit) induces an increase in private saving so that
government saving—the sum of private saving and public saving- is unchanged.
There are numerous implications of the Recardian Equivalence Theorem. If the
deficit fails to alter government saving, it has no impact on real interest, real
exchange rates or aggregate demand. In other words, the timing of government
borrowing is irrelevant because the true measure of the government’s absorption of
resources is government purchase, not tax.
4 Conclusion
The understanding of the impact of tax on consumption could complement the

understanding of the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem. Ricardian Equivalence
Theorem means that taxes and debt have the same effect on private consumption. In
the other words, debt is said to be neutral with respect to consumption. The
argument that the tax will have no impact on consumption. Usually the economic
analysis on government debt and deficit maintains that deficit-financed tax cuts
raise disposable income and then stimulate aggregate demand at least in the
short-run and then has a negative effect in the long run. The case of borrowing, the
assumption that the government remains solvent. The study also showed that extra
government spending will always be financed by higher taxes at some point in time.
Therefore, deficits are just deferred taxes, and consumption is totally unaffected by
government deficits. Government deficits have no effect to the future generations if
they finance expenditures that earn a social return in excess of the cost of funding or
if Ricardian Equivalence holds. But, based on the previous studies shows that the
deficits of the 1980s and early 1990s have tended to finance current rather than
capital expenditures and the evidence against Ricardian Equivalence is compelling.
The argument that the government debt has no burden for future generations has
been seen to the opinion that the people alive today, or any time in the future, will
say that public debt is an obligation that they are owe to themselves. They certainly
cannot owe it to people who are deceased or unborn. For the future, the children and
grandchildren will indeed pay the taxes to service the debt, but they will also
receive the interest payments. Those paying the taxes and receiving the interest
payments may not always be the same people. Some will gain and others will lose.
But, both those who gain and those who lose will be the members of the same
future generation.
The arguments that the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem is not always true.
Therefore, the choice can be made to determining whether to hold the Ricardian
Equivalence Theorem or otherwise. The idea of Ricardian Equivalence
Theorem came about because of Ricardo’s examination of the reality consumers
lived in the government need to borrowing and taxation to repay interest skewed the
scope of the government debt. Consumers are rational, however, they are
understand that in time of war the government needs to borrow money, but they do
not want to pay the total amount. Consumers see this positively because it saves
their money in the present, giving them time to save their money to pay for future
taxes. This means that only in the special case the government need to borrowing.
Therefore, it can be said that the borrowing by the government must follow the
prioritized. This is because the borrowing by the government has an effect to the
future generation and also on the consumption.
The real burden on future generations from current government spending by
borrowing will be determined by the nature of government spending. Future gen-
erations can benefit from wise government spending on things such as government
security, health, education, roads, bridges and other public facilities. So, the con-
clusion from this view that the burden will be impose on the people are dependent
on the nature of government spending itself. Therefore, the important things to the
government are should be wise in doing the distribution in order to reduce the
burden of government debt. It means that the nature of government spending has a
relation with government debt. This is because the government debt can finance the
government spending. However, based on this view, the government borrow also
has an effect to the future generations. This is because, for future generations will be
pay tax on the effects of government borrowing today.
The argument base on Barro in his view on the nature of the tax system also can
give the impact in household balance sheets. It is depend on the risk characteristics
of government debt and of the tax liabilities associated with the debt financing and
increase in government bonds. Ricardian Equivalence Theorem has also a very
clear behavioural implication for household. An increase in the budget deficit
should increase household saving. That is, household should respond to an increase
in the deficit so the future consumption need not be reducing to accommodate
future taxes. The Ricardian model makes predictions regarding the response of
numerous economic variables to changes in deficits. With regard to direct quantity
evidence, Ricardian Equivalence Theorem predicts that there should be a positive
one-to-one relationship between deficit and saving. Similarly, Ricardian
Equivalence predicts that there should be no relationship between deficit and
consumption.
References
Barro RJ (1974) Are Government Bonds Net Wealth? Univ Chicago Press J Polit Econ
82(6):1095–1117
Barro RJ (1989) The Ricardian approach to budget deficits. J Econ Perspect 3(2):37–54
Cunningham JP, Harberger AC (2005) Microeconomic tests of Ricardian equivalence. (n.p).
pp 1–36
Dadkhah K (2009) Government budget and fiscal policy. Chapter 10, The Evolution of
Macroeconomic Theory and Policy, C Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2009, pp 201–212.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77008-4_10
Dut S (2012) The national debt controversy: fact versus fiction. College for Financial Planning.
pp 1–13
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com/2008/01/bush-fiscal-stimulus-and-ricardo.html
Feldstein M (1980) Government deficits and aggregate demand. National Bureau of Economic
Research, Working Paper No. 435: pp 1–38
Jaafar AB (2014) Esei mengenai teori percukaian bedasarkan pemikiran tokoh ekonomi islam dan
ekonomi konvensional. PhD Thesis, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Landsburg SE (2008) Price theory and applications. Seventh Edition, Thomson South-Western.
p 550
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(n.p): pp 1–19
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15, (n.p), pp 1–16
Ricardo D(1772–1823) Economic rent and opportunity cost. (n.p), pp 1–4
Ricardo D (1817) On the principles of political economy and taxation, (3rd edn 1821), Batoche
Books, Kitchener, Canada, 2001. p 104
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Part II
Art & Design
Chapter 3
Corporate Rebranding Design
of Aviation Company in Malaysia: Case
Study of Rayani Air
Amina Syarfina Abu Bakar, Azahar Harun

and Mohamed Razeef Abd Razak
Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the existing corporate identity and
the potential of rebranding design of Rayani Air. Being the first Sharia-Compliant
and a full service airline in Malaysia, Rayani Air frequently flies from Kuala
Lumpur International Airport to Langkawi International Airport mainly to attract
tourists to the resort island. Unfortunately, after several accidents and incidents, the
airline company was suspended. This drawback has affected consumer’s trust
especially on issue pertaining to security and safety in aviation industry. Through
visual observation and content analysis of existing branding design, this study
attempts to develop a new strategy for rebranding of Rayani Air. In this regard,
corporate rebranding design of Rayani Air is necessary for restoring consumers’
trust and convincing stakeholders to invest in the company. We conclude that
rebranding for failure organization is a crucial task and that special attention on the
corporate image and design should be given the highest priority.
Keywords Branding design Corporate rebranding Restructuring

Social responsibilities
A. S. A. Bakar (&)
Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Shah Alam, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: minaashburn@gmail.com
A. Harun
Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka,
Shah Alam, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: azaharh@gmail.com
M. R. A. Razak
Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA Puncak Alam,
Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: r4z33f@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_3
28 A. S. A. Bakar et al.
1 Introduction
Branding is a primary vehicle for communicating complex ideas in a clear, easily

digestible way. Companies with memorable brands do not only craft stories that are
worth telling, but also live out the morals of their brand stories every day. In today’s
transparent world, companies are beginning to embrace technology to allow cus-
tomers and employees to help shape their corporate branding philosophy
(Budelmann et al. 2010). Building strong brands is one of the most important goals
of product and brand management, as strong brands will result in the realization of
higher long-term and short-term returns for organizations (Davis 2002; Keller
2002). Branding is now a key component in the airline industry, just like any other
product or industry. Arguably, one of the most successful airlines in this region is
Air Asia. It is inevitable, however, that as competition heats up, and the low-cost
carriers must expand their use of marketing strategy that goes beyond low-cost fares
(Lim et al. 2009).
The issue on how Corporate Rebranding Design (CRD) is reflected on organi-
zation’s stakeholders is acknowledged that since mid-twentieth century, attempts to
it have emerged visual perspectives that often inform the aspects effectiveness of
branding, rebranding, corporate rebranding, and corporate identity (Riel and
Fombrun 2007; Salleh et al. 2013). In this research, the researchers investigate the
existing corporate branding design of a full service airline from Malaysia, Rayani
Air and propose that CRD could be utilized to dissolve negative publicities and
restore the corporate image of the company.
2 Background of the Study
Rayani Air is the first Malaysia’s Syariah-compliant airline that is based in

Langkawi International Airport. It was the first in Malaysia and the fourth such
airline in the world, after Royal Brunei Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, and Iran
Air. The airline has received the Air Service License (ASL) and Air Operator’s
Certificate (AOC) from the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA). As a syariah-
compliant airline, its Muslim female employees especially flight attendants are
required to wear hijab. In addition to that, the in-flight food and beverages are also
halal-certified, and no alcohol will be served on board (Kous 2015).
The first branding was rumored that Rayani Air would be launched as a ‘Low
Cost Carrier’; however, the airline officially positioned itself as a ‘Full Service
Carrier’ in December 2015 (First Sharia-compliant 2015). The airline was planning
to cooperate with Royal Brunei Airlines to strengthen the Syariah-compliant airline
concept within the aviation industry (Rayani Air bakal 2016). In March 2016,
Rayani Air was plagued with numerous issues and complaints. Passengers com-
plained that the airline frequently rescheduled flights, often up to 13 h later. The
airline also frequently canceled flights without advance notice and without
3 Corporate Rebranding Design of Aviation Company … 29
compensation or assistance to affected passengers. The consumer complaints were

highlighted in several media outlets (Rayani Air suspension 2016).
On 9 April 2016, Rayani Air temporarily suspended all operations until further
notice, citing “restructuring exercises” on the announcement made by its cofounder
(Rayani Air gantung 2016; Rayani Air halts 2016). This caused lack of consumer’s
trust and which poses a security and safety threat in aviation industry. Due to
negative publicity, surprisingly no studies have been done to look into the effec-
tiveness of the company’s corporate image. Hence it is hoped that this research
could trigger a new strategy of branding of this aviation company.
2.1 Why Corporate Branding is Essential?
2.1.1 Case Study 1: Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN)
Several companies in Malaysia have been exercising CRD program in order to be

visible especially in the current competitive and volatile global market environment.
In the case of Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN), CRD program is adopted as a
promotion strategy. According to chief executive of BSN, Datuk Adinan Maning,
the company has spent approximately Ringgit Malaysia (RM) 130 million from its
capital expenditure. The 3-year CRD program has several features which include a
new corporate tagline “A Better Life Within Your Reach”, a new visual identity,
switching its corporate color to teal, which represents trustworthiness and relia-
bility. The company aspires that CRD program the will express the company’s
outlook for the future while capturing the essence that makes BSN unique. (The
Star, 15 Oct 2015) (Fig. 1).
2.1.2 Case Study 2: Maybank
Maybank which is one of Malaysia’s prominent banks that has launched its
revamped brand image in an attempt to strengthen its regional reach as well as
appeal to the younger audience. The chairman of Maybank, Tan Sri Megat
Zaharuddin Megat Mohd Nor stated that as a part of its marketing strategy,
Maybank introduced its new logo—a move that reinforced the bank’s progress thus
far and the impending rebranding of its newly acquired entities. He added that the
rebranding of Maybank program was a collective effort which considers the views
Fig. 1 Logo transformation

of bank Simpanan National
(BSN) Source The Star, 2015
Fig. 2 Rebranding of
Maybank logo Source News
Straits Times
of company’ employees and various stakeholders. From that, it is realized that the
three key elements which are the name Maybank, the color yellow, and the tiger
head symbol cannot be omitted and will remain. The Maybank CRD program was a
clear proactive approach by the company to refresh after years of the same image
and corporate philosophy. The new Maybank image now has a more friendly font
and a “brave” looking tiger head symbol (Fig. 2).
2.2 Problem Statement
Many previous researches in branding design and innovative design management in

Malaysia were mainly conservative instead of constructive. Researchers like Salleh
et al. (2013) focused on corporate identity and corporate social responsibility
philosophy of company in Malaysia while Lomax et al. (2002) from Kingston
University discussed about corporate rebranding for company operating mainly in
Europe.
Currently, studies on corporate branding design and social responsibility on
Rayani Air have yet to be carried out. As a result, this leads to an insufficient
information and knowledge about the company’s strategy in establishing its brand.
It has been observed that other studies only involve operational procedure matter.
For example, Oktadiana et al. (2016) note that Rayani Air requires Muslim female
flight attendants to wear uniforms that comply with Syariah laws such as hijab and
headscarf.
This research is in line with the intention of the Department of Civil Aviation
(DCA) to digest and analyze the numerous issues and the potential of restructuring
Rayani Air.
Research Questions
RQ1 What are the visual components of the existing branding design?
RQ2 How the stakeholders perceive the corporate branding design?
RQ3 What are the responses from the stakeholders regarding the lack of
consumers’ trust of the company?
Research Objectives
RO1 To review the existing branding design and potential of corporate rebranding
design.
RO2 To investigate the problems and causes of lack of consumers’ trust of the
company.
RO3 To conduct the stakeholders’ perception of existing corporate branding
design.
3 Methodology
This research employs qualitative approach which combines visual observation and
content analysis techniques of existing branding design materials (corporate logo,
tagline, online and offline advertisements). In addition, several informal interviews
were also carried out especially with passengers, designers, and employees of
Rayani Air. The result from the interviews will shed light regarding the possibilities
of rebranding and restructuring the company corporate image.
3.1 Visual and Descriptive Analysis
(Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9), (Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7).
Fig. 3 Official logo and tagline Source Rayaniair.com, 2016
Fig. 4 Offline advertisements Source Rayaniair.com, 2016

Fig. 5 Online advertisements Source Rayaniair.com, 2016
Fig. 6 Food packaging Source denai.my, 2016
Fig. 7 Aircraft design Source Azimi Lahra, 2016
Fig. 8 Uniform design Source Rayaniair.com, 2016

Fig. 9 Signboard Source

Muhd Amin Naharul/TMR,
2016
Table 1 Visual observation of official logo and tagline

Category Visual observation
Color Corporate color: Secondary colors that are direct mixes of the colors
blue + black: Dark navy blue and green + white/yellow: light green
Form The letter ‘R’ deconstructed to an image look alike the wing of an aircraft
Font Bold typography with 3 types of font including Arabic Jawi font. The logo
contains two words
Language ‘Rayani’ as the name, ‘Air’ and ’let’s fly’ Tagline in English. The above Arabic
sentence in Jawi script
Design Two logo color with modern font. A wing and half anchor from the letter’ ‘R’.
concept Four elements in one logo which are the big letter ‘R’, Full name of ‘Rayani
Air’, Arabic Jawi of Rayani Air and tagline. The logo looks messy and having
two ‘R’. Logo using upper case
Tagline Direct tagline telling the service of an airline company and using all lowercase
words
Table 2 Visual observation of offline advertisements

Color Corporate color: Various shades color of blue, green, and white
Layout Various size of layout and different logo layout on each poster. No hierarchy of
information in the layout design
Font Two or three fonts used in one poster and stylize words with 3D effects
Language English and Bahasa Melayu
Design Each poster has different background wallpaper, the image of green and white
concept flowing motion might represent as ‘flying’ element. Images such as cloud,
aircraft, and models in headscarf and without headscarf uniform as part of the
advertisement design. Icon designs are used for direct information
Table 3 Visual observation of online advertisements

Color Main color of the advertisement are blue and white
Layout Logo on a white square opacity background. No hierarchy of information in the
layout design
Font Two fonts used in one poster and stylize words with shadow and 3D effects
Language English
Design The advertisement used image of cloud and aircraft as wallpaper. Most of the
concept details using words and icon for social media logo
Table 4 Visual observation of online advertisements

Color Main color is white, blue and green for logo and element design
Layout Simple layout only logo and Thank you note
Font Two fonts used, for logo and detail
Language English tagline on logo and Bahasa Melayu on ‘Terima Kasih kerana terbang
bersama kami’
Design Simple food packaging for dry food. The flowing motion design of blue and
concept green color element for the layout design. Rectangular shape box with art card
material
Table 5 Visual observation of aircraft design

Color Main color is white, blue, and green for logo and shape of line design
Font Bold typography with 3 types of font including Arabic Jawi font. The logo
contains two words
Language English and Arabic Jawi
Design Direct layout design on aircraft, blue and green shape line for the under part of
concept aircraft. The aircraft design looks clean, with hierarchy on words of logo
Table 6 Visual observation of uniform design

Color Corporate color
Design Pilot: captain and first officer wears official pilot uniform with Rayani air
concept custom tie with corporate color stripe design. Cabin crew wears corporate color
vest or suits. As for stewardess they wear headscarf for shariah compliance
rules and tie for steward
Table 7 Visual observation of signboard

Color Corporate color of Rayani air
Layout Whole logo on white background
Font Three font for the signboard which includes website, logo and tagline and
‘Syarikat Penerbangan’ words
Language English and Bahasa Melayu
Design Direct logo design on signboard without Arabic Jawi words
concept
4 Findings and Discussion
4.1 Content Analysis
4.1.1 RQ1: What are the visual components of the existing branding
design?
The result from the visual observation and content analysis shows that the existing
branding design of Rayani Air lacks consistency in terms of layout composition.
The capital letter ‘R’ as the main icon is often placed before or after the word
‘Rayani Air’. The researchers discover that the official corporate logo contains
double ‘R’ which was a major design set back. In addition, the headquarter office
signboard is also missing the letter ‘R’ thus affecting viewers confidence and trust
towards the company’s reputation. As for the online and offline advertisement, the
layout design has no hierarchy of information and multiple font styles were used
inappropriately in a single poster.
The researchers also notice that there is no Jawi script (Arabic lettering style) in
the packaging design and the “Thank you” note is printed in Bahasa Melayu
language. Usually, most airline companies would utilize multi-language, as it is
convenient for the international passengers. The graphic design on the aircraft is
also generic and monotonous. Regarding the hijab or headscarf policy, the
researchers discover that some of the female employees (stewardess or adminis-
trative officers) are not complying to the standard as what Rayani Air claims as the
shariah compliance full service airline.
4.1.2 RQ2: How the stakeholders perceive the corporate branding

design?
Results from the informal interview show that many stakeholders have mixed
feeling about the branding of Rayani Air. Several employees claim that the
branding of Rayani Air was done by a professional advertising agency.
Unfortunately, they did not reveal the agency name but provide the researchers with
the official logo design and corporate philosophy. The rationale is that the letter ‘R’
for respect and serve with a heart – this is what the Rayani Air brand encapsulates.
Rayani Air is committed to greater passenger satisfaction. They emphasize that
various corporate social responsibility activities have been carried out such as
helping the flood victims in Kelantan and Terengganu.
The second respondent, who is a graphic designer from an agency aged 38,
argued that Rayani Air logo is unappealing and therefore needs to be redesigned.
The color seldom represents religion and the corporate philosophy needs to be
changed to a professional meaning towards higher aim of the company. The
signboard at the headquarter office looks substandard and that no publicity effort
had been done before the launching of the airline. Another respondent, an art
director from another agency aged 52, said that Rayani Air corporate design has “no
brand value”, “no brand promising” and worst still, some of the ideas were copied
directly from Airasia’s concept design.
A respondent from a Government Linked Companies (GLC) aged 43 said that
the logo seems semi-professional. The advertisements are easy to read but not
convincing enough probably because of the color or layout which looks compli-
cated. A 27-year-old respondent who is a researcher and a government officer, said
that the corporate branding design looks good for public but it may score a lower
point in the eyes of designers.
4.1.3 RQ3: What are the responses from the stakeholders regarding
the lack of consumers’ trust of the company?
As predicted, a response from a respondent age 31, a freelance designer for Rayani
Air stated that corporate identity design of Rayani Air is executed by the company’s
own in-house designer. Other designs such as uniform and logo were designed by
in-house designer, i.e., the manager or the owner themselves. A respondent aged 52
said that this airline may have lots of problem but he agrees and supports the
initiative of shariah compliant effort and hope to reoperate. According to one of the
company’s employees aged 36, Rayani Air has bad reputation of managing the
company. He was referring to the sabotage incidents caused by pilots and crew
members who claim that they did not get salary for more than 2 months. Another
respondent from Rayani Air aged 29 said massive restructuring programs have to be
done and that bad management will only make matters worse. The interview result
found that most of the respondents advice that Rayani Air should have a new image
and a sound marketing strategy should the company wish to “comeback” and regain
public’s trust.
5 Conclusion
Corporate Rebranding Design (CRD) is an important approach in marketing

communication. Usually, companies would employ CRD program in order to
strengthen their financial capabilities and uplift their business to a new height. In
this research, it could be concluded that there is a need to rebrand Rayani Air. This
is primarily due to the company’s past controversial issues related to poor service
and bad corporate branding design. A new branding design is the only solution.
Hence, if no corrective initiative is taken by the management to resolve this matter,
Rayani Air will forever be perceived as a failed so-called Syariah-compliant airline
service.
Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of the Ministry of Higher
Education (MOHE) in providing the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (Project Number:
FRGS/1/2015/SS03/UITM/02/7). The authors are also thankful to professionals, designers and
Rayani Air’s staff with their cooperation during the informal interview to support the data
collections.
References
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logos and building brands. Rockport Publishers Inc, p 60
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first-syariah-compliant-airline-rayani-air-set-to-fly/
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University, Kingston Business School
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Manag Perspect 20:124–130
Rayani Air Bakal Lantik Mursyidul am PAS sebagai Penasihat. (2016, 3 January). The Malaysian
Insider
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Rayani Air halts operations after pilot strike. (2016, 9 April). The Malay Mail
Rayani Air suspension if services fail to improve. (2016, 28 March). New Straits Times
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effective reputation management
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organization’s corporate identity: a content analysis. J Econ Bus Manage 1(1)
Chapter 4
Exploring Marbling Pattern Using
Mirage Illusion with Combination
of DSLR Lenses Technique
Aidah Alias, Dona Lowii Madon, Nor Fariza Baharuddin,

Farihan Zahari and Shaharin Sulaiman
Abstract Marbling technique is an intricate art form with numerous variable

techniques. It is an art that creates colorful patterns. It is to create different types of
patterns with different materials. In this study, the DSLR lenses technique is used to
experiment with the effect of the subject examined and the combination of the
mirage illusion to enhance the pattern variation. The objective of this chapter is to
explore the processes (methods) of art making with the collaboration of digital
photography. This study also examines the possibilities of creating new patterns for
photographic images by enhancing the pattern variation using mirage illusion.
Scientific experimental approach was used to conduct the study. In order to answer
the hypothesis and prediction, experiment toward the subject and materials were
conducted. The result gathered from this study contributes toward the enhancement
and creation of new pattern in design and motif.
Keywords Art photography Experimental Marbling Patterns
A. Alias (&) D. L. Madon N. F. Baharuddin F. Zahari S. Sulaiman

Alor Gajah, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: aidah7799@yahoo.com
D. L. Madon
e-mail: donalowii@gmail.com
N. F. Baharuddin
e-mail: fariza2827@gmail.com
F. Zahari
e-mail: zahari.farihan@gmail.com
S. Sulaiman
e-mail: shaharin@melaka.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_4
40 A. Alias et al.
1 Introduction
Due to advances in technology, photography has become more convenient and

accessible throughout the years. Digital photography today is dominated by the use
of digital cameras and many applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
that are used for editing images and adding other effects on visual things. It is
undeniable that the techniques of editing are important because they can add effects
and makes images look more attractive. In addition, editing can help to hide flaws
or the weakness inherent in a visual. However, to produce photographic images, it
is not necessarily to be produced naturally, it can vary according to individual
creativity. One technique that can be used to produce photographic images is to use
Marbling technique. Marbling is a single print process created by manipulating
paint that is floated on the surface of a thickened water solution. The floating paint
is then transferred from the water onto paper, fabric or other surface (Smith 2008).
For this study, the researchers conducted a study of the combined effect of
marbling technique and photography. Using marbling technique, the researchers
have produced a pattern that characterized the mirage illusion. A mirage is a fas-
cinating natural optical phenomenon. Thermal gradients in the atmosphere and the
associated refractive index changes make light rays bend. An object can be seen in a
higher or lower position than it actually is, thus creating an optical illusion
(Lopez-Arias et al. 2009).
Experimental photography techniques use DSLR cameras as they can be fitted
with many high quality lenses ranging from wide angle to super long focal lengths
and can be adapted to many different situations. An experimental photography
technique can be defined as anything that one uses to alter or otherwise change a
photograph in a way that differs from just taking a photograph. Often, the phrase
refers to darkroom developing techniques. However, it has grown to include effects
inside of modern digital cameras and techniques involving camera usage, such as
extended exposures. “Experimental” is now even applied to some digital editing
techniques (Dworjan 2016).
Almost any photograph can become “experimental” in the digital age by manip-
ulating the image through software such as Photoshop. One can invert colors, bend the
lines in the photograph, blur the image, and much more. With the results of these
experimental studies, researchers managed to produce photographic images that
characterized the illusion mirage pattern. This pattern can be applied to other materials
such as cloth, canvas, and glass as a design element in producing a new art.
2 Literature Review
One example of art is the technique of marbling used in textiles to produce patterns
on the fabric. These fabrics will be commercialized into products that range from
clothes and seat covers to curtains and home decor. The resulting pattern of this
4 Exploring Marbling Pattern Using Mirage … 41
Fig. 1 Four basic types of

pattern in marbling
technique is a creativity of the artist themselves. Marbling is a paper decorating

technique in which floating colors are transferred from the surface of a liquid to a
sheet of paper (Lopez-Arias et al. 2009). According to Schroeer (2008), the defi-
nition of marbling is that it is the art of floating paints on a thickened liquid or
water, patterning a design, and making a contact print. There are four basic types of
pattern in Marbling, which are Stone, Snail, Get-Gel (Back and forth), and Rake
Nonpareil. The effect of stone pattern is produced when patches of paint is splashed
or due to size without any combing. This is a wonderful impression that can also be
used as a starting point for marbling technique (Norman 1998) (Fig. 1).
In this research, photography was used as a medium of documenting and cap-
turing the pattern. Leggat (1995) said that the word photography was first adopted
in 1983 by Sir John Herchel and the word is derived from the Greek words for light
and writing. Art photography is one type of photography and has long been
dominated by many famous artists such as Ansel Adams. Art photography is a work
produced independently based on an artist’s tastes and interest. Normally, it is
produced to show the beauty of things in the form of visual art photography and this
comes from the will of an artist to tell and share with the audience about what is felt
and seen by them (Leggat 1995). According to Bennett (2012), experimental art
today is increasingly concerned with the complex relationships involved in seeing,
defining, framing, and responding to pressing events. Art can accomplish a change
in perception by deliberately slanting reality, to not tell us what “is,” but “what is
important.” Art can shed all the distracting trivia of the common day-to-day, and
show us what matters (Mullen 1998). A mirage effect can be achieved by heating
the surface containing a mixture of liquids of different density. To create a different
pattern, the use of mirage illusion was included in this research. Lopez-Arias et al.
42 A. Alias et al.
(2009) explain that the mirage is an optical phenomenon naturally attractive: a

thermal gradient in the atmosphere and related changes in the refractive index made
by bending light rays. An object that can be seen in rank higher or lower than the
actual, hence creating an optical illusion. Therefore, in this, research photography
can not only be used to document the images but also can give effects on the subject
matter if different types of lenses are used (Langford 2005).
3 Methodology
Ebru water marbling technique was applied in this experimental study. As described
earlier, marbling consists of floating paints on a surface of thickened liquid. It will
be manipulated to create desired patterns before lifting the patterns onto prepared
paper (Wolfe 1990). But in this experiment, the marbling pattern will not be
transferred on to paper. Instead, photography is used as a tool to record the possible
changes of marbling as appeared along the experiment (Langford 2005).
A mirage effect can be achieved by heating the surface containing a mixture of
liquids of different density (Lopez-Arias et al. 2009). This experimental approach
involved two types of mixable liquids. In Experiment 1, 3 ml of water were poured
on a glass plate and mixed with 1 ml of dishwashing liquid. No stir was required.
To create the color, a drop of watercolor was dropped into the mixture to create the
mixing liquids. While for Experiment 2, 3 ml of oils were poured on a glass plate
and mixed with 1 ml of dishwashing liquid. No stirring was required in this set of
experiment too. Different color of watercolor was used to differentiate between
Experiment 1 and 2.
In this process, both experiments used the same marbling technique to generate
the pattern by combining the mirage illusions to enhance the pattern variation
(Table 1). To obtain the mirage illusion effect, each mixable liquids was done on a
glass plate and tested by pointing light beam using 450 W bulb below the plate to
enhance the heat. The changes of pattern were seen by an observer and recorded
using camera.
Table 1 Research design for experimental process

Experiment Medium Equipment Color theme Mirage
illusion
Experiment 1 Water Camera Green/red Heat
Dishwashing liquid Magnifying glass
Watercolor Light
Experiment 2 Oil Camera Black/green/ Heat
Dishwashing liquid Magnifying glass Orange/purple
Watercolor Light
This study carried out two experiments to test the hypothesis. The hypothesis for
this study is experimentation toward different types of mixable liquids that can
enhance and create new pattern in design, new motif, and as a technique using
marbling technique, mirage illusion approach, and DSLR lenses technique. The
process for both experiments was performed using marbling technique to generate
the pattern through the combination of mirage illusions to enhance the pattern
variation. To get the mirage illusion effect, the two experiments were carried out
using a glass plate, mixable liquids and tested by emitting a light beam with 450 W
bulb below the plate to create and produce the effect of heat. The changes of pattern
can be seen on the glass plate and the images were documented and recorded using
a camera with DSLR Lenses Technique (Magnifying glass). Different color of
watercolor was used to differentiate and enhance the variation of the experiments’
patterned design.
Table 2 shows the data analysis for Experiment 1. In Experiment 1, 3 ml of
water was poured on a glass plate and mixed with 1 ml of dishwashing liquid. No
stirring was required. This Experiment 1 has been tested with four different colors:
green and black for Sample 1 and red and yellow for Sample 2, a drop of watercolor
was dropped into the mixture to create the mixing liquids. The pattern showed from
Experiment 1 is the stone pattern, which this pattern was generated when spots of
paint were spattered or dropped onto the glass plate and for the effect of heat mirage
illusion, the light beam was emitted from a 450 W bulb below the plate to enhance
the pattern variation.
Table 2 Experiment 1
Diagram Experiment 1 Analysis from Experiment 1
Sample 1 Sample 2
Equipment Medium Pattern
Camera Water Stone

Magnifying glass Dishwashing liquid
Light Water color
44 A. Alias et al.
Table 3 Experiment 2
Diagram Experiment 2 Analysis from Experiment 2
Sample 3 Sample 4
Equipment Medium Pattern
Camera Water Get-Gel (Back And

Magnifying glass Dishwashing liquid Forth )
Light Water color Rake Nonpareil
Table 3 shows the data analysis for Experiment 2. For Experiment 2, the
experiment use different mixable liquids, where 3 ml of oils were poured on a glass
plate and mixed with 1 ml of dishwashing liquid. In this set of experiment, no
stirring was required. This Experiment 2 has been tested with six different colors:
purple and white for Sample 3 and blue and orange, green and black for Sample 4, a
drop of watercolor was dropped into the mixture to create the mixing liquids. The
pattern showed from this Experiment 2 is the Get-Gel (Back And Forth) and Rake
Nonpareil pattern. Get-Gel (Back And Forth) is a pattern that is created up and
down or back and forth and Rake Nonpareil pattern is a pattern of undulation. For
both samples, these patterns create a different stroke. These patterns were generated
when spots of paint and oil were spattered or dropped onto the glass plate and for
the effect of heat mirage illusion, the light beam was emitted by a 450 W bulb
below the plate to enhance the variation of patterns.
Table 4 showed the result of the experimentation and it can be seen that the
marbling technique added with the effect of mirage illusion can create a new
patterns design.
Table 4 Results from the experimentation

Effects from the experiment
Experiment Mirage Medium Pattern
illusion Stone Snail Get-Gel (back Rake
and forth) nonpareil
Experiment 1 Heat – Water
– Dishwashing ✔
liquid
– Watercolor
Experiment 2 Heat – Oil
– Dishwashing ✔ ✔
liquid
– Watercolor
4.1 Summary
The technique used in this experiment is the marbling technique. It is involving

with mixable liquids and water for creating and patterning a design. Added with the
approach of mirage illusion, two different effects of patterns can be created for these
experiments. It can be concluded that the marbling technique added with mirage
illusion can create a new patterns design.
5 Conclusion
This research explored and experimented with marbling pattern using mirage
illusion with combination of DSLR lenses technique. The technique has created and
patterned a series of design documented and recorded in the form of images. It can
be a platform of creating a marbling technique in different perspective and
approach. As we understand, marbling technique is a technique of floating paints on
thick water, and then transfer it onto a paper, but in this study photography is used
as the medium of recording and documenting the pattern. Photography was not only
used to document the images, but also can give effects on the subject matter if
different types of lenses are used. In this study, the results from the two experi-
mentations created and patterned an effect and design combination of marbling
pattern, stone, Get-Gel (back and forth), and rake nonpareil. Therefore, the series of
images from the experimentation of marbling pattern using mirage illusion with
combination of DSLR lenses technique offers stimulating and rethinking of the
images created. It has a value, hold an attention toward the viewers, shape our
knowledge, and whereas the needs of exploration and experimentation with dif-
ferent material and technique are needed for further research and to create different
and new pattern design in future.
46 A. Alias et al.
References
Bennett J (2012) Experimental Arts. In: Studies in material thinking and the author (ed)
N. Z. Faculty of design and creative technologies Auckland University of Technology,
Auckland 1142, p 8
Dworjan T (2016) Photography love to know. Retrieved from http://photography.lovetoknow.
com/Experimental_Photography_Techniques
Langford M (2005) Image & imagination. McGrill-Queen’s Press-MQUP
Leggat R (1995) A history of photography from its beginnings till the 1920s. Retrieved 2016, from
http://lnx.phototeka.it/documenti/Cenni_storici_fotografia.pdf
Lopez-Arias T, Calzà G, Gratton LM, Oss S (2009) Mirages in a bottle. Phys Educ 44(6):582–588
Mullen L (1998). Truth in photography: perception, myth and reality in the postmodern world.
University of Florida, Degree of Master of Arts in Mass Communication
Norman R (1998). Eden workshops a world resource for the world of book binding. Retrieved
from http://www.edenworkshops.com
Smith PS (2008). Paper marbling basics. Retrieved from https://guildofbookworkers.org/sites/
guildofbookworkers.org/files/standards/2012_PamelaSmith.pdf
Schroeer HJ (2008). Marbling turnings. Retrieved from http://jaxtumers.org/tech/marbling_
techniques_references.pdf
Wolfe RJ (1990). Marbled paper: its history, techniques, and patterns: with special reference to the
relationship of marbling to bookbinding in Europe and the western world. University of
Pennsylvania Press
Chapter 5
Images as an Indicator for Deaf
Students’ Teaching and Learning:
An Exploratory Study
Aidah Alias, Mustaffa Halabi Azahari, Norfadilah Kamaruddin,

Farihan Zahari and Fadli Abdul Razak
Abstract Everyone needs to be treated equally in obtaining education opportuni-

ties irrespective of their backgrounds including disabled people. Problem arises
when deaf students are taught using the traditional method of teaching and learning
activities which is normally ended up with students losing their concentrations and
failed in obtaining good grades. The objectives of this paper are to identify the
current application of practice in teaching and learning among deaf students, and to
identify the type of images used as an alternative method in deaf students teaching
and learning. This exploratory study has used semi-structured interview and
observation for data collection. Eleven teachers have participated in the study. The
findings showed that most of the deaf students are interested in their learning
activities using images as an indicator for the topic learnt and together with the
gestures of body movement. Moreover, this study concluded that interactive media
are fundamental as an alternative method in heightening learning ability and images
as can be an indicator for deaf students teaching and learning.
Keywords Indicator Images Deaf students Learning ability

A. Alias (&) F. Zahari
e-mail: aidah7799@yahoo.com
F. Zahari
e-mail: farih491@melaka.uitm.edu.my
M. H. Azahari F. A. Razak
Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA Selangor,
Puncak Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: mustaffaazahari@gmail.com
F. A. Razak
e-mail: ulie1787@gmail.com
N. Kamaruddin
Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA Selangor,
Shah Alam, Malaysia
e-mail: dilagiant@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_5
48 A. Alias et al.
1 Introduction
In Malaysia, as stated by the Department of Social Welfare, there were 445,006

disabled and 53,357 are registered for the hearing problems (UNICEF Malaysia
2014). Hearing problem is a neurological disability that most frequently occurs in
human population. Deaf children, they can be categorized as those children who
have hearing problem in most circumstances, such as they have a partial hearing,
unusual hearing, whereas they were not able to react to the level of surrounding
sounds (Chua and Koh 1992). Special education started in Malaysia in the 1920s,
led by the volunteers and the opening of the blind and deaf schools. The Cabinet
Committee Report on the implementation of the education policy particularly
through Perakuan 169, which is a platform that led to focus more clearly on the
development of special education in Malaysia (Ghani and Ahmad 2015).
From the Perakuan 169, it is stated that the government should be focused and
responsible for the special education, whereas it is included with the full respon-
sibility to facilitate the related organization that operates this type of education.
Resulting to this development, the involvement of voluntary bodies in the devel-
opment of the disabled and handicapped children should be encouraged and need to
be supported (Ministry of Education 2012).
Therefore, Hussin (1996), Ghani and Ahmad (2015) states the main problems in
special education for the blind, deaf and dumb are emphasizing on the language and
communication problems. This is involved with the problems, where the deaf
students cannot understand and hear information delivered by the teachers and the
alternative method for them to communicate is using sign language, cued speech
and spelling as their main communication medium Hussin (1996).
The objective of this paper is to identify the current practice in teaching and
learning among deaf students and to analyse the characteristics of image. This is a
kind of an extension for the current practice of teaching and learning among deaf
students, which will enable to help students to boost their ways of learning
activities.
1.1 Problem of Deaf Students in Education
Among the problems of deaf students in education, particularly in Malaysia are

insufficient teachers in special needs education and they are not sufficiently trained,
there is limited availability of speech and language therapist and educational psy-
chologist in national schools (UNICEF 2014) and emphasizes on the method on
teaching and learning, such as sign language, teaching (Hussin 1996). In Malaysia,
President of Malaysia Federation of the Deaf (MFD) Mohammad Sazali had
expressed the phenomenon that occurs to a lot of deaf students is failed in some
5 Images as an Indicator for Deaf Students’ Teaching … 49
subjects due to the current education system (Hassan 2012). They face these dif-
ficulties at the same time creating a gap compared with the normal students.
Furthermore, Mohammad Sazali stated many special students have failed in the
examination system, such as the Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR), Lower
Secondary Assessment (PMR) and Certificate of Education (SPM), which causes
them to have problems to further studies at higher education level. This is because
many of these students have failed in main subjects and passed in compulsory
subjects especially Malay. Therefore, their chances to gain knowledge and edu-
cation like normal students cannot be achieved due to this problem (Hassan 2012).
1.2 The Role of Visual Images in Education
Visualization is discussed as support medium for understanding and memorizing

information. It is agreed that graphic thinking is one of the approaches to devel-
oping a person’s memory, as visual representations are more abstract of real
assemblies and allow students to clarify complex information (Rakes 1999).
Marschark and Hauser (2011) have emphasized that everyone has both visual–
spatial memories (images) and verbal memories (language). For this reason, they
said that many teachers and those related personnel continue on emphasizing on
using both visual and spatial memories in teaching and learning for deaf learners.
They claim that visual images have significant values in enhancing learning
activities among this type of disabilities. On the contrary, they also argued that
neither one of these is sufficient for optimal learning and academic achievement
(p. 87). It requires further studies in order to have maximum impact on learning
activities among deaf students.
Pertaining to the significant role of visual images, Mustaffa Halabi Azahari
(2011) has discussed the significance of photographic images in daily lives of
human. He argues that some peoples in our society perceived photography as a
hobby and has no intellectual values and properties. Photography is perceived as an
easy way to capture images by clicking the shutter and fully automated control. On
the reality aspect, however, Mustaffa Halabi Azahari (2011) furthermore argues that
photography has its own significance and values in education sphere, which has its
own intellectual properties on par with other forms of communication like verbal
and written communications. Therefore, the importance and significance of pho-
tography or photographic images in our daily life and in education sphere is to
make the society realize and understand the message.
Jackson and Jackson (1999) emphasized that photographic images can be a
valuable aid to the lives of people with learning disabilities. It can be used to
resolve problems and improve understanding. It is urged that the education for deaf
students requires an alternative way method of learning. These students need to be
facilitated in order to enhance their learning ability. It is suggested that photo-
graphic image is another medium and method that can be forwarded to fill this
requirement. This method is argued not to replace the current methods of learning
50 A. Alias et al.
but to put forward as an alternative method of learning which can enhance the
impact towards high-order thinking skills (HOTS) that relate to the cognitive as
well as affective developments.
Besides, the learning activity will be more lively and easy to understand for deaf
students as well as a way to encourage students in self-study and self-reliance to
improve their learning.
Alias et al. (2013) emphasized that photographic images can be used as one of
the deaf learning methods and way to encourage the deaf students in self-study and
self-reliance to improve their learning.
2 Methodology
This research study starts with exploring the current practice for deaf students
teaching and learning in one of the deaf schools in Shah Alam, followed by a
semi-structured interview with 11 teachers and observation in classroom. In this
primary data collection, content analysis was used to identify the type of images
used as an alternative method in deaf students teaching and learning. The teaching
aided characteristic identified in the existing guidelines will be used as a guideline
to identify types of images used in teaching and learning for the deaf. The content
analysis will define the common types of images used as one of the teaching aids
characteristic. In order to know the type of images used in deaf students teaching
and learning, an observation and face-to-face interview was conducted by teachers
and observation: nonparticipant with the students has been conducted with the
selected current teaching aids such as picture books and presentation.
In this section, the discussion is based on data collected from the interviews and
observation sessions of teaching and learning processes. There are two subsections;
the first to explore the current practice in teaching and learning among deaf stu-
dents, and second to identify the type and characteristics of images used as an
indicator in deaf students teaching and learning (Table 1).
3.1 Current Method for Deaf Students Teaching

and Learning
From the interviews, the current method used in teaching and learning for deaf
students at present is the induction method. Induction method is involved with the
Table 1 Teachers demographic

R Experience Subject taught
1 4 years English
2 3 years English
3 18 years Visual art
4 20 years (Normal Education) Physical education and health, visual art
14 years (Special Education)
5 13 years Bahasa Melayu
6 13 years Moral education
7 1 years and 3 month Physical education and health
8 3 and a half years Mathematics
9 3 years English, science and visual art
10 2 years Science
11 3 years Science
brainstorming sessions, techniques, processes, physical activities, demonstrations,

examples and resources used. It involves any idea, technique, activity, example and
resources to attract students (Marschark et al. 2014). The need to prepare the lesson
creatively is required to attract the deaf students focus in learning. It is relevant to
note that most of the teachers that were interviewed and observed, used teaching
aids in teaching and learning and teaching aids have become popular in teaching
and learning processes. Flash cards, alphabet book, puzzled board Velcro and many
more are popular teaching aids. Other teaching aids, such as video, images, picture
books, clip art and presentation are also popular to be used in teaching and learning
processes.
The process of teaching and learning are accompanied and supported with sign
language and acting that make deaf student understand much faster and better in
their learning abilities. This approach has been popular among teachers because it
can enhance the learning activities in active and lively conditions. Furthermore, the
use of teaching aids is also very helpful to be used in teaching by teachers, espe-
cially in problems solving where the students have to use an active way of learning.
The use of teaching aid is related and in line with the Akta Pendidikan 1996
(Education Act 1996) where special education needs to be enhanced and heightened
from their curriculums and syllabuses.
3.2 Types of Images Used In Deaf Students Teaching

And Learning
From the content analysis, this study found out the types of image used as an
indicator in deaf students teaching and learning must have the characteristic, such as
a good example, can show process, moving, real images, colour, clarity and easi-
ness. It is suggested by Marshark and Hauser (2011), the combination of good sign
52 A. Alias et al.
language, the combination of animation will clearly describe the process and help
the deaf students understand it more, the picture with text; compilation of pictures
or objects, and features the characteristic of visual, such as emotion, colour and
expression support their learning creatively and learning gesture is also important in
deaf learning and a good teaching aid. Some of the respondents emphasize the
impact of visual towards deaf student is really high. If there were no visual, they
cannot explain the learning process to the deaf students. The images can be used as
an indicator for deaf students teaching and learning which must be in colour and if
it is a video or sequential image it will be even better. The students love to watch
the movement. Furthermore, the images must be showing a clear situation and easy
for the students to interpret.
4 Conclusion
The conclusion of this study can be summarized as in current practice in deaf

students teaching and learning are using the induction approach, whereas the
teachers need to be prepared before the teaching and learning process begin. The
induction method is involved with the brainstorming sessions, techniques, pro-
cesses, physical activities, demonstrations, examples and resources used. It involves
any idea, technique, activity, example and resources to attract students
(Marschark et al. 2014). The use of teaching aids has become popular in teaching
and learning processes that can help the teachers more. Some of the teaching aids
used are flash cards, alphabet book, puzzle board velcro and many more are popular
teaching aids. The process of teaching and learning are required to be performed in
varieties and multiplicities. The second important thrusts as the outcomes of this
study are to emphasize on the types of images used for deaf students teaching and
learning process to build a ‘guidelines or indicator for producing teaching aids’. In
order to produce a good indicator for teaching aids, there are several fundamental
characteristics that need to be included in image indicators for teaching and learning
process for deaf students.
The recommended characteristics are colours, movements, examples, processes,
clear, easy, sign language, expression and most important it must be an image as it
can be an indicator for deaf students teaching and learning process (Alias et al.
2014). As this make the process of teaching and learning more effective, infor-
mative, interesting and lively. This study found that the deaf students are interested
in using moving images or interactive visual images as well as still visual images in
their learning process. They require and need an extra or an extension of methods in
delivering information and knowledge and however, the students want interactive
visual images and still visual images to be included in the teaching and learning
methods. Finally, it is appropriate to mention that the deaf community is a minority
group elsewhere in Malaysia. Their existence is argued, cannot be ignored and
excluded from the mainstream. They are like other normal citizens whose demands
need to be treated equally. They are entitled to get equal opportunities of actions,
services, supplies and other things. The respective bodies of education institutions,
ministry and other respective authorities as well as relevant personnel, including
teachers, students, administrators and managers should broaden and should con-
sider of using this method as an alternative or extension method in educating deaf
children so that they become more competent like a normal human being.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by RMC-IRMI, UiTM under Grant File Nos.
600-RMI/IRAGS 5/3 (32/2015).
References
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Official Conference Proceedings 2013. Retrieved from www.iafor.org/offprints/acah2013…/
ACAH_2013_Offprint_0374.pdf
Alias A, Azahari MH, Ismail AI (2014) Exploring the teaching and learning among deaf students
by using images. MA Thesis. Malaysia: Universiti Teknologi MARA
Chua TT, Koh BB (1992) Pendidikan khas dan pemulihan: Bacaan asas siri pendidikan.
Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka
Ghani MZ, Ahmad AC (2015) Pengantar pendidikan khas (Penerbit USM). Penerbit USM
Hussin S (1996) Pendidikan di Malaysia: Sejarah, sistem, dan falsafah. Dewan Bahasa dan
Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur
Hassan AA (2012) Hakikatnya orang pekak terpinggir. Sinar Harian Online. Retrieved from
December 17, 2012, from http://www.sinarharian.com.my/nasional/hakikatnyaorang-pekak-
terpinggir-1.113280
Jackson E, Jackson N (1999) Learning disability in focus: the use of photography in the care of
people with a learning disability. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, USA
Marschark M, Hauser PC (2011) How deaf children learn: what parents and teachers need to know
perspective on deafness. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Marschark M, Tang G, Knoors H (2014). Bilingualism and bilingual deaf education perspectives
on deafness. Oxford University Press
Ministry of Education (2012) Dasar pendidikan kebangsaan. Giga Wise Network, Putajaya
Mustaffa Halabi Azahari (2011) Photography: its significance strands and values in education.
University Press, Shah Alam
Rakes GC (1999) Teaching visual literacy in a multimedia age. TechTrends 43(4):14–18
United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) Malaysia (2014) Children with disabilities in Malaysia:
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Fund (Unicef) Malaysia, May 2014. Retrieved April from http://www.unicef.org/malaysia/
UNICEF-Children_with_Disability_in_Malaysia_2014_lowres.pdf
Part III
Business
Chapter 6
Trust and Intention to Share
as Predictors of Online
Knowledge-Sharing Behavior
Ida Rosnita Ismail, Norulhuda Tajuddin

and Nor Khairunnisa Mat Yunus
Abstract The advancement of information technology and communication pro-

vides public, including tertiary students, with the platform to share knowledge
through online mediums, such as Facebook and WhatsApp. Despite numerous
studies on knowledge sharing, little attempt has been made to understand the effect
of trust on online knowledge-sharing behavior. As there is a possibility of not
knowing the users of the online mediums, sharing knowledge via these mediums is
perceived to be risky unless one trusts the other users. Underpinned by the Theory
of Reasoned Action, this study hypothesized that trust, directly and indirectly,
predicts online knowledge-sharing behavior among graduate students in Malaysia.
Using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique,
data from a convenience sample of 159 graduate students reveal that the hypotheses
were supported. The findings suggest that trust plays an important role in predicting
the online knowledge-sharing behavior among graduate students. Theoretical and
practical implications were discussed.
Keywords Intention to share Trust Knowledge sharing Online

PLS-SEM Graduate students
I. R. Ismail (&)
UKM-Graduate School of Business, Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: idarosnita@ukm.edu.my
N. Tajuddin N. K. M. Yunus
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti
Teknologi MARA Pahang (Kampus Raub), Raub, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: alhudatajuddin583@gmail.com
N. K. M. Yunus
e-mail: norkhairunnisa@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_6
58 I. R. Ismail et al.
1 Introduction
Technology, such as social networking, electronic bulletin board, and discussion

groups increase knowledge sharing by opening up new lines of communication.
With the emergence of these new technologies, scholars begin to show interest in
investigating the online knowledge-sharing behavior (Ma 2012). As of 2015,
Charband and Jafari Navimipour (2016) found that scholarly literature on online
knowledge-sharing behavior proliferated between 2012 and 2014. This number
maybe growing steadily or exponentially due to the benefits that the online
knowledge-sharing behavior contribute to the success of the organizations.
Generally, online knowledge sharing can be defined as the process of knowledge
exchange with the help of technology, such as social networking, among virtual
communities (Chumg et al. 2015; Wasko and Faraj 2005; Zhang and Jiang 2015).
Accumulated studies show that scholars have investigated the nature of online
knowledge-sharing behavior, its antecedents and consequences, and the mechanism
underlying the relationship between the antecedents and consequences of online
knowledge-sharing behavior (Hsu et al. 2007; Lin 2010; Ma and Yuen 2011).
Attempts were also made to study knowledge-sharing behavior among graduate
students (Majid and Wey 2011). Our study aimed at extending Majid and Wey
(2011) by focusing on the predictive effects of trust on online knowledge-sharing
behavior among graduate students in Malaysia.
1.1 Hypotheses Development and Framework
Online knowledge sharing occurs when the knowledge or information is shared

through the Internet within the online community (Chen and Hung 2010; Hsu et al.
2007; Ho et al. 2012, Liu et al. 2011). There are many online platforms to share
knowledge, for example, the online forum, the Internet chatting rooms, or through
social networking sites, such as Facebook groups and YouTube channel. All these
platforms are meant to allow an online community to ask questions, give feedback,
post information, debate on issues, or demonstrate tutorials with the purpose to
contribute and share the knowledge without boundary (Charband and Jafari
Navimipour 2016).
As people interact only on the Internet, there is a possibility to not knowing each
other but to assume that everybody comes together with a good intention to con-
tribute and gain some information and knowledge they believe could benefit both
parties. In other words, sharing knowledge online is perceived to be risky because
the knowledge shared could be misused, mishandled, and misunderstood by others
as well as the knowledge could result in loss of power and stolen credit (Ford and
Staples 2010; Goh and Sandhu 2013). As such, trust is a crucial element in
encouraging online knowledge sharing (Ho et al. 2012).
6 Trust and Intention to Share as Predictors of Online … 59
Defined as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another

party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action
important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other
party (Mayer et al. 1995: 712), trust helps to reduce the level of risk and uncertainty
associated with knowledge sharing (Ford and Staples 2010). Hsu et al. (2007)
further argue that trust among virtual communities can be divided into
economy-based trust, information-based trust, and identification-based trust. In the
present study, we focused on identification-based trust following Ho et al. (2012).
Identification-based trust is defined as “members’ trust due to emotional interaction
among members in virtual communities” (Hsu et al. 2007: 160).
Although sharing valuable knowledge via online platforms put graduate students
in a risky situation, whereby they are not able to identify the other party fully,
graduate students are matured group of learners who understand and appreciate the
other’s wants. This also means that they are more willing to invest emotionally in
the relationship by putting their faith in the trustworthy intentions of others (e.g., to
not misuse the shared knowledge) and confidence in the ability of others (e.g., to
believe that the obtained information is reliable). In this situation, graduate students
are likely to share knowledge online when they trust the persons at the other end of
the online medium.
Several indirect empirical evidence provides some support to the relationship
between trust and online knowledge-sharing behavior. Chai and Kim (2010), for
example, found that trust in bloggers significantly predict bloggers’ knowledge
sharing. In a similar vein, Chen and Hung (2010) found that interpersonal trust
significantly predicts knowledge-sharing behavior among professional virtual
communities. Based on the argument discussed above and the indirect empirical
evidence, we posited the following hypothesis:
H1 There is a positive relationship between trust and online knowledge-sharing
behavior
Trust may also predict online knowledge-sharing behavior through intention to
share. According to the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975),
attitudes predict the behavioral intention, which in turn, predicts a volitional
behavior. This theory also posits that the most proximal predictor to a volitional
behavior is behavioral intention (Hale et al. 2002). Applying this theoretical
assumption in the present study, graduate students who trust (i.e., an attitude) others
at the other end of an online medium are more willing to share their knowledge (i.e.,
behavioral intention), which, in turn, will influence their actual online
knowledge-sharing behavior (i.e., volitional behavior). As they have faith in the
trustworthy intentions and confidence in the ability of others, graduate students are
more likely to feel it is less risky to share their invaluable knowledge. Under a
volitional condition, the graduate students are more likely to actually share their
knowledge when they have an intention to share the knowledge. Based on the
argument discussed above, we posited the following hypothesis:
H2 Intention to share mediates the relationship between trust and online

knowledge-sharing behavior
2 Method
This study used a cross-sectional survey to seek responses from a sample of 163
graduate students using the purposive sampling technique. The respondents were
studying in various teaching and research-based universities in Malaysia during the
time of data collection. Although employing a probability sampling was deemed
appropriate and also the total population could be obtained a priori, two constraints
forbid us from using the probability sampling technique. First, we were not able to
obtain the actual number of graduate students from each university in Malaysia due
to time constraint and confidentiality of information. Second, the nature of this
study sought for graduate students who used online mediums to share knowledge.
As such, it was not possible to identify the actual number of graduate students who
made up the intended population a priori.
Survey questionnaires were distributed to the respondents using two formats,
which are paper-and-pencil and online survey formats. There were seven sections in
the survey booklet, which include six sections comprising measurement items for
the study variables and one section seeking for respondents’ demographic back-
ground. A cover letter was attached to inform the respondents about the purpose of
the study and assurance about their voluntary participation. In addition, the cover
letter also specified the confidentiality of their responses and anonymity of their
identities.
Although there are more variables included in the survey booklet, these variables
are meant for a larger study. Hence, only three variables are relevant to the present
study. All the measurement items were adapted from established measurement
scales and measured using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to
5 = strongly agree). Specifically, trust was measured using Ho et al.’s (2012) 6-item
scale that tap on the respondent’s identification trust (Cronbach’s a = 0.87).
A sample item is I believe that my fellow researchers are trustworthy. Intention to
share knowledge was measured using Chow and Chan’s (2008) 5-item scale
(Cronbach’s a = 0.86). A sample item is I will share my manuals, methodologies,
and models online with my fellow researchers. Five items from Casimir et al.
(2012) were adapted to measure online knowledge-sharing behavior (Cronbach’s
a = 0.89). A sample item is I willingly share the information I have with fellow
researchers in my department using an online medium.
Prior to conducting the main analysis, the data were subject to preliminary
analyses whereby the purpose is to clean the data. Using SPSS version 23,
descriptive analyses were run to examine the presence of outliers and
multicollinearity as well as to identify whether there are any violations of linearity,

normality, and homoscedasticity assumptions. Although there was no violation of
the assumptions, results indicate that there were four cases of multivariate outliers,
which exceed the critical v2 = 13.816 (p < 0.01), and two study variables were
skewed (intention to share knowledge, Z-score = 1.81; online knowledge-sharing
behavior, Z-score = 1.86). To address the problems, the four cases of multivariate
outliers were removed from the dataset and the partial least squares structural
equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used in the main data analysis. Therefore, only
159 usable data were subject to hypothesis testing using the PLSEM at the main
data analysis stage. The adequacy of our sample size to determine the statistical
power was checked using a stand-alone program known as the G * Power (Faul
et al. 2007). The result showed that our sample size exceeded the recommended
minimum sample of 107 in detecting the statistical power.
PLS-SEM is a data analysis technique that allows a model with skewed data to
be analyzed (Hair et al. 2011). This technique requires a model to be assessed at
two stages, which are the measurement model assessment stage and the structural
model assessment stage (Hair et al. 2011). Because all the study variables in the
present study were modeled reflectively, the reflective measurement model
assessment was used. Table 1 shows the summary of the assessment criteria used in
the present study and their respective suggested threshold values.
Specifically, the criteria for assessment include indicator reliability, internal
consistency reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity (Hair et al.
2011). Only when the measurement models are reliable and valid, the structural
model assessment—which include estimating the magnitude of coefficient of
determination (R2), estimating the magnitude and significance of path coefficients,
determining the effect sizes, and determining the predictive relevance of the model
—will take place (Hair et al. 2011).
Table 1 Summary of the assessment criteria

Criteria Suggested threshold values
Stage 1: Reflective measurement model assessment
Indicator reliability Acceptable loadings 0.4 in exploratory, 0.7 in all other
studies
Internal consistency Composite reliability ( 0.70)
Convergent validity Average variance extracted ( 0.50)
Discriminant validity Heterotrait–monotrait ratio of correlations, HTMT (< 0.85)
Stage 2: Structural model assessment
Coefficient of Acceptable level is context-dependent
determination, R2
Path estimates t-value > 1.96 (a = 0.05; two-tailed test)
Effect size, f2 0.02 (weak effect), 0.15 (moderate effect), 0.35 (strong effect)
Predictive relevance, Q2 Value should be larger than zero
Source Own construction based on Hair et al. (2011)
3 Results
Majority of the respondents were female (66.3%), married (55.2%), within the 30–
39 age range (44.2%), and Malaysians (90.8%). The highest education attained by
most respondents was a master’s degree (65.6%) and undertaking the mixed-mode
program (61.3%). A larger number of them were majoring in social sciences, with
the highest number specializing in business administration (44.2%) and the lowest
number specializing in office management system (0.6%). Only 15.9% respondents
reported majoring in science and technology.
Respondents were also asked to provide answers to several questions on their
online activities. More than half reported that they used WhatsApp to share
knowledge online (53.4%), followed by Facebook (23.9%), e-mail (14.1%),
Telegram (6.1%), and WeChat (2.5%). On average, the respondents spent sharing
their knowledge and information online more than six times a week. There were
several reasons for sharing their knowledge online, including to share general
information (e.g., announcement about activities held at faculties), information
related to research (e.g., fieldwork and research stage), and information related to
courses taken (e.g., class schedule and distribution of lecture notes), as well as to
get involved in the online discussion. Although the majority of the respondents
connect to the Internet using their own mobile Internet data plan, free Wi-Fi
available within the campus was also mentioned as the source to connect to the
Internet.
To test the hypothesis, PLS-SEM was used. First, the PLS algorithm, boot-
strapping with 5000 resamples, and blindfolding procedures available in SmartPLS
3 (Ringle et al. 2015) was used to generate reflective measurement results. As
shown in Table 2, the indicator loadings for all items were within the acceptable
range. As a result, all items had good indicator reliability above 0.50, which means
that the variance shared between the construct and its indicator is larger than
measurement error variance (Hair et al. 2011).
Composite reliability values for the three study variables were above 0.70. The
lowest AVE as shown in Table 2 belongs to online knowledge-sharing behavior but
above is the suggested threshold value. Therefore, convergence validity was
established for all study variables. Similarly, there is an indication of discriminant
validity, which was measured using the heterotrait–monotrait ratio of correlation.
Because all values obtained for the study variables were below 0.85, the study
variables were distinct from each other.
Having established a reliable and valid measurement model, the next stage
involves assessing the structural model. Table 3 shows the summary of the struc-
tural model results. Specifically, the R2 values for intention to share knowledge and
online knowledge-sharing behavior were 0.18 and 0.39, respectively. This means
that 18% of the variance in intention to share knowledge is explained by trust,
whereas 39% of the variance in online knowledge-sharing behavior is explained by
both trust and intention to share knowledge. In terms of the effect size, f2, only the
effect of trust on online knowledge-sharing behavior was small compared to the
Table 2 Reflective measurement results

Construct Indicator Outer Indicator CR AVE Discriminant
loading reliability validity (HTMT)
Trust TRUST01 0.78 0.61 0.91 0.64 Yes
TRUST02 0.75 0.56
TRUST03 0.75 0.56
TRUST04 0.83 0.69
TRUST05 0.75 0.56
TRUST06 0.83 0.69
Intention to share INTENT01 0.77 0.59 0.90 0.69 Yes
knowledge INTENT02 0.80 0.64
INTENT03 0.80 0.64
INTENT04 0.83 0.69
INTENT05 0.81 0.66
Online KS01 0.84 0.71 0.92 0.61 Yes
knowledge-sharing KS02 0.86 0.74
behavior
KS03 0.81 0.66
KS04 0.82 0.67
KS05 0.83 0.69
Note AVE = average variance extracted
Table 3 Summary of the structural model results

Criteria Results
Coefficient of determination, Intention to share = 0.18
R2 Online knowledge-sharing behavior = 0.39
Effect size, f2 Trust ! Intention to share = 0.21
Trust ! Online knowledge-sharing behavior = 0.09
Intention to share ! Online knowledge-sharing
behavior = 0.30
Predictive relevance, Q2 Intention to share = 0.11
Online knowledge-sharing behavior = 0.25
other two effect sizes that were moderate. Because the Stone–Geisser’s Q2 values
were larger than zero for both intention to share knowledge and online
knowledge-sharing behavior, the model exhibits good predictive relevance.
Figure 1 shows the bootstrapping results, which were used to test the
hypotheses. The direct path between trust and online knowledge-sharing behavior
was significant (b = 0.25, t-value = 3.163); hence, supporting H1.
To test the mediation hypotheses as stipulated in H2, we refer to the mediation
procedure suggested by Hair et al. (2011). First, the indirect effect of
Trust ! Online knowledge-sharing behavior (0.92) was found to be significant at
95% CI [0.118, 0.279]. Next, we determine the significance of the direct effect of
Fig. 1 Structural model
Trust ! Online knowledge-sharing behavior. The result reveals that the direct
effect (0.25) was also significant at 95% CI [0.118, 0.385]. Because both direct and
indirect effects were significant, intention to share partially mediates the relationship
between trust and online knowledge-sharing behavior. In addition, the type of this
partial mediation is complementary because the sign of the product of the direct
effect and the indirect effect (i.e., 0.92 0.25 = 0.23) was positive (Hair et al.
2011). Therefore, H2 was supported.
We further examined the total effect of trust to identify the relevance of this
study variable in explaining online knowledge-sharing behavior. Although the
direct effect of Trust ! Online knowledge-sharing behavior is not very strong (i.e.,
0.25), the total effect of Trust ! Online knowledge-sharing behavior was quite
pronounced (i.e., 0.451). Therefore, trust is an important predictor in explaining
online knowledge-sharing behavior.
4 Discussion
The present study demonstrates that trust plays an important role in encouraging
online knowledge sharing among graduate students. Sharing knowledge through
online is open to many abuses, such as risk to be copied or plagiarized, risk to not
receive or given less credit for knowledge contribution, or risk to the possibility of
loss of reference power. With trust, more knowledge can be shared among the
online communities as members put more faith in others and develop confidence in
other’s abilities. This finding is consistent with Cheng and Hung (2010) and Hsu
et al. (2007). Consistent with the theoretical assumption of the Theory of Reasoned
Action (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975), graduate students who trust others are more
willing to share their knowledge online, and, in turn, influences their actual online
knowledge sharing. In other words, the sharer’s trust will strengthen the intention to
share knowledge that may result in higher actual behavior to share knowledge
online.
Albeit its significant findings, this study has several limitations. First, some
graduates students in this study enrolled in courses that require them to share
knowledge in completing their assignment. To this group of students, sharing their
knowledge online may not involve high risk because they know each other and it is
the requirement by the faculty to contribute study materials or involve in the online
discussion to complete the course. Future research is encouraged to use a sample of
graduate students who enroll in full research mode, especially in critical areas, such
as advanced science or medicine to gain better understanding on online
knowledge-sharing behavior. Also, examining the present model using
cross-national student samples will further enrich the understanding of online
knowledge-sharing behavior, especially when international collaboration is
required. Second, we did not examine the effects of demographic variables as
moderators in this study. As students have more opportunities to collaborate via
online platforms, it is inevitable that diversity may influence the students’ level of
trust on actual online knowledge sharing. Therefore, future research should include
demographic moderators such as race and cultural background in extending our
study framework. Third, future research that focuses on examining this framework
at the team level is an interesting research avenue. According to Liu et al. (2011),
knowledge sharing at team level requires more trust and commitment among team
members to achieve high performance.
5 Conclusion
Online knowledge sharing is inevitable among online communities, especially

among graduate students. Such knowledge sharing, however, requires graduate
students to trust each other. As demonstrated in this study using a sample of 159
graduate students show that trust exerts its effect on online knowledge-sharing
behavior directly and indirectly through intention to share knowledge. Although the
present study provides empirical support to the proposed framework, extending this
simple framework will provide a richer understanding of the phenomenon of
interest. Hence, limitations of this research are worthy of further examination.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank Kementerian Pengajian Tinggi Malaysia (KPTM)

for the research grant we received under Research Acculturation Grant Scheme [Project Code:
600–RMI/RAGS 5/3 (94/2014)].
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organization: employees’ sense of well-being as a mediating effect. Comput Hum Behav
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Goh SK, Sandhu MM (2013) Knowledge sharing among Malaysian academics: Influence of
affective commitment and trust. Electron J Knowl Manage 11(1):38–48
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(eds) The persuasion handbook: developments in theory and practice. Sage, Thousand Oaks,
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Chapter 7
Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation
and Perceived Employability Among
University Graduates
Wei-Loon Koe
Abstract Graduate unemployment has become an intractable issue to most nations

nowadays. Malaysian universities have put forth a wide range of effort to help the
graduates to secure a job after their graduation. However, the graduate unem-
ployment rate still remains high. University students have undergone a series of
entrepreneurial training. However, many of them still prefer a stable employment to
a challenging entrepreneurial business. As such, this paper was conducted to pro-
vide some insights on the influence of individual entrepreneurial orientation
(IEO) on self-perceived employability among the university graduates. A total of
157 graduates were surveyed through a self-administered questionnaire. The
analysis revealed that respondents agreed they possessed attributes of IEO and they
perceived themselves as having employability. It further found that graduates’ IEO
attributes, namely innovativeness and proactiveness have a positive and significant
influence on their perceived employability. However, risk-taking attribute did not
contribute to perceived employability. Although this paper did not confirm that all
the three attributes of IEO could positively contribute to graduates’ perceived
employability, it did highlight the importance of entrepreneurial attributes (i.e.,
innovativeness and proactiveness) in increasing a graduate’s confidence in getting
an employment. It further proposed that entrepreneurial training should be carefully
crafted to suit the university students’ needs because it helps them to be entre-
preneurial and also enhances their confidence in getting a job in the competitive job
market after their graduation.
Keywords Employability Entrepreneurial orientation Graduates

Training University
W.-L. Koe (&)

Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Melaka City Campus, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: koeweiloon@yahoo.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_7
70 W.-L. Koe
1 Introduction
Being employed, or simply getting a job is not an easy task in today’s competitive
labor market. The number of unemployed graduates in Malaysia has reached a
shocking level, one out of four graduates still remained unemployed six months
after graduation, in which majority of them were degree holders (Leo 2016). The
university students are now entering an era, where they need to go through a tough
process in getting a job. Fresh graduates are having a slim chance to be offered a job
after graduation, due to various reasons, such as employers bring in skilled and
semiskilled foreign workers and staff reduction exercises in companies (Fazaniza
2016).
A high graduate unemployment rate would give a negative impression to the
people that the higher education system failed to produce competitive human
resources that could match the job market demand (Yusof and Jamaludin 2015).
Indeed, graduate employability is one of the main issues that universities need to
confront. To date, universities have various roles to play: as the tertiary educators,
new knowledge generators, community builders, and human resource suppliers.
Many universities are now providing entrepreneurial training to the students,
with the objective of developing entrepreneurial individuals. The educators would
like the graduates to be entrepreneurial, but not all of them would become entre-
preneurs. Some of them still prefer entering the employment world rather than
becoming entrepreneurs. In fact, entrepreneurialism and employability are com-
plimenting each other (Bell 2016). However, there is a paucity of research that
scrutinizes the relationship between entrepreneurialism and employability.
Questions, such as “would entrepreneurial training help the graduates in securing a
job?” and “would high entrepreneurial orientated students have high employabil-
ity?” still remain unanswered.
Moreover, little is known about graduate employability because there are limited
studies in this area (Pool and Qualter 2013). Specifically, self-evaluation employ-
ability is a concept that requires further examination in researching employability.
As Rothwell and Arnold (2007) stressed, perceived employability could be viewed
from two perspectives; namely internal employability and external employability.
Internal employability refers to remain employed by current employer or job
keeping; while external employability implies getting the job that one desires. As
such, this study focused on the latter, in which graduates’ self-perceived employ-
ability was examined. It was done so because graduates are the ones that are
actively searching for jobs that they desire. Thus, this study was conducted to
determine the extent of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO)’s influence on
the perceived employability.
7 Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation and Perceived … 71
2 Literature Review
2.1 Employability
Employability does not have a common definition (Knight and Yorke 2004) and it
is difficult to define (Pool and Qualter 2013). It is important to note that this paper
did not equate employability to employability skills or attributes of employability.
Following Rothwell and Arnold (2007, p. 25), this paper defined employability as
“the ability to keep the job one has or get the job one desires.” Meanwhile,
self-rated perceived employability refers to how graduates perceive themselves can
easily get a job (Rothwell and Arnold 2007). Simply put, this study viewed
employability as how graduates perceived themselves as they could be easily
employed by an employer. Thus, employability was regarded as graduates’ per-
ceived abilities in getting a desired job. It was done so in this study because most
graduates were still unemployed at the time they were surveyed. Thus, it would be
impractical to study their abilities in keeping their jobs.
Many previous studies agreed that graduate attributes played a crucial role in
determining employability. For instance, Hanapi and Nordin (2014) found that poor
graduates’ attributes were one of the factors causing unemployment in Malaysian
graduates. McMurray et al. (2016) also concluded that personal attitudes, followed
by employability skills were among the most important factors that employers
considered when recruiting graduates. Finch et al. (2013) identified that a variety of
skills, such as soft skills, problem-solving skills, and functional skills were capable
of affecting a graduate’s employability. Since most universities nowadays have
integrated entrepreneurship into their curriculum as a compulsory or elective
course, students are deemed to be equipped with sufficient entrepreneurial attri-
butes. However, whether entrepreneurial attributes, such as entrepreneurial orien-
tation are helpful in securing an employment still remain unanswered.
2.2 Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO)
In studying entrepreneurial attribute, individual-level entrepreneurial orientation or

simply IEO is a concept that should not be neglected. IEO is a concept extended
from firm-level entrepreneurial orientation (EO). It is a fact that firm-level EO is an
enterprise construct that affects a firm’s performance. However, many researchers
have stressed that EO should also be measured and treated as individual-level
construct. Specifically, Elenurm (2012) emphasized that EO exists in both enter-
prise and individual levels. Furthermore, IEO requires further attention from the
researchers because there is a low number of studies that researched on it
(Kollmann et al. 2007).
72 W.-L. Koe
Similar to firm-level EO, there are several elements of IEO. Bolton and Lane
(2012) delineated that IEO consists of three distinct factors, namely risk-taking,
innovativeness, and proactiveness. According to them, risk-taking refers to indi-
viduals’ preferences to take bold actions and assume risks for obtaining high
returns. Innovativeness means individuals’ preferences to try out new and unique
ways of doing things or solving problems. While proactiveness refers to individ-
uals’ preferences to anticipate, plan, and take initiatives for the future.
At present, many universities are either offering entrepreneurship as an academic
program or a study subject to their students. The main reason for doing so is to train
the students to be entrepreneurial, encourage them to start-up their own business,
and become an entrepreneur after their graduation. However, not all university
graduates have chosen to be entrepreneurs because they showed low interest in
becoming entrepreneurs (Hamidon 2012). Thus, there is a need to investigate the
entrepreneurial attitudes of graduates and their relationships with graduate
employability. Unfortunately, there are scarce studies that investigated entrepre-
neurial attitudes, such as IEO and employability in the current literature.
2.3 Entrepreneurialism and Employability
The linkage between entrepreneurialism and employability has been confirmed by

several researchers. For instance, Rae (2007) stressed that enterprising learning
helped the students to add values into their personal and skill development which
are useful in increasing graduates employability. In addition, Laguador and Ramos
(2014) found that employers strongly agreed that they preferred to employ grad-
uates who possessed entrepreneurial skills, proactive and able to suggest new ideas
for improvement. In another study, Bell (2016) also found that entrepreneurial
attitudes, such as proactive disposition and achievement motivation were positively
linked to graduate’s likelihood to be employed. The authors further argued that
proactiveness and achievement motivation helped the graduates to find and seize
employment opportunities in a competitive job market (Fig. 1).
Based on the above discussion, the three entrepreneurial attributes of IEO,
namely risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness, might influence graduates’
employability positively. Thus, the following research model was constructed and
three hypotheses were suggested:
Fig. 1 Research framework

Risk taking
Innovativeness Employability
Proactiveness
H1 Risk-taking positively influences employability.

H2 Innovativeness positively influences employability.
H3 Proactiveness positively influences employability.
3 Research Methodology
This study employed a quantitative research method because all the variables were
measurable. The population was bachelor’s degree graduates from a public uni-
versity in Malaysia. Specifically, students who completed their sixth semester and
were eligible for graduation were identified. Then, a sample was selected using
proportionate stratified sampling according to faculties in the university. The
respondents were required to answer a self-administered questionnaire. A total of
157 responses were collected and deemed usable at the end of data collection
process.
In measuring the desired variables, this paper adapted the instruments estab-
lished by previous studies. Specifically, it adapted seven items from Rothwell and
Arnold (2007) to measure perceived employability. It is important to note that this
study regarded IEO as a construct that contained three elements; thus, it adapted ten
items from Bolton and Lane (2012) to measure the three distinct elements of IEO.
The items measuring the variables were assessed for their internal consistency
reliability through Cronbach’s alpha (a). The results revealed that all the scales
obtained an acceptable alpha’s value (0.80 < a < 0.90). An exploratory factor
analysis with Varimax rotation complied to Eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule was
also performed to determine the construct validity. All items recorded a factor
loading greater than 0.50 and were successfully loaded into their respective factor
with no double- or cross-loading items found.
In order to test the hypotheses, this paper carried out multivariate statistical
analysis to analyze the data collected. Specifically, multiple regressions analysis
was performed.
4 Findings
4.1 Respondents’ Background
The respondents of this study comprised of 157 bachelor’s degree graduates from a
Malaysian public university. A vast majority of them were female (n = 112;
71.33%). The graduates were graduated from Faculty of Business and Management
(n = 51; 32.48%), Faculty of Accountancy (n = 42; 26.75%), Faculty of Plantation
and Agrotechnology (n = 27; 17.20%), Faculty of Computer and Mathematical
Sciences (n = 22; 14.01%), Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management (n = 9;
74 W.-L. Koe
5.73%), and Faculty of Art and Design (n = 6; 3.82%). Majority of the graduates
obtained a CGPA between 3.00 and 3.49 (n = 86; 54.78%) while there were 18
(11.45%) respondents recorded a CGPA between 3.50 and 4.00.
4.2 Descriptive, Correlations, and Regression Analyses
Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of the four variables studied in
this paper. As for the elements of IEO, respondents rated innovativeness the highest
(m = 4.14; SD = 0.56), followed by risk-taking (m = 3.85; SD = 0.85) and
proactiveness (m = 3.43; SD = 0.55). The graduates also perceived that they pos-
sessed employability (m = 4.15; SD = 0.55).
Since continuous variables were used in this study, Pearson product-moment
correlation was performed to determine the associations between pairs of variables
(Table 1). The results indicated that all variables were significantly correlated
between one and another (0.20 r 0.50; sig. < 0.05), except between
risk-taking and employability (r = 0.19; sig. > 0.05). Since the greatest r-value was
0.50, the results further revealed that multicollinearity was not an issue here.
Multiple linear regressions analysis was carried out to investigate the three
hypotheses suggested. The results were summarized in Table 2. The F-value gained
was 9.12 (sig. < 0.01) indicated that the model was statistically significant. The R2
attained was 0.31 signified that the elements of IEO explained the variance in
graduates’ perceived employability as much as 31%. All the three elements of IEO
recorded a positive influence on graduates’ perceived employability. However, only
Table 1 Mean, standard deviation, and correlations

m SD Proactiveness Innovativeness Risk-taking Employability
Proactiveness 3.43 0.55 1
Innovativeness 4.14 0.56 0.22a 1
Risk-taking 3.85 0.85 0.20a 0.32b 1
Employability 4.15 0.55 0.26a 0.50b 0.19 1
m mean, SD standard deviation
a
Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
b
Table 2 Regressions analysis

Independent variables Beta t Sig.
Innovativeness 0.48 4.32 0.00
Proactiveness 0.21 2.04 0.04
Risk-taking 0.02 0.17 0.87
Dependent variable: employability
two elements, namely innovativeness (b = 0.48; sig. < 0.01) and proactiveness
(b = 0.21; sig. < 0.05) showed a significant influence, while risk-taking (b = 0.02;
sig. > 0.05) did not obtain a significant result. In terms of their importance in
influencing graduates’ perceived employability, innovativeness was deemed to be a
more important factor than proactiveness. As such, the statistical results proved that
H2 and H3 were supported, while H1 was not supported.
5 Discussion
The statistical results confirmed that innovativeness was an important factor in

affecting graduates’ perceived employability. It was interesting to find that inno-
vativeness did influence graduates’ employability because the result was incon-
sistent with Bell (2016). Several reasons might contribute to such a result. Bell’s
(2016) study concerned employability in the professional field which did not
require high innovativeness, but this study concentrated on perceived employa-
bility. It is a fact that innovativeness is always being regarded as a crucial entre-
preneurial quality for business start-up. However, innovativeness could help the
graduates to use different sources and methods in seeking and securing a job.
Furthermore, it is also believed that graduates’ innovativeness could also help them
in designing resume, contribute new ideas, and answering questions during the job
interview. Laguador and Ramos (2014) found the ability to suggest new ideas was
one of the criteria for employment.
This paper also identified that proactiveness was another concern in determining
graduates’ perceived employability. The result supported Laguador and Ramos
(2014) and Bell (2016), in which proactiveness helped to increase graduates’
employability. Indeed, graduates who are proactive would be able to seek, recog-
nize, and secure employment opportunities easily. As the competition in the job
market increased, graduates who are able to take the initiatives and make the first
move could identify opportunities which others could not identify.
Interestingly, this paper found that risk-taking was not a contributor to gradu-
ates’ perceived employability. Assuming risk is always associated to operating a
business. Graduates who prefer employment to entrepreneurship are basically
risk-averse individuals; they prefer stability to challenges and uncertainties.
Based on the results of this research, it can be said that graduates’ entrepreneurial
attributes are important. As such, higher learning institutions should continue to
provide competitive and sufficient entrepreneurship training and education to the
learners according to their specific needs. However, enhancing employability
through entrepreneurship training requires the concept of “subsidiarity”, in which
university determined the policy and the educators are given freedom to perform
(Knight and Yorke 2004). This concept is important because entrepreneurial
training requires creativity and innovativeness. Tertiary educators should be given a
certain degree of freedom in conducting their classes. Indeed, Smith et al. (2006)
also agreed that entrepreneurship programs should be flexible, innovative, creative,
76 W.-L. Koe
and require much liberalization; however, they further pointed out that it is not easy
to do so because of the bureaucracy procedures in universities.
6 Conclusion
This research was aimed to determine the influence of IEO on graduates’ perceived
employability. It was found that graduates’ entrepreneurial attributes, namely
innovativeness and proactiveness were two important factors that influenced their
perceived employability. However, risk-taking attribute was not a contributing
factor to perceived employability.
This paper provides substantial information to the tertiary educators on the
importance of entrepreneurship training to provide sufficient entrepreneurial qual-
ities to the graduates. Providing entrepreneurship training in universities is an effort
which kills two birds with one stone. The training can train an individual to be
entrepreneur and also to be employed. It is also important to respond to the call of
building entrepreneurial individuals and increasing graduate employability. In terms
of its contribution to literature, this paper enriched the current literature by linking
individual entrepreneurial attributes to employability. It further provides informa-
tion on the contribution of entrepreneurial attributes.
Lastly, this research also suggested that future researchers should integrate some
other models in investigating factors that influence graduates’ employability. For
instance, other individual factors and external factors should be studied. In addition,
measurement of employability can also be extended to include securing current
position or actual employment.
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Part IV
Communication
Chapter 8
Relationship Between Quality
and Gossiping Behavior at Workplace
Audrey Anak John, Afi Roshezry Abu Bakar, Liana Mat Nayan,

Nor Ez-Zatul Hanani Mohammed Rosli and Norazimah Abd Rashid
Abstract Gossiping is a common phenomenon at workplace. Employees will find

themselves producing, hearing, and even participating in evaluative comments
devoted to the third persons who are not participating in the conversation. Through
gossip, people influence behavior of others by performing social norms, punish
those who violate, and spread information about these improper behavior. Gossips
have become an instrument for maintaining relationships and group coherence.
People had to conform to social norms among others, fail to do so; they might be
expelled from the informal social networks. However, the right to gossip is not
automatic and one has to properly belong to a group to be able to engage in and
allow to gossip. Thus, survey method has been chosen to investigate whether the
factors that contribute to the group cohesion will also predict gossip behavior. This
study concludes that there is a tendency to spread negative management-related
information upon low level of trust perceived by the employees. Employees with
frequent contacts with the manager are said to adapt much better than those who
have less contact, thus less likely to engage in negative gossip behavior.
A. A. John (&) L. M. Nayan N. E.-Z. H. Mohammed Rosli N. Abd Rashid

Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Department of Public Relations,
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Baru Kampar,
31900 Kampar, Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: audreyj@utar.edu.my
L. M. Nayan
e-mail: liana@utar.edu.my
N. E.-Z. H. Mohammed Rosli
e-mail: zatulhanani@utar.edu.my
N. Abd Rashid
e-mail: norazimahr@utar.edu.my
A. R. A. Bakar
Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Department of Journalism,
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Baru Kampar,
31900 Kampar, Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: afi@utar.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_8
82 A. A. John et al.
Keywords Relationship Power Workplace Gossip
1 Introduction
Whether we want to admit it or not, gossip is part of our everyday life and many
people engage in any sort of gossip activities. Talk about others or a third person in
their absence is one of the most pervasive human activities. People devote
approximately 65% of their speaking time to social topics and almost two over third
of their conversations are mostly about a third party (Grosser et al. 2010) and
(Dunbar 2004). Gossiping in an organization can serve at least three purposes
(Dunbar 2004). First, is to reduce uncertainty about formal processes or structures
(Mills 2010) when there is lacking, especially when less information is provided to
the employees or in other situation, no access to the complete information about
managerial decision or actions. Second, as a form of informal influence to ensure,
there will be no violation of norms. Reputation-harming information can spread in
the informal network to punish those who do not cooperate. Third, gossip can be
used as a signaling device to initiate, monitor, maintain, and foster trust within a
relationship. By disclosing such information, individuals show their intention to
strengthen the relationship (Ellwardt et al. 2012).
However, the right to gossip is not automatic and an individual has to belong to a
group to be allowed to involve in the gossip activity. As group cohesion depends on
the number and the quality of relationship ties, many people use gossip to stay
connected and close to others. The connectedness assumption that relates to the
gossip activity came under fire as several studies suggest a network closure neither
necessary nor sufficient to become involved in the gossip activity (Ferarri 2015).
Whether or not social relationship facilitates the transmission of information about
third parties remain unclear. Thus, this study will investigate whether the ante-
cedents to group cohesion can also predict the gossip behavior. Kindergarten
teachers take the responsibility to teach the future leaders. Therefore, how they
perform in the workplace does have a significant impact towards their children’s
lifetime learning and healthy mental and physical development (Hsing-Ming et al.
2016). The researcher found it necessary to probe into how the workplace gossip in
kindergarten setting, as it differs from the usual setting in general companies—
small-scale setting. Would these differences create a different sphere or different
function of gossip behavior, has not been further explored. Thus, kindergarten has
been chosen as a scope for this study.
1.1 Gossip in Organizations
Gossip is known as an informal interaction, convenient or casual talk, or writing

about people or social incidents (Kuo 2010). Gossip is defined as a positive or a
8 Relationship Between Quality and Gossiping Behavior at Workplace 83
negative information transfer without the presence of a third party (i.e., the gossip
victim). The word gossip is derived from an Old English words called “God” and
“Sibbs”, representing godparents and does occur peculiarly as female activity rather
than man (Cowan 2008). The term is later known as “idle talk” and is usually
related with women who engage in such behavior. Praise gossip act as a positive
social sanction and helps to facilitate the formation of groups, establish the group
norms, and fulfill the very human need to have a sense of belonging (Grosser et al.
2010). Meanwhile, in the formation of a group, it is essential to develop an
agreement as to what behaviors are considered as acceptable (Kniffin and Wilson
2010). On the other hand, blame gossip will act as a negative social sanction and it
is normally dealt with socially inappropriate behavior. Negative gossip may also
comfort those feeling of socially threatened via another direction. Gossip maybe
capable to make one feel better by letting others down. This is known as a social
comparison (Festinger 1950, 1954).
1.2 Gossip and Relationship Quality
Socialization occurs in organizations that are known to be systematically interde-

pendent to each other. Agents of socialization that consists of colleague or man-
agers will help an individual to be able to socially involve in an environment or
society and gain acceptance from it (Spencer and Rupp 2009). Relationship quality
is considered as a procession construct, which involves the history and the future of
the relationship as well as the actors involved. (Ferarri 2015) suggest that rela-
tionship quality is strongly related to emotional support exchange and it would be
more important for emotional support behavior through the frequency of contact.
Myhal et al. (2008) suggest that relationship quality consists of dimensions
including trust and frequency in communication. Gossip and personal friendship
ties are very important to an individual within an organization as previous research
suggests that they tend to be more cooperative and more productive (Ellwardt et al.
2012). Gossip is a desire to strengthen the relationship (Dunbar 2004). The concern
is that the gossiper must have faith and credibility in the eyes of the receiver,
assuring that the receiver would not disseminate the sensitive information onto
others. This is important in building trust within this dyadic relationship. On the
other hand, the repeated interaction would help to facilitate supportive relationship
(Ferarri 2015). The frequent the interactions the more likelihood that they will
cooperate with each other, thus, foster the relationship. Therefore, this study will
look into two dimensions that are significant to the quality of any relationship,
which is the sense of trust and frequency of contact.
1.3 Gossip and Employee’s Trust
Gossip is a risky behavior as it could damage not only the gossip object but also the
gossiper themselves (Van-Iterson and Clegg 2008). However, the risk could be
reduced in trusted relations. Trust can be manifested in an impersonal and inter-
personal facet. Impersonal trust is not an agent of a social exchange relationship,
but it depends on the employee’s perception whether the organization complies
with contract and moral obligations (Abbajay 2014). On the other hand, interper-
sonal trusts include feelings of mutual understanding and friendship (Ellwardt et al.
2012). Trustworthiness is measured through a successful exchange of private
information. This willingness to attain and exchange the information will also
somehow help to shape an individual’s reputation as cooperative or vice versa
(Aquino and Thau 2009). As trust increase cooperation, discrete decision can make
the management reputation vulnerable. Decision-making and policies is a top-down
communication, where low-level employees are most likely to insufficiently equip
themselves with this information. Incomplete information will be supplemented via
informal channel, such as gossip. Information provided by gossip will be used to
determine whether the organization is trustworthy (Chandra and Robinson 2009).
As trusts have been shown to increase with open communication, lacking in it will
undermine the trust towards the management and will increase the demand for
gossip (Yahaya et al. 2012).
1.4 Gossip and Management Frequency of Contact
The more people are required to interact frequently, the more they will tend to
cooperate with each other. This is because repeated interaction facilitates supportive
relationship (Oreg and Berson 2011). Frequent contact reduces behavior that harms
the reputation. Intense and continuous communication is needed to foster a strong
relationship (Ellwardt et al. 2012). Employees with the weakest contact will talk to
their colleagues who know more in order to compensate for their lack of infor-
mation. The frequency of contact is also related to the social status as individuals
who have a power tend to involve in the discussion more frequently than those who
are not (Ellwardt et al. 2012). This is due to their perception of being knowl-
edgeable and having credible that people always seek them for their opinion and
suggestion. Thus, this will increase their engagement within the communication
process itself. Other than that, engaging in a communication process involving
individuals who are high in social status will also help to elevate the communicator
status as well (Michelson et al. 2010). The risks of being the potential gossip
objects can be exploited as the tendency to engage in gossip about this high-status
individual are very low. Potential reasons are due to their popularity across the
social network as high social status people and tend to have high friendship
nomination and powerful affiliations.
1.5 Social Exchange Theory (SET)
The social exchange theory (SET) of gossip posits that people are more likely to
engage in this behavior when they are likely to acquire the social benefits as well
(Galler 2011). People are said to be more likely to engage in gossip behavior only if it
provides them with the information, entertainment, as well as, control as this can be
used to facilitate their status quo among the group members. The ability of gossip
behavior to provide an individual with a map of social environment, make it seems to
be an efficient way to gather and disseminate the information at the same time. Gossip
activity can also be associated with the pleasure and fun of doing it. The dissemination
of gossip also can be used to strengthen the control sanctions within the group as the
inability to comply with the group norms could jeopardize their perceived reputation.
The exchange of gossip supports the social exchange theory as it could help to
diagnose whether the management is reliable, cooperating, and trustworthy. Other
than that, the affection established among the employees in the exchange in a high
frequency of contact can help to facilitate the exchange process.
2 Method
2.1 Participants
A total number of 74 respondents from kindergarten around Kampar has been invited
and completed questionnaires. Kindergarten has been chosen as a scope for this study
as Cowan (2008) suggest that gossip occur peculiarly among female and kindergarten
recorded as female-dominated sector. Convenience sampling was used in the study to
select the staffs that were conveniently available, 26 out of 74 respondents are male
(35%) and 48 female (65%). Out of 74 respondents involved in this study, 9 (12%) are
from managerial position or at least perceive themselves as doing a managerial
decision, where 24 (32%) are general works and 12 (16%) support staff. The
remaining 29(39%) are teachers. 56 (76%) out of 74 respondents are between 20 and
30 years old, 12 (16%) of them are 31–40 years old, and the remaining 6 (8%) are
aged between 41 and above. About 18 (24%) out of 74 respondents recently joined the
organization less than 1 year. 32 (43%) of them have joined for about 1–2 years,
19 (26%) of them joined the organization for about 3–4 years, and the remaining
(13 respondents) join the organization more than 4 years.
2.2 Measures
The questionnaire was chosen as an instrument for this study to ensure satisfactory
return rate and it is divided into two sections. Section A is mainly for demographic
profile and consists of questions like gender, age, years of experience, and job
status. Section B was used to investigate the two measurements of relationship
quality which is trust and frequency of contact on the tendency to engage in gossip
activity. Reliability was tested to verify the validity of the instruments to ensure the
instruments were at a good grade reading level for the participants, of which had a
Cronbach’s a 0.956 indicating good consistency.
Gossip interactions are the product of relationship quality that manifests through the
strength of the relationship itself—trustworthiness and frequency of contact
exchanged (Ellwardt et al. 2012). Gossip allows an examination of trustworthiness
and commitment of the existing contact or the new one (Hsing-Ming et al. 2016).
The management must understand that they cannot compromise over the need of
open an honest communication with their employees. This study proves that 49 out
of 74 respondents agree that it is important to the organization. Spreading or
engaging in gossip behavior about the management can be something that the
employees will consider if in any circumstances they know their management tries
to hide any information from them. This finding supports the previous research
(Mills 2010) who suggests that employees will use gossip to make sure about their
management actions, especially during any organizational change. Employees
demand truthful information about their management and sharing information about
them helps to determine whether the organization is reliable, cooperative, and
trustworthy. Sharing the negative information is always associated with risk and
when it is about the management, the potential risk gets higher. For this reason, this
study support that potential risk associated with the objects of gossip might help to
determine the gossip content. As sharing negative gossip is higher in risk than
positive gossip, therefore the gossiper will select the receiver who he or she can
trust the most and with an opinion that they will not spread it to the others. The
rejection from the management could easily increase the likelihood of negative
gossips to be circulated (Elwardt et al. 2012).
The frequency of contact between the management and their employees is not
only important to “catch up” and be informed on how it is going within the
organization. For the employees, the amount of time the management spends doing
the communication will show their commitment that will produce the sense of
assurance to the employee themselves. Self-validation will help to boost the
employee motivation and production as it will make the employees feel that their
existence is recognized by the management. High emotionally secured employees
were proven to be more committed with less absenteeism and high participation.
Other than that they are proven to be highly satisfied, thus, the tendency to spread a
comment about their management will be low. Based on Tables 1 and 2, the present
Table 1 Descriptive data for employee trust on management and tendency to gossip
Trust Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree
disagree
My management always 0 2 (2.7%) 16 (11.84%) 56 (41.44%) 0
keep their promises
My management are 0 6 (4.44%) 29 (21.5%) 35 (25.9%) 4 (2.96%)
capable to make rational
decisions
I trust my management in 0 4 (2.96%) 29 (21.5%) 39 (28.9%) 2 (2.7%)
their actions
My management always 0 0 30 41 (30.34%) 3 (2.22%)
encourage us to involve in
the decision-making
process
My management always 0 20 5 (3.7%) 49 (36.3%) 0
ask us about what we are
doing in the organization
My management always 1 (0.74%) 7 (5.18%) 28 (20.72%) 37 (27.4%) 1 (0.74%)
inform us about whatever
happening within the
organization
Hiding information is not 0 0 10 (7.4%) 2 (2.7%) 62 (45.9%)
good for the management
reputation
I will not hesitate to 0 0 6 (4.44%) 65 (48.1%) 3 (2.22%)
criticize my management
if they hide any
information
I will not hesitate to make 2 (2.7%) 7 (5.18%) 7 (5.18%) 57 (42.2%) 1 (0.74%)
a comment about my
management whenever
they are absent
Negative comment from 2 (2.7%) 2 (2.7%) 2 (2.7%) 56 (41.4%) 12 (8.88%)
their employee is good for
the management to
understand whether they
are doing the right thing or
vice versa
It is okay to share the 5 (3.7%) 3 (2.22%) 2 (2.7%) 54 (39.9%) 10 (7.4%)
information about the
third party who are absent
from the conversation
Share the information 2 (2.7%) 2 (2.7%) 1 (0.74%) 67 (49.6%) 2 (2.7%)
about the person who are
not presence is less risky
I only share this negative 0 0 3 (2.22%) 2 (2.7%) 69 (51.1%)
information about the
third person with my
friend
I trust my friends and they 0 0 2 (2.7%) 55 (40.7%) 17 (12.6%)
will not share this negative
information with others
N = 74, Overall
mean = 3.76, SD = 0.532
Table 2 Descriptive data for frequency of contact with management and tendency to gossip
Frequency of contact Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
disagree agree
Important for the 0 1 (0.74%) 1 (0.74%) 64 (47.4%) 8 (5.92%)
management to know
what happening with
their staff
Makes me feel sure about 6 5 (3.7%) 2 (2.7%) 59 (43.7%) 2 (2.7%)
myself in this (4.44%)
organization
Helps me when I need 0 0 0 69 (51.1%) 5 (3.7%)
someone else opinion
Makes me feel 0 0 7 (5.18%) 67 (49.6%) 0
emotionally secure
Would make me feel that 0 2 (2.7%) 3 (2.22%) 59 (43.7) 10 (7.4%)
I’m recognized
Make me less likely to 2 (2.7%) 3 (2.22%) 12 (8.88%) 54 (39.9%) 3 (2.22%)
comment about by my
manager
Not hesitate to share the 0 0 0 68 (50.32) 6 (4.44%)
information about them if
I feel anxious
I think what we can get 0 0 2 (2.7%) 62 (45.9%) 10 (7.4%)
from the communication
with the manager much
more important than how
many times we involve in
the contact
Frequency contact with 0 1 (0.74%) 1 (0.74%) 67 (49.6%) 5 (3.7%)
my manager help to
increase my social status
My colleague will ask 2 (2.7%) 6 (4.44%) 6 (4.44%) 54 (39.9%) 6 (4.44%)
my favor to talk with the
management because of
my status
N = 74, Overall
mean = 3.84,
SD = 0.441
study supports this result showing 54 out of 74 respondents agrees with this. If they
feel anxious and unsatisfied, 68 agree that they will not hesitate to use gossip as a
strategic tool to acquire the lacking. As gossip can be used to obtain new knowl-
edge and give comfort to adapt to the new situation, 62 respondents do agree that
what matters is the quality of content and not the amount spent doing the talk itself.
4 Conclusion
A conclusion from the present study exhibits when the employees perceive diffi-
culty for them to trust their management, the tendency to spread the negative
information will be high. As open and honest communication is also subjected to
commitment, the absence will jeopardize the management’s reputation. As gossip is
not only about group cohesion but individual social capital where they can learn
and acquire new knowledge, thus, the need for communication to occur is solely not
the responsibility of the management. Therefore, when the employees crave for
truthful and second-hand information, they will ask their management. The
exchange of gossip is possible if a close relationship occurs and this is facilitated
through high frequency of contact. The information from the candid communication
is much more valuable than the formal discussion. Employees with frequent con-
tacts with the manager are said to adapt much better than those who have less
contact, thus less likely to engage in negative gossip behavior. This means the
management must try to compensate the lack of contact with their employees,
perhaps by providing a reliable platform. This may help to reduce negative talks
about them while trying to promote a positive reputation and encourage good
citizenship behavior.
We conclude by referring to a few limitations of this study, such as the number
of respondents as well as the setting where the data have been collected.
Opportunities for future research could include a larger sample size and a different
organizational setting. Other than that, future research could also look into the
organizational setting where gender is equally represented. The fact that gossip is
perceived to be also feminine talk might influence the direction of the study as
different gender proves to utilize the functions of gossip differently. It will be
interesting if the present study replicates in a more masculine organizational setting,
such as police or armed forces.
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Chapter 9
Physical Attractiveness or Personal
Achievements? Examining Gender
Differences of Online Identity
Reconstruction in Terms of Vanity
Jiao Huang, Sameer Kumar and Chuan Hu
Abstract The development of social network platforms enables people to com-

municate with each other easily. An interesting phenomenon is that some people
reconstruct their identity when interacting with others on social network platforms.
The previous study found that vanity is an important motivation for online identity
reconstruction. However, existing research about vanity was mainly in the business
domain. More detailed research about vanity in the context of social network
platforms is still called for. Adopting quantitative research methods, the current
research investigated gender differences in two aspects of vanity, physical vanity
and achievement vanity. An online survey was conducted on QQ, a social network
platform from China. A total of 189 respondents were involved. The results reveal
that men value personal achievements more than physical attractiveness. In com-
parison to women, men are more likely to be motivated by achievement vanity
when reconstructing identity on social network platforms. In contrast, when com-
pared to men, women are more likely to be motivated by physical vanity when they
reconstruct identity on social network platforms. The findings are consistent with
social role theory, indicating that males and females behave in gender-specific
ways.
Keywords Achievement vanity Gender difference Identity reconstruction

Physical vanity Social role
J. Huang (&) S. Kumar

Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
e-mail: jiaomail@yahoo.com
S. Kumar
e-mail: sameer@um.edu.my
C. Hu
Institute of Graduate Studies, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
e-mail: hu_chuan@yahoo.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_9
92 J. Huang et al.
1 Introduction
Social network platforms have become an increasingly important tool for people’s
daily communication. It seems to be a continuance trend that people connect with
each other online through social network platforms. As of March 2016, the number
of monthly active users of Facebook was 1.65 billion, an increase of 15% in
comparison with the same period last year (Facebook 2016). The number of
monthly active users of QQ, a social network platform launched in China, was 877
million as of March 2016, an increase of 5% in comparison with the same period
last year (Tencent 2016). Individuals are able to present themselves to others with
the profiles in social network platforms. Because the information in the profiles is
provided by individuals themselves, it is possible for them to manipulate the
information and reconstruct an online identity that is partly or even totally different
from their real identity (Hu et al. 2015).
People reconstruct their identity on social network platforms due to various
reasons and vanity is one of the important motivations of identity reconstruction
(Hu et al. 2015). People may strategically build their identity online in order to be
more attractive (Yurchisin et al. 2005) and more socially desirable (Zhao et al.
2008).Even though some existing research have shed lights on the motivation of
vanity, they were mainly conducted in the business domain and focused on people’s
overall perceptions about vanity (Richins and Dawson 1992). There is a lack of
nuanced research about the two specific aspects of vanity (physical vanity and
achievement vanity) on social network platforms. In addition, existing research has
rarely looked into gender differences on vanity from the perspective of online
identity reconstruction. To address these gaps, the current study aims to examine
how males and females are motivated differently by physical vanity and achieve-
ment vanity when they reconstruct their identity on social network platforms.
2 Background
2.1 Vanity
Netemeyer et al. (1995) proposed that there are two kinds of vanity: physical vanity
and achievement vanity. Physical vanity refers to “an excessive concern for
physical appearance, and/or a positive (and perhaps inflated) view of one’s physical
appearance” (Netemeyer et al. 1995, p. 612). People with high level of physical
vanity are obsessive about physical appearance. They try to increase their attrac-
tiveness by improving physical appearance. Achievement vanity was defined as “an
excessive concern for, and/or a positive (and perhaps inflated) view of one’s per-
sonal achievements” (Netemeyer et al. 1995, p. 612). Individuals with high level of
achievement vanity pay a lot of attention to personal achievements. As a concept
that first emerged in business domain, vanity was used to investigate consumer
9 Physical Attractiveness or Personal Achievements? Examining … 93
behaviors in previous studies. It is suggested that people who are concerned about
physical vanity would spend a lot of money on appearance-related products, such as
cosmetic and clothing. Whereas, people who are concerned about achievement
vanity would consume in a conspicuous way to show their achievements, such as
buy a new expensive car. Because materialism is a symbol of achievement, other
people are likely to regard them as successful if they show their material wealth
(Richins and Dawson 1992). Vain people are keen on attracting others’ attention,
eager to show off themselves, so that their appearance and/or achievements will be
recognized not only by themselves, but also by others (Huang et al. 2013).
2.2 Gender Differences in Online Self-presentation
Social network platforms provide a perfect environment for people to present

themselves. They have access to a large amount of audience. People with high level
of vanity could present themselves selectively on social network platforms,
exhibiting their physical attractiveness or personal achievements.
Prior research found significant differences in online self-presentation between
women and men. In general, women compose their profiles more actively than men.
Regarding to profile photo, women usually use portrait while men often use
full-body photographs (Haferkamp et al. 2011). The self-expression of women is
more associated with “feelings” and “relationships”. In comparison to men, women
express more emotions in profile, using photos that include more facial cues (e.g.,
eye contact and smile) (Tifferet and Vilnai-Yavetz 2014). In addition, females are
more likely to post photos of their families, friends, and significant others (Bond
2009; Tifferet and Vilnai-Yavetz 2014). While females emphasize more on pre-
senting themselves as attractive and affiliative, males focus more on showing their
status, strength, and power (Manago et al. 2008; Tifferet and Vilnai-Yavetz 2014).
In comparison to women, men are more likely to use photos of objects and outdoor
environments in profile to demonstrate their social status and masculine charac-
teristics. Males also tend to post more pictures related to sports and outdoor
activities (Bond 2009).
2.3 Social Role Theory
Social role theory provides us with an understanding of gender differences in social

behavior from the perspective of social roles. It is proposed that people act
according to some socially defined categories, namely social roles (e.g., teacher,
father, manager) (Eagly 1987). For each social role, there is a set of rights and
duties. Individuals are expected to behave in a certain way to meet the expectations
and norms of a social role (Eagly et al. 2000). Social role theory proposes that the
differences in the behavior of women and men originate in the different distributions
94 J. Huang et al.
of men and women’s social roles (Eagly 1987). The distribution of social roles
between two genders is primarily determined by the division of labor and gender
hierarchy (Eagly et al. 2000). The physical differences between men and women
lead to the division of labor in ancient times. For example, the biological charac-
teristics of women enable them to carryout reproductive activities (such as preg-
nancy and lactation). Thus, women’s tasks include gestating, nursing and taking
care of children. These activities make women less likely to be involved in tasks
that can’t be performed simultaneously with child care. In comparison to women,
men have greater physical strength, which enables them to perform tasks that
demand speed and force. Men’s physical attributes facilitate their performances in
activities like farming and hunting large animals. Gradually, these gender-typed
activities foster gender hierarchy (Eagly et al. 2000). Women are more likely to
engage in domestic works, whereas men are usually involved in productive works.
Men gain higher status and greater power in society because they provide resources
that are important for survival and development.
As time moved on, the different social position of men and women drive them to
carryout different activities, which gradually produces different gender roles (Eagly
1987; Eagly et al. 2000). Gender roles are the shared beliefs about what males and
females actually do and ought to do. Men and women are expected to have char-
acteristics that make them competent for their gender-typical roles. These charac-
teristics required by the roles become stereotypic of males or females (Eagly et al.
2000). For example, in women-dominated occupations (e.g., nurse, babysitter and
social worker), the characteristics that facilitate the female role performances (such
as caring, friendly, and tender) are highly valued and become stereotypic of women.
For men, who are more likely to take roles related to resource acquisition, the
masculine traits (such as assertive and independent) are important for successful
role performance and become stereotypic of men. The beliefs people hold about
men and women are widely shared in the society (Eagly et al. 2000). It becomes a
part of culture and becomes norms.
As such, women and men adjust themselves to fit social roles, which are often
distributed along gender lines (Eagly 1987; Eagly et al. 2000). They behave dif-
ferently because the roles that they engage in are usually associated with different
requirements. In order to perform their roles successfully, women and men acquire
specific skills and resources. Additionally, they behave in gender-typed ways to
meet the expectations people hold towards each gender.
2.4 Research Hypotheses
Previous research found that people may reconstruct their identity on social net-
work platforms to fulfill the need of vanity (Hu et al. 2014). For instance, in order to
become more popular, some people tend to build a socially desirable online identity
that is better than their offline identity on Facebook (Zhao et al. 2008). People may
strategically present their identity to increase their attractiveness to others
(Yurchisin et al. 2005). Individuals can reconstruct a better identity on social net-
work platforms by hiding the characteristics that are undesirable and presenting
selected or even fake information that is desirable. However, men and women focus
on different aspects when reconstructing their online identity. Hall et al. (2010)
found that in comparison to men, women are more likely to misrepresent their
weight, which is associated with physical attractiveness; whereas men are more
likely to misrepresent their personal assets (e.g., income, education), which are
associated with personal achievements.
Similar pattern was found when males and females present themselves on social
network platforms. It is suggested that female pay more attention to their profile.
They edit the profile more actively (Haferkamp et al. 2011), spend more time
managing their profile photo (McAndrew and Jeong 2012), and try to impress
others with their profile (Manago et al. 2008). In comparison to men, women more
often change their appearance on social network platforms (Raacke and
Bonds-Raacke 2008). Women are more concerned about how they are perceived by
others. In order to leave a good impression on others, they are more likely to post
pretty pictures of themselves to show their physical attractiveness (Manago et al.
2008). While females emphasize more on their physical appearance and physical
attractiveness, males focus more on displaying their personal achievements (such as
social status and personal success). In comparison to women, men are more likely
to show the masculine characteristics. For instance, men more often post pictures of
objects that display social status, such as cars (Tifferet and Vilnai-Yavetz 2014).
They also post more photos in which they wear formal clothes (Tifferet and
Vilnai-Yavetz 2014) because formal clothing is perceived to be associated with
males’ credibility and success. Moreover, when describing themselves, males are
more prone to use words related to work, achievement, and money. They emphasize
more on their occupational status and prestige (Haferkamp et al. 2011). Considering
that vanity is an important motivation for identity reconstruction and the fact that
men and women focus on different aspects of vanity in self-presentation, the
following hypotheses are proposed:
H1: In comparison to men, women are more likely to be motivated by physical
vanity when reconstructing virtual identity.
H2: In comparison to women, men are more likely to be motivated by
achievement vanity when reconstructing virtual identity.
3 Method
3.1 Data Collection
To investigate how men and women are motivated differently by vanity when they
reconstruct their identity on social network platforms, a web-based survey was
96 J. Huang et al.
conducted on QQ, a social network platform launched in China. QQ is a combi-

nation of instant messaging software and social network site. In addition to com-
municate with others through instant messages, QQ users can also socialize through
QZone (a specific subsite binded with QQ). People can update status and share
photos. They can also see their friends’ postings and are able to leave comments,
just like on Facebook. Within QQ, every user has a profile which consists of a
profile photo, a cover page, and personal information. Given that the information in
the profile and the contents that are shared in QZone are provided by people
themselves, it is possible for them to reconstruct their identity based on their own
ideas. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling.
3.2 Measure
The survey items in the questionnaire were adapted from validated scales in the
previous study. Physical vanity was measured by four items adapted from
Netemeyer et al. (1995) (e.g., “It is important that I always look good”). The four
scales measuring achievement vanity were also adapted from Netemeyer et al.
(1995) (e.g., “I want others to look up to me because of my accomplishments”).
Since all the items are in English and the QQ users are mostly Chinese, the items
were translated into Chinese by one researcher and double checked by other
researchers. Participants indicate their extent of agreement with the items with a
7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = neutral, 7 = strongly agree). Before
the formal investigation, a pilot study was conducted to improve the items.
Cronbach’s alpha is used to evaluate the internal reliability of the items. In the
formal investigation, the Cronbach’s alpha of physical vanity items was 0.906, and
that of achievement vanity items was 0.913, indicating good reliability of the survey
items.
4 Results
A total of 189 participants were involved in this study, among which 97 were male
and 92 were female. Mann–Whitney U test was conducted to examine whether men
and women are motivated differently by physical vanity and achievement vanity
when they reconstruct their identity on social network platforms. Table 1 is the
summary of results. H1 proposes that women are more likely to be motivated by
physical vanity in identity reconstruction when compared with men. As shown in
Table 1, women had significantly greater mean scores than men in all the physical
vanity scales. PVan 1 (MM = 4.47, FM = 4.85, p = 0.028), PVan 2 (MM = 3.93,
FM = 4.46, p = 0.026), PVan 3 (MM = 4.20, FM = 4.85, p = 0.000), PVan 4
(MM = 4.30, FM = 4.77, p = 0.020). This suggests that, in comparison to men,
women are more concerned about physical appearances and physical attractiveness
when they reconstruct their identity on social network platforms. Thus, H1 was
supported. H2 proposed that in comparison to women, men are more likely to be
motivated by achievement vanity when they reconstruct their identity on social
network platforms. For achievement scales, men had significantly greater mean
scores than women on three out of the four items. AVan 2 (MM = 4.77,
FM = 4.08, p = 0.001), AVan 3 (MM = 4.93, FM = 4.37, p = 0.004), AVan 4
(MM = 4.64, FM = 3.79, p = 0.000). This suggests that men focus more on per-
sonal achievements in online identity reconstruction when compared with women.
Therefore, H2 was supported. The findings are in line with previous research which
suggested that women tend to misrepresent weight while men are more likely to
misrepresent personal assets (Hall et al. 2010), but not consistent with other
research that found no significant differences on men and women’s concern about
physical vanity and achievement vanity (Durvasula and Lysonski 2008).
5 Discussion
The current research investigated gender differences in online identity reconstruc-

tion in terms of vanity, examining how men and women are motivated differently
by physical vanity and achievement vanity. According to social role theory, men
and women behave differently because they occupy different social roles and the
widely accepted beliefs and expectations towards each gender are different. The
results confirmed that men and women are behaving according to gender stereo-
types when they reconstruct their identity on social network platforms, emphasizing
on different aspects. In comparison to men, women are more likely to be motivated
by physical vanity when they reconstruct identity on social network platforms,
paying more attention to their physical appearances and physical attractiveness.
Physical attractiveness is found to be positively associated with feminine attributes,
Table 1 Summary of results Variable MM (SD) FM (SD) Z p-value

Physical vanity
PVan1 4.47 (1.15) 4.85(1.20) 2.192 0.028
PVan2 3.93 (1.58) 4.46 (1.57) 2.226 0.026
PVan3 4.20 (1.32) 4.85 (1.37) 3.559 0.000
PVan4 4.30 (1.44) 4.77 (1.50) 2.330 0.020
Achievement vanity
AVan1 4.91 (1.43) 4.50 (1.49) 1.714 0.087
AVan2 4.77 (1.45) 4.08 (1.46) 3.197 0.001
AVan3 4.93 (1.42) 4.37 (1.42) 2.848 0.004
AVan4 4.64 (1.54) 3.79 (1.57) 3.557 0.000
Note MM = Male Mean; FM = Female Mean; SD = Standard
Deviation
98 J. Huang et al.
it is even regarded as a symbol of being successful for women (Bar-Tal and Saxe
1976). In contrast, when compared with women, men are more likely to be moti-
vated by achievement vanity, focusing more on personal achievements when
reconstructing identity on social network platforms. Personal achievement is a
significant element for success in careers. The need for achievement is an important
determinant for becoming a successful leader, and men value achievement more
than women (Durvasula and Lysonski 2008). Although the social roles of men and
women have clearly changed nowadays, the gender stereotypes continue to persist.
The findings of vanity are in line with the gender stereotypes, confirming that men
and women behave differently to meet the different beliefs and expectations that
people hold towards each gender.
The current study has both theoretical and practical contributes. First, it inves-
tigates the two specific aspects of vanity (physical vanity and achievement vanity),
providing a comprehensive understanding on vanity from the perspective of online
identity reconstruction. Second, this study shed light on gender differences in online
identity reconstruction, indicating that men and women are motivated differently
when they reconstruct their identity on social network platforms. Third, the findings
of this study maybe useful to the practitioners. Service providers can better identify
the gender-specific needs and provide better gender-specific services. However,
similar to other studies, the current study also has limitations. This study was
conducted in Chinese culture, thus, the specific culture may limit the generality of
the findings. Future research could be conducted to replicate the findings in other
cultures.
6 Conclusion
Given that people have the freedom to select and edit the information before
disclosing it to other through profile or postings, some people reconstruct their
identity when interacting with others on social network platforms. In this paper, we
investigated gender differences in vanity, an important motivation of online identity
reconstruction. The results showed that when compared with each other, females
are more likely to be motivated by physical vanity, whereas males are more likely
to be motivated by achievement vanity when reconstructing their identity on social
network platforms. Women are more concerned about physical attractiveness than
men, whereas men are more concerned about personal achievements than women.
The findings shed light on gender differences in online identity reconstruction. The
practitioners may also find the results helpful for improving service quality.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by the International Graduate Research

Assistantship in University of Malaya [RP020D—14AFR].
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Chapter 10
Social Network and Students: The
Correlation Between Usage on Academic
Performance and Non-academic
Engagement
Abg Zainoren Abg Abdurahman, Ramraini Ali Hassan,

Nazura Mohamad Sayuti and Johari Abdullah
Abstract Social network has attracted and gained popularity among educators and
students in East Malaysia in order to facilitate teaching and learning. Social net-
work allows people to connect with each other on shared interests, activities,
characteristics, and information. Very few studies had been conducted in East
Malaysia with regards to social network usage and its correlation with academic
performance and non-academic engagement. With such development, this paper
attempts to determine the relationship between social network on academic per-
formance and non-academic performance among undergraduate students in local
higher institutions of learning in East Malaysia. A total of 331 self-administered
questionnaires were distributed and received from selected respondents. The
analysis had indicated that social network had a positive correlation with academic
performance and non-academic performance. Besides, there is also a positive
correlation between non-academic engagement and academic performance. In
accordance with the findings, it is vital to ensure the infrastructure for networking
A. Z. A. Abdurahman (&)
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sarawak,
Jalan Meranek, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak 94300, Malaysia
e-mail: zainoren@sarawak.uitm.edu.my
R. A. Hassan
Faculty of Business, Economic and Accountancy, Universiti Malaysia Sabah,
Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
e-mail: ramraini@ums.edu.my
N. M. Sayuti
Faculty of Business and Management, PuncakAlam Campus,
UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Bandar Puncak Alam 42300, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: nazura139@salam.uitm.edu.my
J. Abdullah
Faculty of Business Management, UniversitiTeknologi MARA,
Sarawak Mukah Branch, JalanMukah-Oya, 96400 Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysia
e-mail: joharabdullah@sarawak.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_10
102 A. Z. A. Abdurahman et al.
is up to par with the current development of teaching and learning. In addition,

educators and students should be encouraged to indulge deeper in using social
network for the betterment of teaching and learning.
Keywords Academic performance Non-academic performance

Social network
1 Introduction
Social network has attracted and gained popularity among educators and students
for teaching and learning. To date, by considering how often teenagers use social
media, it is clear that a strong social media presence benefits colleges and uni-
versities (Best College.com 2016). Thus, colleges and universities are increasingly
using social networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, to connect with
current and potential students and to deliver instructional content. This has led to a
rise in questions about the impact of online social networks (OSN) on academic
performance and the possibility of using them as an effective teaching tool (Paul
et al. 2012). In principle, social network allows people to connect with each other
based on shared interests, activities, characteristics, or information.
Presently, the three largest platforms for social networking are (1) Facebook,
(2) Instagram, and (3) Twitter, which boast over 2.2 billion users worldwide, many
of whom are in their late teens and early 20s. In addition, Facebook has a partic-
ularly large presence, accounting for just over 68% of the total social media use
between the big three (Best College.com 2016). On the other hand, the Pew
Research Center (2012) found that 52% of students are very likely to use YouTube
and other social media sites to do research for various types of assignments.
Students use social networks to communicate with each other or share interests,
information, and knowledge, which can increase productivity and help students
work well in groups. Even though students use social network as a tool in edu-
cation, there is no obvious evidence that specifically shows that social network has
a relationship with academic performance or non-academic engagement. There has
been a little exploration of how social media influences cocurricular engagement or
identity development (Snyder and Navarro 2015). Besides, the scholars’ study on
the relationship between non-academic engagement and academic performance in
East Malaysia is almost non-existent.
10 Social Network and Students: The Correlation Between Usage … 103
2 Literature Review
2.1 Social Network
Online social networks (OSNs) have permeated all generations of Internet users;
becoming a prominent communications tool, particularly in the student community.
According to Arnold and Paulus (2010), they found that social media is a tool for
educational purposes, in which students include the technology into their lives in a
way that may vary from the intentions of the course instructors.
2.2 Social Network and Academic Performance
The study focuses on the impact of online social networking in academic perfor-
mance. ► A negative relationship was found between time spent on OSNs and
academic performance. ► A negative relationship exists between attention span and
the time spent on an OSN. ► Attention span highly correlates with characteristics
that predict a students’ behavior. ► Good time management was found to improve
academic performance (Paul et al. 2012).
Students’ academic performances are poor if they use Facebook, as they spend
more time on it rather than studying versus non-users (Kirschner and Karpinski
2010). Results indicate that there is a significant correlation between students’
grades and the degree to which they are sought out for communication in all three
cohorts. In the second- and third-year cohorts, there was also a significant corre-
lation between grades and the ‘in degree’ of friendship. In the third-year cohort,
there was evidence of a significant correlation between students’ grades and their
‘out degree’ of communication. These results have implications for both educators
and students. Educators should make students aware of the effects of social net-
works and encourage students to participate in their social networks by promoting
group work, applying team-building exercises, and supplying the facilities in which
students can socialize.
Students should attempt to socialize within their cohort, and become involved in
both the friendship and communication networks that are available (Scott-Wedlock
2002). Even though students generally use social media for academic purposes,
they also use it for non-academic matters. Students should be encouraged to spend
more time on their social media interactions with academic issues rather than
non-academic matters (Munkaila and Iddrisu 2015). Analyses of Twitter commu-
nications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning
process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study pro-
vides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help
engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role
(Junco et al. n.d.).
2.3 Social Network and Non-academic Engagement
Snyder and Navarro reported in their 2015 study that social media use was
prevalent among student-athletes. Apparently, social media negatively impacted
academic engagement but positively impacted cocurricular engagement (Snyder
and Navarro 2015). It is also believed that students’ purposeful engagement
in non-academic activities can enhance a sense of personal identity (Reason et al.
2006) and also prepare them for positive outcomes after graduation (Gayles and Hu
2009).
2.4 Purposeful Engagement and the Undergraduate

Student-Athlete Experience
Throughout college, undergraduate students experience intense, multifaceted psy-

chosocial, and personal development processes as they not only adjust to a new
environment but establish an enhanced sense of personal identity (Reason et al.
2006). Gayles and Hu (2009) suggest that purposeful college experiences not only
shape the students’ personal identities but prepare students for positive outcomes in
life after graduation. While the current literature posits college experience as crucial
for students to prepare and develop a sense of personal identity and engage across
campus, there has been a little exploration of how social media influence processes
of cocurricular engagement or identity development. In turn, contemporary student
affairs scholars and practitioners must consider the unique needs and experiences of
student-athletes at the Division I level.
3 Methodology
Undergraduate students were involved in responding to the self-administered

questionnaire distributed. It was carried out at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM),
Samarahan, and was specifically targeted to bachelor’s degree students. Prior to the
fieldwork, pilot tests were conducted among 15 undergraduate students to detect
omissions and errors of the instrument developed. Based on the responses,
Cronbach’s alpha reliability test for Part B and academic performance are within the
value of 0.749 and 0.885, respectively. However, Part A and non-academic
engagement are within the value of 0.453 and 0.581, respectively. Some of Part A
and non-academic engagement were reworded and added with some other items
suggested by the respondents. The corrected questionnaires were distributed among
undergraduate students in East Malaysia.
3.1 Sampling
The sampling method is in line with Krejcie and Morgan (1970). With a population
of N = 2400, the suggested sampling size based on the author is S = 331. The total
number of the population is based on (HEP, 2015) with the number of 2359
Students.
3.2 Instrumentation
Instrumentation was developed using sections of the questionnaire. It is divided

into Section A, which consists of nine items on respondents’ demographic profiles.
Section B, which is divided into Part A (8 items) and Part B (16 items), and uses
the Likert scale range from one to five. Section C consists of five items focused on
academic performance and seven items focused on non-academic engagement. As
mentioned before, Section B consists of Parts A and B. Part A concerns the fre-
quency of using 7 social network platforms during the pilot study. During the actual
survey, another social platform was added to Part A.
As to delineate the findings, the Pearson correlation was used to achieve all the
following objectives:
1. To determine the relationship between social network usage and academic
performance,
2. To identify the relationship between social network usage and non-academic
engagement,
3. To analyze the relationship between academic performance and non-academic
engagement.
In achieving the first objective, the study uses eight common social network
platforms to assess the dimensions of social networking. These items are Facebook,
Twitter, email, Telegram, YouTube, WhatApp, and blog. These items were sta-
tistically examined using the Pearson correlation. As to achieve the second
objective, these items were also correlated to non-academic engagement. Lastly, the
third objective was to correlate both dependent variables as to find the
relationship between them.
4.1 Demographic Analysis
The findings of frequency analyses emphasized nine key demographic variables

(refer to Table 1). In terms of gender distribution, 67% of the respondents were
male and 32.3% were female. The majority of the respondents were single;
93.4% of them were aged between 21 and 30 years old, 71% of them were Malay,
Table 1 Demographic analysis

Demographic Variables Frequency Percent
(N) (%)
Gender Male 107 32.3
Female 224 67.7
Marital status Single 309 93.4
Married 20 6.0
Others 2 0.6
Age 20 and below 18 5.4
21–30 309 93.4
41–50 4 1.2
Race Malay 235 71.0
Bidayuh 15 4.5
Iban 29 8.8
Others 52 15.7
Do you use social network? Yes 331 100
What is the main reason for you to use social Entertainment 105 31.7
network? Communication 104 42.3
Knowledge 68 20.5
Time killing 18 5.4
What influence you the most to use social Friend 241 72.8
network? Family 27 8.2
Sibling 22 6.6
Lecturer 15 4.5
Others 26 7.9
How long do you spend on social network in Less than 1 h 17 5.1
a day? 1–2 h 76 23.0
3–4 h 103 31.1
5–6 h 50 15.1
7 h and above 76 23.0
Others 9 2.7
What do you often get in your examination 2.0–2.5 17 5.1
(GPA)? 2.5–3.0 133 10.2
3.0–3.5 145 13.8
3.5–4.0 36 10.9
and 100%, or all 331 respondents, used social networking sites. 42.3% of the
respondents used this social network to communicate, 31% for entertainment only,
20.5% for knowledge purposes, and another 5.4% for killing time. Friends were
found out to be the highest social actors to influence the use of social network
(72.8%). The respondents will spend most of their time on these social networks;
31% will spend 3–4 h. The frequency of their CGPA ranged between 3.0 and 3.5
with 43.8% and another 40.2% ranging between 2.5 and 3.0.
4.2 Reliability Analysis
The data, both from the pilot study and the actual survey were subjected to relia-
bility analyses using Cronbach’s alpha. The results were good since all of the
values, ranged between 0.581 and 0.92, except for the Cronbach’s alpha value in
Part A (social network) during the pilot study. The actual survey showed reliable
findings and was better improved. The result was assessed using the rule-of-thumb
suggested by Nunnally (1978) and Hair et al. (2006). This can be seen in Table 2
(table on reliability).
4.3 Relationship Between Social Network and Academic

Performance
As mentioned earlier, the Pearson correlation was used to achieve this objective. It
was found that there was a significant relationship between the two. A strong
positive relationship was found with the Pearson correlation (0.62) between the
social network (Part A) and academic performance (refer to Table 3). This result
indicates a high frequency of using social network positively correlated to academic
performance. Whereas for Part B, it was found that social network is strongly
correlated to academic performance. A significant relationship with 0.671 corre-
lation value indicates a strong relationship between the two (refer Table 4).
Table 2 Reliability analysis

Dimensions No. of items Cronbach’s alpha
Pilot study Actual study Pilot study Actual data
Social network 7 8 0.453 0.850
Part A
Part B 12 16 0.749 0.926
Academic performance 5 5 0.885 0.902
Non-academic performance 3 7 0.581 0.888
Table 3 Correlations between social network (Part A) and academic performance

Social network (Part A) Academic performance
Person correlation 0.620
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000
N 331
Table 4 Correlations between social network (Part B) and academic performance

Social network (Part B) Academic performance
N 1
4.4 Relationship Between Social Network

and Non-academic Engagement
As for the second objective, it was found that a moderate positive relationship
between the social networks (Part A) with non-academic engagement. It is sig-
nificant at 0.00 (2-tailed), with 0.593 correlation strength (refer Table 5). Close
item-to-items analyses show a positive correlation, ranging from moderate to strong
correlation. Whereas for Part B, it is also found that there is a significant rela-
tionship between social network and non-academic engagement, but with a strong
correlation of 0.603 value for Pearson correlation (refer Table 6).
Correlation analyses were also carried out to find out the correlation among all
the independent variable (Section B, part A) and dependent variables (refer to
Fig. 1). The range of correlation was found to be moderate for correlations among
items (social platforms), such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, email, Telegram,
and YouTube toward academic performance.
Table 5 Correlations between social network (Part A) with non-academic engagement

Social network (Part A) Non-academic engagement
N 331
Table 6 Correlations between social network (Part B) with non-academic engagement

Social network (Part B) Non-academic engagement
N 331
Facebook
0.423
0.526
Twitter
0.766 0.501
Whatsapp Academic
0.471
0.403
0.526
Email
0.423
0.549
Telegram
0.479
0.221
Instagram 0.131
Non-
Academic
0.335 0.355
Blog
0.438 0.360
YouTube All correlations were significant at 0.00 level (2-tailed)**
Fig. 1 Correlation among items toward academic and non-academic engagement
Table 7 Correlation among items toward academic and non-academic engagement

Social platform Correlation (Pearson)
Academic performance Non-academic engagement
Facebook 0.526** 0.423**
Twitter 0.501** 0.766**
WhatsApp 0.471** 0.403**
email 0.526** 0.526**
Telegram 0.549** 0.479**
Instagram 0.221** 0.131**
Blog 0.335** 0.355**
YouTube 0.438** 0.360**
**All correlations were significant at 0.00 level (2-tailed)
Table 8 Correlation between academic performance with non-academic engagement

Social network (Part A) Non-academic engagement
N 331
As for Instagram and blog, they had a weak correlation towards academic
performance. All the items were also correlated towards non-academic engagement
and resulted in strong correlations, such as Twitter. A moderate correlation was
found for items, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, email, and Telegram. Correlations
between those items were found to be weak for three items; namely, Instagram,
Blog, and YouTube (Table 7).
4.5 Relationship Between Academic Performance

and Non-academic Engagement
As for the third objective, the correlation between academic performance and
non-academic engagement was found out to be moderate. It is significant with 0.00
value and 0.568 correlation value (Table 8).
5 Conclusion
It is found that social network had significant positive correlations with both
non-academic and academic performance. Besides, it is found that non-academic
engagement had a significant positive correlation with academic performance
among students. Thus, it is high time for higher institution management to
encourage staff and students to engage with social media, as it helps to enhance
academic performance and non-academic engagement. In addition, students should
be encouraged to engage in non-academic programs and activities, and this can lead
to academic performance improvement.
References
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lurking, modeling and community building. Internet High Educ 13(4):188–196
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best-college-social-media/
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outcomes among division i student athletes. J Higher Educ 80(3):315–333
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Part V
Economics
Chapter 11
Minimum Wages: Helping or Hurting
Producers?
Nor Aziah Abd Kadir, Adibah Hussin and Hasnizawati Hashim
Abstract The Government of Malaysia has announced a minimum wage of

RM900 per month for the peninsula and RM800 per month for East Malaysia in
2010. However, the government again announced the minimum wages are going to
increase effectively in July 2016 to RM1000 (11%) for peninsular and RM920
(15%) for East Malaysia. It is expected to boost productivity and a more equitable
distribution of income between capital owners and workers. Arguments arise
among those against the increment in the minimum wage that it interferes with
market forces in wage setting, increases business costs and lead to lower profit
earned by firms. Thus, this paper tries to investigate the relationship between the
minimum wage and profitability of a firm. Does this wage policy hurt the producer
so much or not? Using the time series data, the finding shows that the wages were
significantly raised and firm profitability was significantly reduced by the minimum
wage. However, there were no significant effects on labour demand. If the rise in
productivity growth matches the rise in wages, this will result in a lower cost of
production and companies may absorb the rise in unit labour cost.
Keywords Inflation Minimum wage Productivity Production cost
N. A. A. Kadir (&) H. Hashim

Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Pahang,
Raub, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: aziahkadir@pahang.uitm.edu.my
H. Hashim
e-mail: hasnizawati@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. Hussin
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Pahang,
Bandar Tun Abdul Razak, Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: dibah575@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_11
116 N. A. A. Kadir et al.
1 Introduction
The debate about the effects of a minimum wage in the economy has for long been
characterized by intense controversy. Many empirical evidence show different
findings when it relates to employment. Neumark and Nizalova (2007) have
reviewed comprehensively on these issues. Some have found negative impacts
(Dube et al. 2010; Neumark and Nizalova 2007; no impact et al. 2011; Bhorat et al.
2014) and sometimes positive impact and even mixed impact of minimum wages
and labour employment (Commission 2013; Ni et al. 2011). In Malaysia, the
minimum wage order was announced in 2010, but fully effected in 2014, where
RM900 per month for peninsular and RM800 in East Malaysia. Then again, the
government announced to increase the minimum wage to RM1000 for peninsular
and RM920 for East Malaysia effectively in July 2016. The issue of firm readiness
has been discussed by Yuen (2013), where small firms were still not ready and
extremely object the implementation of the minimum wage. But not for workers
where it was most welcomed, especially for foreign workers with much lower
wages scale. With this firms’ limitation, it may reflect their profitability and how
they want to survive in the economy. Thus, this paper tries to investigate the
possibility of firm profit margins and is reduced when minimum wages are
implemented. Using the no behavioural response model, the report evidence shows
wages were significantly raised and firm profitability was significantly reduced by
the minimum wage. However, there were no significant effects on labour demand.
The scope of this paper is only limited to SME firm in Malaysia which was
registered under Securities Commission Malaysia.
2 Literature Review
The implementation of minimum wage in Malaysia has created biggest objection

among small firms. They are not yet ready to bear the higher labour cost (Yuen
2013). Additionally, with the current economic conditions (falling oil prices and
weakening ringgit), Razali (2016) wrote that the Executive Director of Malaysian
Employers Federation (MEF) urged the government to reconsider for minimum
wage implementation. It is because many big corporations had reported a reduction
in profits of between 35 and 40% in their financial reports and restructuring their
workforce. The total retrenchment in 2015 amounted to 26,000 workers. Thus, it
shows that the minimum wage policy may contribute negatively to the cost of doing
business, investments and job creation, especially to small firms such as the SMEs.
The retrenchment of workers may affect the unskilled workers because they have
less experience, skills and less independent judgment. For some firms, hiring the
unskilled workers will increase the labour cost based on the compensation that
workers received (Carneiro 2000). The total compensation for unskilled workers
usually comprises of basic salary, fringe benefits and on-job training provided by
11 Minimum Wages: Helping or Hurting Producers? 117
the employer. In this case, firms that are unable to survive, they will adjust the total
compensation by reducing the fringe benefits and on-job training. However, their
workers will be less productive and effective as the benefits and training is being
cutoff. Thus, profit will also be affected to reduce. However, this situation maybe
better in future, as extra times are needed by these workers to reach full productivity
(Blatter et al. 2012).
The minimum wage order is expected to redistribute income among the resi-
dents, increase the standard of living of the workers and reduced poverty. Increase
in wages may increase employees’ motivation to work harder and contribute to the
firm productivity. According to McLaughlin, he found that minimum wage may
attract high productivity in Denmark, New Zealand and Ireland. The employer will
invest more in training to offset the cost of labour. Therefore, these less-skilled
workers will become more productive and contribute back to the companies (Riley
and Bondibene 2015).This conclusion comes to an agreement by Croucher and
Rizov (2012) who found the positive relationship between workers’ productivity
and minimum wage when it has been introduced in U.K.’s low-paying sectors.
In U.K., the national minimum wage has operated as one approach of efficiency
wage in the case of residential care homes sector (Georgiadis 2013). This minimum
wage will increase motivation and lead to productive and efficient worker.
Therefore, less supervision is needed.
On the other hand, Pacheco and Naiker (2006) found that there is no significant
impact of wage on profits. The study has been conducted in New Zealand in four
industries; retail, textile and apparel, accommodation, cafes and restaurants and
agriculture, forestry and fishing. The authors believed that the employers passed the
increase in wage cost to the consumer by charging a higher price or the possibility
that the minimum wage policies are not effective in New Zealand case.
3 Methodology
3.1 Minimum Wages and Profitability
Referring to Ashenfelter and Smith (1979), Draca et al. (2011) and Mandel (1969),
they consider a profit-maximizing firm employing a quantity of labour (L) at wage
rate (W), using other factors at price R and selling its output at price P. Profits are
maximized at p(W, R, P) given the values of W, R and P. The first derivative of
@p @2 p @L
profit is @W ¼ LðW; R; PÞ while the second derivative is @W 2 ¼ @W . However,
as minimum wage (M) is introduced, the profit will be reduced as

Dp ¼ pðW; R; PÞ pðM; R; PÞ. Therefore,
1 @L
Dp ffi LDW þ ðDWÞ2 ð1Þ
2 @W
where DW ¼ M W. The right-hand side of Eq. (1) taking (LDW) as wage bills
@L
and (12 @W ðDW Þ2 ) as labour demand effects on profits.
For the analysis purpose, the time series data on profitability and wage are used.
Both are represented in quarterly data published by the World Development
Indicators. All variables were considered in logarithmic form. To determine the
appropriate lag length of the tests, we used the Schwarz BIC model selection
criterion as recommended by Stock (1994).
3.2 The Cointegration Test
The time series data from January 2000 to December 2015 indicates the variation in
firm’s profitability before and after the introduction of minimum wage to show the
effect of wage increment among SME firms. The unit root test was used using the
Augmented Dickey–Fuller test (ADF) and Philips–Perron test (PP). This is to avoid
the problem of the spurious regression and the failure to account for the appropriate
dynamic specification (Newbold and Granger 1974; Phillips et al. 2014). Then, the
cointegration analysis was used to investigate the existence of any long-run equi-
librium among the variables. The results of the tests allowed the rejection of the null
hypothesis of nonstationarity.
X
m
DYit ¼ a1 þ b1t þ dYt1 þ hi DYti þ et ð2Þ
i¼1
where Yt is the variable under investigation (ln profitt and ln waget), Δ is the
differencing operator, {a, β1t, δ, θ, … άm} is the set of parameters to be estimated,
εt is a random error term and where ΔYt−1 = (ΔYt−1 − ΔYt−2), ΔYt−2 =
(ΔYt−2 − ΔYt−3), etc. The null hypothesis of unit root tests is as follows
1. H0: δ = 0 (Yt is nonstationary or there is unit root)
2. H1: δ < 0 (Yt is stationary or non-unit root)
If the t-test statistics are less than the critical value, the null hypothesis can be
rejected, meaning that the variable to be estimated is stationary and normally after
taking first differences, the variable will be stationary. After that, from the unit root
test and the variables are individually I (1), meaning that they have a stochastic
trend, thus their linear combination is I (0). Therefore, these variables are cointe-
grated or have long-run equilibrium.
For this analysis, empirical studies employed the Engle and Granger (1987) and
Johansen and Juselius (1990) methods. Johansen and Juselius test applies the
maximum likelihood estimation of the VAR model to determine the number of
cointegrating vectors. Trace test statistics and max-eigenvalue statistics were used
to determine the number (r) of cointegrating vectors.
Therefore, for this study, the cointegration analysis was used to investigate the
long-run equilibrium between the variables using the maximum likelihood
approach of the Johansen and Juselius method. The null hypothesis for cointe-
gration test is; there is no cointegration among variables. If trace statistics exceed
the critical value, the null hypothesis will be rejected. This would mean that
cointegration exists between variables. For this cointegration test, the proper lag
profile was determined based on the Schwarz Information Criterion (SC) procedure.
The econometric analysis will be carried out in order to look at the relationship
between firm’s profitability and minimum wage. The basic model is
ln pt ¼ ln Waget þ ln Labort þ lt ð3Þ
where
ln pt Natural log of firm’s profitability
ln Waget Natural log minimum wage provide as wage bills
ln Labort labour demand
µt Stochastic error term
The result and discussion of the analysis are presented in the Tables 1, 2 and 3.
For this analysis, the null hypothesis, Ho = has a unit root test (nonstationary)
cannot be rejected at the level of variables (profit, wage and labour demand)
because the ADF and PP do not exceed the critical values in absolute terms.
However, at the first difference, the null hypothesis can be rejected. Therefore, the
ADF and PP test results for the first difference indicate that all variables are I (1).
Meaning that, after the first difference of all variables, there is no evidence of the
existence of unit roots in either the ADF or the PP tests.
Test was also undertaken to identify the presence of cointegration with VECM
technique. The result for cointegration test is shown in Table 2. The table presents
the Johansen cointegration test at selected lag levels from the minimum of Schwarz
criterion (SC), which is at lag 4. The null hypotheses of non-cointegration are
Table 1 Stationarity test

Variables Lnπ Δln π ln Wage Δln ln Δln
Wage Labour Labour
ADF 1.356 (1) 3.889 (0) 2.004 (0) 6.825 (1) 1.356 (0) 3.955 (1)
statistics
PP statistics 2.985 (3) 4.821 (1) 0.852 (2) 7.114 (2) 2.105 (4) 5.325 (3)
Notes The ADF and PP critical values at 5%, respectively, are 3.521 and 3.519. The lag lengths for
ADF and PP are given within parentheses
Table 2 Cointegration test

Vector (ln π, ln Wage and ln Labour) Results
Ho Hi Eigenvalue Trace Max-Eigen 5% critical 5% critical
statistic statistic value value
(trace) (max-Eigen)
r=0 r>0 0.50261 0.651005 41.75181 28.79157* 21.51462* Trace test and
r≤1 r>1 0.61518 0.452011 16.32454 25.42571* 14.42517* max-eigenvalue
test indicates two
r≤2 r>2 0.52141 0.041005 0.191352 4.851466* 3.214754*
(2) cointegrating
equation(s) at the
5% level
Notes r indicates the number of cointegrating vectors. Critical values are taken from Johansen and Julius (1990).
*Denotes rejection of the hypothesis at 5% significance level
Table 3 Alternative long-run estimates

GETS EG ARDL FMOLS VECM GH
Constant 3.728 4.292 4.755 4.817 – 1.067
(3.53)* (6.88)* (5.33)* (7.88)* (2.06)*
ln Wage −0.751 −0.752 −0.521 −0.788 −0.717 −0.586
(1.80) (1.80)* (1.80)* (1.09) (1.12)* (1.37)*
ln 0.502 0.573 0.7441 0.614 0.552 0.521
Labour (2.05)* (3.41)* (3.44)* (4.19)* (2.11)* (2.90)*
Notes In all cases, the dependent variable is firm profitability. The absolute t-ratios are given in the
parentheses
҅–҆ indicates estimate not available
*Denotes significance at 5% level
rejected, suggesting that at least one cointegrating vector exists. Table 2 shows both
the trace statistic and the max-Eigen statistic had detected two cointegrating rela-
tionships at the 5% significant level.
Table 3 shows the long-run elasticities of the impact of increasing minimum
wages and labour demand on firm profitability. Six techniques (GETS, EG, ARDL,
FMOLS, VECM, and GH) were used to make a comparison and to identify the
robustness. Based on the result in Table 3, it shows some fairly robust in the six
techniques. In all cases, minimum wages are found to have a negative impact on
firm profitability. This result is statistically significant at 95% level of significance
according to all six estimators. It means that as 1% increase in minimum wage, the
profit will decrease by 0.440016%. The wage elasticity estimates range between 0.5
and 0.8% implying that a 1% increase in wages leads to a decrease in firm profit
between 0.5 and 0.8%. These empirical results support the hypothesis that a neg-
ative relationship exists between minimum wages and firm profitability even though
there are also some studies indicates the relationship is positive.
The result of the effect of firm profitability and labour demand also shows in
Table 3. It shows a positive relationship. This supports the theory of positive
relationship between the variables.
5 Conclusion
This paper is simply tested on the impact of firm profitability when minimum wages
are imposed (and yet increase it to a certain level) and labour demand to firm’s
profitability. The finding shows that the increase in wages and firm profitability
were negatively related. These are consistent with the no behavioural response
model, where wage gains from minimum wages map into profit reductions while
labour demand and firm’s profitability were positively related. There are, of course,
caveats in the result presented. It would be useful if the information on firms can be
categorized into the type of business. So that the analysis can broaden to search for
the reason of firm’s profit reduction.
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Econ Finance Manage Outlook, 1
Part VI
Education
Chapter 12
Student Learning Time: A Needs
Analysis for University Students’ Time
Management Skills
Asmidar Alias, Nur Asmaliza Mohd Noor, Norshariza Mohamad

Bhkari and Kamisah Ariffin
Abstract Managing time for academic responsibilities at the university level is

different from the secondary school level. At the secondary school level, learning
includes explanation in detail by the teacher and is fully guided. In addition, time
allocation for the completion of an exercise is described, scheduled, reminded and
monitored. At the university level, on the other hand, learning mostly takes place in
lecture mode, which includes superficial information and requires students’
self-learning to explore the topic(s) further. The researchers have observed that
university students often complain about running out of time when they are
assigned multiple assignments, and thus feel frustrated for not being able to submit
them before the deadlines. This chapter reports a needs analysis survey regarding
time management skills among students in a local university. Using self-evaluated
questionnaire as a method of data collection, the findings indicate that most of the
respondents do need time management skills for their academic responsibilities.
The overall findings conclude that most students, regardless of their nature of study
and level of study programme need a proper guidance in managing their time
effectively. Such findings call for an intervention programme for time management
skills to be drawn in assisting students in managing learning time on their own.
Keywords Needs analysis Learning time SLT Time management
A. Alias (&) N. A. Mohd Noor N. Mohamad Bhkari

Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pahang,
Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: asmidar@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. A. Mohd Noor
e-mail: asmaliza@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. Mohamad Bhkari
e-mail: nshariza@pahang.uitm.edu.my
K. Ariffin
Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pahang,
e-mail: kamisah@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_12
126 A. Alias et al.
1 Introduction
University learning is different from school learning. In school, learning is mostly

guided and monitored by teachers. However, in the university, students are
responsible for their own learning and time management. In addition, students need
to be aware of how to use their own time to organize and prioritize their studies
amidst the competing activities. Such competing demands from other important
activities and the freedom of choice on how they spend their time can influence
students’ time management. Students who can manage their time well will use time
efficiently and are able to distance themselves from distractions that occur around
them. On the other hand, those who cannot budget their time and are not capable of
keeping a schedule of priorities may easily fall into bad practices of studying last
minute, and even feel stressed. This gives rise to the importance of time manage-
ment skills for students.
Although most universities offer time management courses for students, the
content of the courses usually are too generic. The content mostly covers on
goal-setting, prioritizing goals managing time and managing stress. This chapter, on
the other hand, focuses on the needs of time management skills for academic
responsibilities among students. Specifically, it attempts to disclose the needs of the
learning time management required by individual students and suggests an inter-
vention programme that can assist students in managing their learning time
effectively.
1.1 Time Management in Learning
Time management is referred to as a set of skills of self-management with an

explicit focus on time in deciding what to do, on how much time to allocate to
activities, on how activities can be done more efficiently, and on when the time is
right for particular activities (Merccanlioglu 2010). In addition, Britton and Tesser
(1991) add measured time management variables in the context of other variables
such as self-monitoring, self-judgement and alertness.
In the context of learning, Nasrullah and Khan (2015) put forward that time
management plays a vital role in improving student’s academic performance and
achievements. Each and every student should have time management ability which
includes setting goals and priorities, using time management mechanism and being
organized in using time (Nasrullah and Khan 2015). Along the same line, Miqdadi
et al. (2014) assert that time management is extremely important, especially when it
comes to university students because it will boost their grades and enhance their
productivity. Consequently, there is a strong correlation between graduating on
time (academic performance) and ability to manage time as reported by many
researchers (Miqdadi et al. 2014; Newbold et al. 2010; Kearns and Gardiner 2007).
12 Student Learning Time: A Needs Analysis for University … 127
However, in order to have good time management skills, students require

self-motivation, performance, ability and motivation (Claessens et al. 2005).
Studies have shown correlations between students’ time management skills and the
effects on their life and academic performance (Nasrullah and Khan 2015).
Similarly, other researchers found that time management is highly related to aca-
demic performance (Miqdadi et al. 2014; Britton and Tesser 1991; Zulouf and
Gortner 1999). It is found that students’ lacking time management skills is due to
the change in nature from their secondary school to university learning styles. Back
in school, students were given tasks with tight monitoring schedule by teachers and
parents. In the university, on the other hand, students are almost free from the
teachers’ and parents’ ‘intensive care’ except for the deadlines.
A time management intervention programme carried out by Burrus et al. (2013)
signifies that time management skills should be mastered by students to enhance
their academic responsibilities. The programme included training in skills such as
goal-setting, scheduling, prioritizing tasks, self-monitoring, problem-solving tech-
niques, delegating and negotiating, as well as conflict resolution and additional
training in perceived control of time. The findings also indicate that the group
exposed with time management demonstrations and workshops have significantly
greater improvement than the controlled group for outcomes such as stress, anxiety,
depression and knowledge of time management strategies (Burrus et al. 2013).
1.2 Student Learning Time
Student Learning Time (SLT) is a mechanism used to determine students’ learning

time based on the credit units for a course in university. For one credit unit, students
are expected to spend about 40 h in a span of 14 weeks inclusive of all face-to-face
activities with lecturer(s). Simple calculation for SLT is as follows: for one credit
unit, a lecturer(s) is expected to spend 14 h of face-to-face activities in 14 weeks.
The remaining 26 h is for students’ own learning time. The following table shows
the SLT calculation of an engineering course at the diploma level with all required
activities.
As can be seen from Table 1, the Basic Fluid Mechanics course carries three
credit hours with four contact hours a week. For 14 weeks, students will spend
120 h of learning time, including lecture, tutorial, quiz, assignment and test hours of
face-to-face activities with the lecturers. Based on the calculation in Table 1, the
remaining 64 h are for the students’ own learning time. However, these 64 h have
never been accounted for. Do students really spend the time learning?
Another question that can be posed is, do students have the knowledge of SLT
calculation for all of the courses taken in a semester, as well as for the entire academic
programme they are enrolled in? It is well meaning to note that most students’ are
exposed to and well-versed with the correlation of credit unit with Grade Point
Average (GPA) and Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA). However, the same
cannot be said for SLT. Students also need to know the significance of credit units of
128 A. Alias et al.
Table 1 Sample SLT calculation for the basic fluid mechanic course (FKA 2013)
Activities Contact hour (s) Week/frequency Total contact hours
Lecture 3 14 42
Tutorial 1 11 11
Quiz 0.25 3 0.75
Assignment 0.25 1 0.25
Test 2 1 2
Face-to-face activities 56
Total credit hours (Three credit unit 40) 120
Student’s own learning time (120–56) 64
a certain course with the amount of time that should be spent in learning the course.
Thus, it is crucial to gauge information regarding students’ existing knowledge on
time management and the skills needed for managing their learning before any
intervention programme can be drawn and implemented.
2 Methodology
This chapter investigates the needs of time management skills for academic
responsibilities among students at the university level. Specifically, it seeks to find
(a) student’s understanding on the significance of credit units of a course and
learning time, (b) students’ practice of effective time management and (c) the need
for time management skills in learning among students. The findings can lay the
groundwork for the design of an effective intervention programme to assist students
in their time management in learning.
Thus, these objectives can be expressed in the following research questions:
1. Do students understand the significance of credit units of a course and learning
time?
2. Do students practice effective time management?
3. Do students need the time management skills in learning?
In this study, 336 respondents from various faculties and programmes of study in
a public university were chosen as the sample representing the undergraduate
population in that particular university. Table 2 shows the distribution of the
respondents based on the demographic data. Number of respondents vary from
Social Science and Science and Technology based on students intake during survey
was conducted.
A set of questionnaire were designed to determine the skills needed by the
respondents and a pilot study was done to minimize any potential of misunderstanding
among the respondents. The survey questionnaire method was used as a means of data
collection to determine the skills needed by the respondents. The questionnaire
contains three sections, (A) demographic background, (B) self-evaluation questions
Table 2 Distribution of Faculty Social Sciences Science and

respondents technology
Level Male Female Male Female
Diploma 5 36 119 116
Degree 17 20 12 11
on the respondents’ knowledge on the significance of credit units of a course and

learning time and (C) the respondents’ own time management practice on their aca-
demic responsibilities.
Section A mostly involves open-ended questions, which aims at obtaining stu-
dents’ background information. For this part, the questionnaire adopted both
open-ended and close-ended questions.
Section B gauges information on the students’ knowledge and understanding on
the significance of credit units and learning time. The students were asked to rate
their habitual practice regarding credit units and time allocations for each credit
unit. The respondents were asked to rate each question on a three-point Likert scale
ranging from ‘never’, ‘sometimes’, to ‘always’. The researchers decided to use only
three-point scale compared to the usual four- or five-point scale as the main
objective of the survey was to find out the respondents’ time management practice
in learning. Thus, the point for ‘sometimes’ in this study also covers the ‘often’ and
‘occasionally’ points. In addition, the students were also asked to rate their
awareness and knowledge on the student learning time for each credit unit of a
course. Three-point Likert scale ranging from ‘very much aware’, ‘somehow aware’
and ‘not aware at all’ for the former, and ‘know’, ‘somehow know’ and ‘do not
know at all’ for the latter was used.
Section C involves questions that could disclose whether the respondents have
been practicing effective time management, or otherwise. A three-point Likert scale
ranging from ‘never’, ‘sometimes’ to ‘always’ was used. The data were treated
quantitatively, involving simple frequency counts of the items in Sections B and C
of the questionnaires. The responses from each item were tabulated according to the
respective columns of the scale. The composite score was determined by using total
score in SPSS. The frequency statistics was then used to get the total mean score of
the respondents’ time management practice. The time management practice was
classified into three levels based on the mean score as shown in Table 3.
Based on the classification, if a respondent’s score falls under the ‘low’ and
‘average’ levels of awareness, knowledge and time management practice, s/he can
be considered as in need of effective time management skills. On the other hand,
those who fall under the ‘high’ level category, the academic advisors may suggest a
more comprehensive and systematic intervention programme that can enhance their
time management practice for them.
130 A. Alias et al.
Table 3 Mean score and level of awareness, knowledge and time management practice
Total mean score Levels of awareness, knowledge and time management practice
0.00–0.99 Low
1.00–1.99 Average
2.00–3.00 High
3.1 The Significance of Credit Units of a Course

and Learning Time
In general, the analysis of the data indicates that most of the respondents did not
realize the significance of credit units of a course and learning time. The data show
that the score averages between 1.8 and 2.3 between the groups of respondents with
the Social Sciences Diploma group (SSDip) scoring the lowest and the Science and
Technology (STDeg) group scoring the highest. The SSDip, Science and
Technology Diploma group (STDip) and Social Sciences Degree (SSDeg) groups
only had an average level of awareness, knowledge and time management practices
(1.8, 1.9 and 1.9). The Science and Technology Degree (STDeg) group’s, on the
other hand, scored the highest with a mean score of 2.3. This gives an indication
that the nature of the study and the level of maturity can influence the respondents
awareness of the significance of credit units and learning time for a course. Table 4
shows the detailed analysis.
Question 1 gauges information on the students’ awareness of the importance of
credit units of a subject. The students were asked whether they listed all the subjects
registered for and the credit units for each every semester. In general, all of the
students show high level of awareness on the importance of a subject’s credit units.
The degree level students show higher level of awareness compared to the diploma
level students. The analysis shows that the STDeg group scored the highest mean of
2.5 while the SSDeg group scored slightly lower at 2.3. Both the STDip and SSDip
scored at the bottom high level of 2.2 mean score. One of the reasons for such level
of awareness is probably due to the students’ exposure and familiarity to credit unit
calculation for each subject and its significance. Usually, at the beginning of the
semester, students are required to report to their academic advisors the subjects and
the credit units that they had registered for that particular semester. Thus, all stu-
dents, especially those at the degree level (having gone through the system at the
diploma level), should be aware of the credit units of each subject.
Question 2 probes on students’ practice on the calculation of time allocation for
each subject. The analysis shows that the diploma level students only had an
average level of practice on this aspect with the mean scores of 1.7 and 1.8 for
STDip and SSDip groups, respectively. However, although both STDeg and SSDeg
Table 4 Students understanding on the significance of credit units of a course and learning time
Question Mean score
Diploma Degree
Social Science and Social Science and
Sciences technology Sciences technology
(SSDip) (STDip) (SSDeg) (STDeg)
1. Do you list the subjects and credits 2.2 2.2 2.3 2.5
for registered every semester?
2. Have you calculated the time 1.7 1.8 2.0 2.4
allocation needed to study for each
subject taken in this semester?
3. Are you aware that each subject has a 2.4 2.5 2.1 2.9
special calculation of hours of study?
4. Do you know how to calculate 0.9 0.9 1.2 1.5
student learning time (SLT) based on
credit unit given to every courses?
Total 1.8 1.9 1.9 2.3
students scored a high level of practice, the latter group actually only scored at the
bottom high level of practice with only 2.00 mean score compared to the former
group who scored 2.4. Such findings indicate that although all the students realized
the importance of a subject’s credit unit, the majority of them did not practice
calculating the amount of time that should be spent on each subject according to its
credit units.
Since the majority of the respondents did not practice the time allocation cal-
culation for each subject, Question 3 looks into their awareness of the different time
allocation for study for different subjects. The data indicate that all of the students
had a high level of awareness with the STDeg group scoring the highest at 2.9.
Again, the SSDeg group only scored at the bottom high level of awareness with
only 2.1 mean score. The STDip and SSDip groups’ scores were more or less at the
same level, which were 2.5 and 2.4, respectively. The results show that more
attention should be given especially to the SSDeg group as their score was not as
encouraging as their counterparts’, i.e. the STDeg group’s, both in practice and
awareness of the time allocation calculation for each subject.
The students’ response for Question 4 is very important as it gave a strong
indication of the need for time management skills for their academic responsibili-
ties. Both SSDip and STDip groups had a low mean score of 0.9 while the SSDeg
and STDeg groups’ mean score was only at the bottom average level of 1.2 and 1.5,
respectively. Such scores reveal that there was a high possibility that they did not
calculate the amount of time that should be spent on the subject because they did
not know how to do it.
132 A. Alias et al.
3.2 Effective Time Management Practice
In general, the data reveal that all groups examined scored only at the bottom high
level of effective management practice with a mean score ranging from 2.2 to 2.4.
The SSDip and STDip groups scored the same, 2.2. The STDeg group scored
higher than the SSDeg group where the former scored 2.4 compared to the latter
who only scored 2.2 (which was almost the same score as the diploma groups).
Table 5 shows the detailed analysis for each question.
Based on the scores for each of the groups for each of the questions, it can be
inferred that all of the groups examined did not really practice an effective time
management skills. The scores of each group were more or less the same except for
the STDeg group’s which was slightly higher.
Questions 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 were designed to determine students’ time manage-
ment and planning skills in dealing with academic activities such as assignments,
projects, quiz and others. All the groups’ score was at the bottom high level of
effective time management. Only the STDeg group shows a slightly higher score
compared to the others, indicating that this group had a higher level of awareness in
planning and managing their academic responsibilities. The SSDip group needs to
be given attention as the group scored the lowest level of effective time manage-
ment in planning and managing their academic tasks.
It is also important to know whether the students had a well balanced lifestyle
that they also took part in social and recreational activities besides studying.
Table 5 Students’ effective management practice

Question Mean score
Diploma Degree
Social Science and Social Science and
Sciences technology Sciences technology
(SSDip) (STDip) (SSDeg) (STDeg)
5. Do you have a timetable for 2.0 2.0 2.1 2.5
studying for exams?
6. Do you list the major tasks at the 1.9 2.0 2.0 2.3
beginning of each semester?
7. Do you list down all the 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.6
assignments in your main
planning each semester?
8. Do you complete your 2.2 2.3 2.3 2.4
assignments before doing your
revision?
9. Do you do assignments of your 2.2 2.3 2.3 2.4
favourite subject first?
10. Do you take part in social and 2.3 2.1 2.2 2.4
recreational activities?
Total 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.4
The scores for Question 10 also indicate quite similar level of activeness among the
groups, i.e. at the bottom high level of activeness. The STDeg group, however,
scored slightly higher than the rest of the groups. Such scores indicate that the
students do need an intervention programme that can help them enhance their time
management skills for academic responsibilities without neglecting the social
activities.
3.3 Students’ Need for Time Management Skills
The analysis of the data has shown that these students needed a more compre-
hensive and systematic intervention programme which could enhance their time
management practice for their academic responsibilities. The data also inform some
incongruity in knowledge, awareness and practice. Students may know and be
aware of the significance between credit hours and learning time, they do not,
however, put them into practice. Time for learning is spent without any proper
guidelines. In other words, time for learning does not take into account the sig-
nificance of credit hours of a subject. Thus, the students may risk overspending time
for learning a subject with lesser credit hours that requires lesser learning time, or
spending less time learning a subject with more credit hours that requires more
learning time.
Although, students might have performed well without having to account for the
credit units, having proper and systematic guidelines to manage their learning time
may help them to perform better. A well-guided approach to manage their time for
learning can help them to self-monitor their time by prioritizing tasks, and antici-
pating conflicts and resolving them.
4 Conclusion
The high demand and expectations of tasks in the academic contexts require stu-
dents to have high competence and efficiency in delivering the tasks. Ability to
manage time effectively is one of the important skills needed to excel and survive.
However, such ability cannot be obtained in a vacuum—it should be nurtured and
developed. This chapter has shown that students do need time management skills in
dealing with their academic responsibilities in order to excel academically. The
findings have presented a legitimate reason for an intervention programme for time
management skills to be drawn in assisting students in managing learning time on
their own.
134 A. Alias et al.
References
Burrus J, Jackson J, Holtzman S, Roberts RD, Mandig T (2013) Examining the efficacy of a time
management intervention for high school students. ETS Research Report Series
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Psychol 83(3):405–410
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level students. Int J Bus Manage Stud 2(1), 2010 ISSN: 1309-8047 (Online)
Newbold JJ, Mehta SS, Forbus P (2010) A study of non-traditional and traditional students in
terms of their time management behaviors, stress factors and coping strategies. Proc Acad Educ
Leadersh 15(2):67–72
Kearns H, Gardiner M (2007) Is it time well spent? The relationship between time management
behaviors, perceived effectiveness and work-related moral and distress in a university context.
High Educ Res Dev 26(2):235–247
Miqdadi FZ, AL Momani AF, Shadid Masharqa MT, Elmousel NM (2014) The relationship
between time management and the academic performance of students from the Petroleum
Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE. ASEE 2014 Zone I Conference, April 3–5, 2014, University of
Bridgeport, Bridgpeort, CT, USA
Nasrullah S, Khan MS (2015) The impact of time management on the students’ academic
achievements. J Lit Lang Linguist, Int Peer-reviewed J 11, 2015 ISSN 2422-8435
Zulouf CR, Gortner AK (1999) Use of time and academic performance of college students: does
studying matter? American agricultural economics association annual meeting. Retrieved on
February 25, 2016 at http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/21547/1/sp99zu01.pdf
Chapter 13
Perceived Resources and Technology
Acceptance Model (PRATAM):
Students’ Acceptance of e-Learning
in Mathematics
Nor Habibah Tarmuji, Salimah Ahmad,

Nur Hidayah Masni Abdullah, Asyura Abd Nassir
and Aminatul Solehah Idris
Abstract The methods of teaching in class are also affected with the rise of
technology used in education. The lecturer or instructor may want to use innovative
ways of teaching to capture the students’ attention and to make the learning process
become more enjoyable and effective. Therefore, this study was carried out with the
objective to identify the factors that influence students’ behaviour of adopting
e-learning especially in the subject of mathematics based on Perceived Resources
and Technology Acceptance Model (PRATAM). The technology used includes
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and Learning Management System (LMS).
Questionnaires were used to collect data from one hundred and nine precalculus
students. Quantitative data were analyzed using structural equation modelling
(SEM). Perceived resource has a positive direct effect on perceived ease of use,
behavioural intention to use, attitude towards using and behavioural intention to
use. Perceived ease of use will have a positive direct effect on perceived usefulness;
attitude will have a positive direct effect on behavioural intention to use which will
N. H. Tarmuji S. Ahmad (&) N. H. M. Abdullah A. A. Nassir

Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti
Teknologi MARA Pahang, Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: salimah@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. H. Tarmuji
e-mail: norhabibah@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. H. M. Abdullah
e-mail: nurhidayah@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. A. Nassir
e-mail: asyuraan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. S. Idris
Centre of Foundation Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Cawangan Selangor, Kampus Dengkil, 43800 Dengkil, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: asolehah@puncakalam.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_13
136 N. H. Tarmuji et al.
have positive direct effect on actual system use. Perceived resource is the most
significant factor for students’ acceptance of e-learning in mathematics.
Keywords Blended learning E-learning PRATAM Mathematics
1 Introduction
Teaching and learning is an ongoing process that facing changes due to the rapid
growth in technology especially in the technology of online learning. Teaching with
the aid of technology is the complement of traditional method of teaching. Unlike
the traditional method, modern teaching and learning enable students to access the
course content material, discussing with instructors and classmates and submit their
assignment over the Internet. The use of technology such as Derive Computer
Algebra System (CAS) can also give automated feedback for students and reduce
the task of teachers from checking loads of students’ solutions (Jose et al. 2014).
However, it is a challenge for teachers to include an optimal mix of classroom,
e-learning and virtual learning activities in the learning process. Norngainy et al.
(2012) who compared traditional and e-learning in the process of learning mathe-
matics and statistics courses concluded that face to face lecturing is more important
and favourable by the students for the delivery of each topic.
Technology has great potential to entirely change the original pedagogies for
classroom practices especially in the field of mathematics education. Borba et al.
(2016) identified development trends in research of education technology are
mobile technologies, massive open online courses (MOOCs), digital libraries and
designing learning objects, collaborative learning using technology and teacher
training using blended learning. Mathematics and mathematics education were not
excused in designing MOOCs such as Mathematical massive open online courses
(M-MOOCs) done by Committee on Electronic Information and Communication
2014 and mathematics-for-all MOOC (M4A-MOOC) by Gadanidis (2013).
A lot of money was invested to train the educators as well as to set up the
environment and technology friendly infrastructure that provide effectiveness in
e-learning. For example, UiTM e-learning Centre was established in 2005 (Endut
et al. 2012) and initiated at UiTM Pahang in 2009 but previous study showed that
only 41.2% of mathematics and statistics lecturers apply blended learning in their
teaching and learning (Abdullah et al. 2016). This is a very small percentage
compared to the whole UiTM Pahang academics users.
Besides, all the campaign and training workshops to promote the usage of
e-learning portal, the acceptance of the students as the end user is also important to
be studied. Thus, it is important to investigate what factors influence students’
acceptance in using the technology so that the existing facility usage is optimized.
As a matter of fact, UiTM Pahang implemented blended learning where there is a
mix of e-learning with traditional teaching or combination of face to face with
13 Perceived Resources and Technology Acceptance Model … 137
online learning. Besides, MOOCs for precalculus course were newly implemented
to the undergraduate students.
An individual’s attitude predicts the person intention and the intention determine
the actual behaviour (Fathema et al. 2015). Technology Acceptance Model
(TAM) as proposed by Davis (1989) in his doctoral thesis suggested that Perceived
Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness (PU) are two major determinants of
users accepting new technology. As defined by Davis (1989), PEOU refers to the
degree at which a person believes that using the technology would be free from
effort while PU means the degree at which a person believes that using technology
would improve the quality of the job.
1.1 Objectives
This study was conducted to identify the factors that influence students’ behaviour
of adopting e-learning especially in the subject of mathematics based on TAM
(Davis 1989) and the extended TAM model by Cheng (2009) who proposed
Perceived Resources and Technology Acceptance Model (PRATAM).
2 Previous Research
Davis (1989) stated that Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and Perceived Usefulness
(PU) are two major determinants for users in accepting new technology. TAM
model is illustrated in Fig. 1.
According to Priyanka (2012), there were many acceptance models suggested by
researchers such as Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of Planned
Behaviour (TPB), new version of TAM (TAM2) and Unified Theory of Acceptance
and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Priyanka (2012) mentioned that researchers tried
Fig. 1 Technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis 1989)

to modify TAM by adding new variables such as construct compatibilities, play-

fulness, experience, self-efficacy, perceived risk, social influence and cognitive
absorption. Smeda et al. (2015) categorized the variables into extrinsic and intrinsic
variables. Extrinsic variables included accessibility, technological support and cost
while intrinsic variables included self-efficacy and social influence (Smeda et al.
2015). Surendran (2012) also stated that researchers used TAM not only to
understand e-learning systems but also in other areas such as online shopping
acceptance model, acceptance of e-commerce, online banking and mobile service
adoption.
Cheng (2009) introduced Perceived Resources(R) as the new variable. In his
study, Cheng (2009) defined perceived resources as the overall belief on having the
needed resources to use the WebCT online learning system. PRATAM by Cheng
(2009) proposed that PEOU has a direct effect on PU, while both PEOU and PU
have direct effects on attitude towards using. Perceived resources were statistically
significant determinant of PEOU and significant predictor of PU. While PU has a
positive direct effect on behavioural intention to use. Attitude towards using was
jointly determined by PEOU and PU where PU has greater influence compare to
PEOU. The hypothesis model of PRATAM by Cheng (2009) is presented in Fig. 2.
Park (2009) reported that e-learning self-efficacy and subjective norm have
significant effect towards e-learning and intention to use e-learning. He also men-
tioned that self-efficacy can be considered as intrinsic motivational factor and
subjective norm as extrinsic factor. In his research, self-efficacy was measured
using questions like level of confidence and skills to use the online system. On the
other hand, subjective norm was measured using questions like the importance of
e-learning and necessities of e-learning to prepare for future job. Park (2009) also
suggested the developer of e-learning to develop user-friendly e-learning even
though he found that perceived usefulness and ease of use had no direct effect on
university students’ intention to use e-learning.
Fig. 2 Hypothesis model of PRATAM (Cheng 2009)

3 Methodology
Due to time constraints, this study focused on students who enrolled in precalculus
course for one semester in UiTM Pahang. 109 respondents were randomly selected
and this sample is adequate as the minimum required sample size to analyze the
data with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) by Soper (2017). The online cal-
culator used is based on scientific literature by Cohen (1988) that offers detailed
guidance on how to use these variables to choose a minimum necessary sample size
for regression users aiming to achieve a given level of statistical power. Across the
social sciences, convention specifies 80% as the minimum acceptable power.
In the current study, students were provided with e-learning materials. The
e-learning materials can be viewed by the students through Massive Open Online
Course (MOOC) and Learning Management System (LMS). The e-learning
materials were developed using power point and some are from the module
available in MOOC. The existing educational website which is relevant to the topic
discussed in class was also used. Blended learning was implemented where the
students learned in combination method of traditional face to face and online
learning. At the end of the semester, the students were given online questionnaire to
be answered. The questionnaire was adopted from Cheng (2009) that has shown
reliability and validity evidence. The questionnaire consists of twenty-four items
divided into six categories, namely perceived usefulness (U), perceived ease of use
(EOU), perceived resources (R), attitude towards using (A), behavioural intention
to use (BI) and actual systems use (USE) based on model of PRATAM. All those
items were a brief statement followed by a seven-point Likert scale ranging from
‘extremely likely’ (7), ‘quite likely’ (6), ‘slightly likely’ (5), ‘neither’ (4), ‘slightly
unlikely’ (3), ‘quite unlikely’ (2), to ‘extremely unlikely’ (1) as well as ‘not
applicable’ (N/A).
The data collected were screened to make sure no missing data, no outliers and
normal for valid testing. Then, the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is used to
check the validity of the variables and compare the initial reliability of the scales.
The data was analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to measure
unidimensionality, validity and reliability of the latent construct and path analysis
of structural equation modelling (SEM) on the model fit and weights of constructs
of PRATAM. This study proposes ten hypotheses with significant results based on
PRATAM by Cheng (2009) as depicted in Fig. 2 to observe and measure the
student’s acceptance using e-learning:
H1. R will have a positive direct effect on U.
H2. R will have a positive direct effect on EOU.
H3. R will have a positive direct effect on A.
H4. R will have a positive direct effect on BI.
H5. EOU will have a positive direct effect on U.
H6. EOU will have a positive direct effect on A.
H7. U will have a positive direct effect on A.
H8. U will have a positive direct effect on BI.

H9. A will have a positive direct effect on BI.
H10. BI will have a positive direct effect on USE.
This study is participated by 91.7% female and 8.3% female students. Majority of
the students (89.9%) are 18 years old and the rest are 19 years old. The ques-
tionnaires for the six variables (i.e. perceived resources, perceived usefulness,
perceived ease of use, attitude towards using, behavioural intention to use and
actual system use) in the current research were constructed based on the previous
researchers’ questionnaire. An exploratory factor analysis was first conducted to
validate the structures and the measurement items for PRATAM. The Bartlett’s Test
of Sphericity is significant and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of sam-
pling adequacy test is 0.6 suggested that factor analysis could be assumed to
provide distinct and reliable factors. Factor analysis showed that the 24 items are
grouped into the same six variables of PRATAM. All items measured with
Cronbach’s alpha over 0.8 is considered as acceptable reliability and normally
distributed with skewness between −1 and 1. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis
(CFA) was performed for the measurement models of the latent construct to
establish their unidimensionality, validity and reliability prior to modelling the
structural model for analysis using SEM. The chi-square (1.894), root mean square
error of approximation (RMSEA = 0.091) and comparative fit index (CFI = 0.943)
as compared to Awang (2014) showed that the model fit of PRATAM.
According to Fig. 3, PRATAM was a good fit model (ChiSq = 460.966 (df =
240), p-value = 0.000, Cmin/df = 1.921, RMSEA = 0.092, CFI = 0.940) to the
total data set. Table 1 summarizes the result of hypothesis testing for the respected
path. Perceived resources (R) had positive direct effect on perceived ease of use
(EOU) and behavioural intention (BI) with β = 1.013 and β = 0.271 were signifi-
cant (p-value < 0.05) and supported the hypothesis (H2, H4). Perceived resources
(R) had positive direct effect on perceived usefulness (U) and attitude (A) with
β = 0.110 and β = 0.101 were not significant (p-value > 0.05) and the hypothesis
(H1, H3) were not supported. Perceived ease of use (EOU) had positive direct effect
on usefulness (U) with β = 0.643 were significant (p-value < 0.05) and the
hypothesis (H5) was supported. Meanwhile, perceived ease of use (EOU) has
positive direct effect on attitude (A) with β = 0.115 was not significant (p-
value > 0.05) and the hypothesis (H6) was not supported. Usefulness (U) has
positive direct effect on attitude (A) and behavioural intention (BI) with β = 0.831
and β = 0.380. Then, H7 and H8 were supported. Attitude (A) has positive direct
effect on behavioural intention (BI) with β = 0.0.337 was significant (p-value <
0.05) and the hypothesis (H9) was supported. Finally, behavioural intention
(BI) had positive direct effect on actual system use (USE) with β = 0.427 and the
Fig. 3 The regression weights for every path in the model
Table 1 The result of hypothesis testing for the respected path

Hypothesis statement Estimate p- Result on
Value hypothesis
H1: R will have a positive direct effect on U 0.110 0.242 Not supported
H2: R will have a positive direct effect on EOU 1.013 0.000 Supported
H3: R will have a positive direct effect on A 0.101 0.322 Not supported
H4: R will have a positive direct effect on BI 0.271 0.005 Supported
H5: EOU will have a positive direct effect on U 0.258 0.289 Not supported
H6: EOU will have a positive direct effect on A 0.643 0.000 Supported
H7: U will have a positive direct effect on A 0.831 0.000 Supported
H8: U will have a positive direct effect on BI 0.380 0.004 Supported
H9: A will have a positive direct effect on BI 0.337 0.000 Supported
H10: BI will have a positive direct effect on 0.427 0.000 Supported
USE
hypotheses (H10) was supported. Therefore, the strongest magnitude was found in
the relationship between perceived resources (R) towards perceived ease of use
(EOU). Perceived resources (R) is the most significant factor students’ acceptance
e-learning in mathematics.
This result that comes in line with Cheng (2009) confirmed that R has a positive
direct effect on EOU, U has a positive direct effect on A, U has a positive direct
effect on BI, EOU has a positive direct effect on U and A has a positive direct effect
on BI. Besides, R has a positive direct effect on U was not supported while com-
pared to Cheng (2009) where the hypothesis was only partially supported.
However, R had a positive direct effect on results also same as in the previous study
by Cheng (2009) and Mathieson et al. (2001). This study found the relation of EOU
and A where the hypothesis of EOU with positive direct effect on A was not
supported, the contradict result was shown by Cheng (2009) and Mathieson et al.
(2001). The result was shown to come in line with Mathieson et al. (2001), the
relation of R and BI where the hypothesis of R with positive direct effect on BI was
supported. Another difference in the result of this study is BI has a positive direct
effect on USE compared to Cheng (2009) where the hypothesis was only partially
supported.
Therefore, resource is the most important factor for students to accept the
technology in learning mathematics. MOOCs and LMS can be successfully
implemented where student has the resources to access without barriers when they
need to use it. Therefore, Mathieson et al. (2001) found that the availability of
adequate resources for an individual should have the hardware, software, expertise,
time and money that allows them to accept e-learning. Willett (2002) noticed that
various technical difficulties such as system incompatibilities, firewall, software
design, human error and insufficient knowledge could be barriers for students to
interact with and learn from the online learning system.
Somehow, negative attitude becomes a barrier to use the technology in learning
mathematics even though the students perceived easy about usefulness. This was
shown by weak correlation value between perceived ease of use and attitude
towards using. Other factors that may affect students’ usage of technology also need
to be considered such as organization support, syllabus requirement and method of
course assessment. Technology used to develop e-learning content is not as
important as the content itself. Educators should educate themselves to be a good
designer, content expert and competent to use technology to produce effective
e-learning materials (Hassan et al. 2012). The use of educational website must also
be encouraged by giving group project or assignments to improve the students’
learning. According to the research done by Seda (2014), the use of WebQuest
enabled the teachers to develop interest, curiosity and motivation among students.
In line with the vision towards excellence in education, UiTM should continue
training academic staffs to create an online course and encouraging the students to
use the facilities provided.
This study has its limitation and needs to be improved in future. Sample of this
study is considered very small because it was only taken from precalculus students.
Therefore, the result cannot be generalized for the whole mathematics courses.
Other variables that may affect the technology acceptance was not included such as
intrinsic variables. In accordance with Smeda et al. (2015), intrinsic variables such
as self-efficacy and social influence are better predictor of students’ acceptance of
e-book technology. The term social influence used to refer the influence of com-
munication between individuals may lead to a change of emotion of a person
associated with a particular behaviour. Intrinsic variables are also recommended to
be included in the future study.
5 Conclusion
The outcome of this research is very useful to understand and identify the factors
that affect students’ behaviour towards e-learning. The findings can provide
essential information and references for instructional designer and administrators to
improve the quality of online learning. As a conclusion of the current study, R have
a positive direct effect on EOU, U have a positive direct effect on A, U have a
positive direct effect on BI, EOU will have a positive direct effect on U and A have
a positive direct effect on BI. U is the most significant factor students’ acceptance
e-learning in mathematics.
In order to generalize the result obtained, it is highly recommended that the
sample should be taken proportionately from different levels of mathematics
courses such as calculus 1, calculus 2, algebra and business mathematics. Pre- and
post-test is also recommended to study the effectiveness of e-learning in mathe-
matics. Instead of collecting data using questionnaire, computer recorded data for
actual number of users is highly recommended.
Acknowledgements This work was financially supported by Institute of Research Management

and Innovation (IRMI) under Research Grant iRAGS, Universiti Teknologi MARA. Special
thanks to the Administration Department of Universiti Teknologi MARA for their support.
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Fathema N, Shannon D, Ross M (2015) Expanding the technology acceptance model (TAM) to
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Chapter 14
Calibrating Attitudes Towards
Twenty-First Century Skills Among
Residential School Students: A Rasch
Model Analysis
Hasni Shamsuddin and Ahmad Zamri Khairani
Abstract Twenty-first century skills are a set of competencies that are important in
order to function effectively in the information age. Schools are said to be effective
in teaching the skills. As such, the present study takes the initiative to provide more
information about students’ attitudes towards these skills. A total of 196 residential
school students (male = 91, female = 105) are employed as sample for this study.
Attitudes towards twenty-first century skills are conceptualized as self-efficacy
measures of the students and operationalized in terms of a 13-item self-rated
questionnaire. The responses are analyzed using a Rasch Model software, namely,
Winsteps 3.57, where the test score is transformed into equal-interval units of
measurement called measure and defined in logits unit. The prime objective of this
analysis is to calibrate the skills based on their difficulty. Results showed that
making their own goal (measure = 1.78 logits) was the most difficult skill for the
students while trying to help others (measure = −1.16 logits) was the easiest.
Keywords Twenty-first century skills Calibration Rasch model

Residential school
1 Introduction
Due to globalization and internalization, Malaysia, like any other country around
the world, will face new challenges. Therefore, it is important for the educational
system to prepare the students for the so-called ‘world beyond the classroom’
H. Shamsuddin A. Z. Khairani (&)

School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia,
11800 Kepala Batas, Penang, Malaysia
e-mail: ahmadzamri@usm.my
H. Shamsuddin
e-mail: emel_hasni@yahoo.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_14
146 H. Shamsuddin and A. Z. Khairani
concept. In the globalization era, students need to further develop their

non-cognitive skills by including new sets of skills and competencies geared
towards the twenty-first century and beyond. These twenty-first century skills will
then give Malaysian students an internationally competitive edge. In addition, the
skills that will also help to create Malaysian students who are balanced, resilient,
inquisitive, principled, informed, caring, patriotic, as well as effective thinkers,
communicators and team players. According to the Ministry of Education (2015),
efforts are in progress to achieve these aspirations. For example, nearly 1000
schools across the country have been involved in the pilot project of the
Twenty-first Century Learning. This initiative calls for pupils to be more respon-
sible for their own learning and have more opportunities for student-centered
learning activities such as project-based learning, presentations and peer assess-
ment. Critical twenty-first century skills such as literacy and communication
technologies have also been applied in the curriculum, especially through the higher
order thinking skills (HOTS) assessments that require students to focus more on
group works and projects. This is to nurture the students’ fostering universal values
and promote the holistic development of students through collaborative tasks.
The importance of nurturing twenty-first century skills at school levels are well
documented in various studies. The Partnership of 21st Century Skills (2002)
quotes that the skills are essential asset to produce a scientific, progressive, creative
and insightful society that in turn is able to contribute to the creation of scientific
and technological civilization of the future. According to NCREL and Metiri Group
(2003), twenty-first century skills enable the younger generation to adapt to the
ever-changing and sophisticated use of computers, and other ICT platform will
encounter in industrial society as well as in the global economy. With regards to
teaching and learning, a local study by Soh et al. (2010) shows that the skills also
correlate with students perceptions and attitudes towards physics. As such, it is
important for the students to have a right attitude towards the twenty-first century
skills. Nevertheless, as rightly observed by Winfried et al. (2015), students usually
engage the skills in their subject matter such as mathematics (Li et al. 2013),
science (Turiman et al. 2012) or by integrating technology (Farisi 2016). As such,
the purpose of this study is to calibrate general attitudes towards twenty-first cen-
tury skills among residential school students.
1.1 Rasch Model Analysis
Calibration refers to a process of estimating test parameters, by transforming raw

scores from the ordered category such as the Likert scale. Therefore, calibration
attitudes towards twenty-first century skills are defined as a process of arranging the
attitudes in order and transferring the information from items to a scale. One of the
14 Calibrating Attitudes Towards Twenty-First Century Skills Among … 147
procedure for calibrating the attitudes is through Rasch Model analysis (Linacre
2012). In this calibration, the probability of a person n with ability b correctly
answered the item i, with difficultyd, P (hi) is given by the following equation
(Bond and Fox 2007):
expðbn di Þ
Pni ¼ ð1Þ
1 þ expðbn di Þ
For the Likert scale responses, the probability of answering correctly is defined
as the ability of a particular respondent to agree with the item. The score from
calibration process is identified as ‘measure’ and defined in logits unit. Apart from
the calibration of a person’s ability, the Rasch Model calibration also estimates the
item’s difficulty parameter. Measurements from Rasch Model calibration is
essential as it possesses equal-interval property of the measurement, similar to a
thermometer or a ruler. For instance, an item A with a measure of 2.0 logits is
always two times more difficult than an item B with a measure of 1.0 logits. The
calibration does not only provide the differences between the two measures but also
it indicates how much the differences are.
Even though Rasch Model analysis provides important information on the
measured construct, its modelling comes with strong assumptions. Two important
assumptions in the Rasch Model analysis are: (1) the data must fit the model’s
expectation and (2) the construct being measured must pose unidimensionality
property (Linacre 2012). Model-data fit is an important aspect of any modelling
process since it serves as a quality control will illustrate how good the measurement
is. Analysis of fit helps detect discrepancies between the Rasch model’s expectation
and the data collected. Model-fit issues are usually addressed by investigating the fit
statistics such as the infit and outfit, mean-squares (MNSQ). Note that the expected
value of both infit and outfit MNSQ are 1.00 logits. Therefore, the values of 0.7
logits indicate that the measurement of a particular construct will inadvertently
include another construct which is also being measured. In other words, the
measurement of the twenty-first century skills also include about 30% of other
unintended construct or ‘noise’. In Rasch analysis, item(s) that incorporate large
amount of noise will be discarded from further analysis. On the other hand, uni-
dimensionality assumes that items in a test are measuring a single construct (Wright
and Masters 1982). In Rasch Model analysis, the assumption of unidimensionality
is investigated using the principal component analysis (PCA) of residuals proce-
dure. In this procedure, the first (main) construct has been extracted out and the
purpose is to identify whether the second construct is present from the residuals.
According to Eakman (2012), the unexplained variance from the second construct
extracted from the procedure should be less than 10%.
2 Methodology
The sample of this study consists of 196 residential school students (male = 91,
female = 105). All the students are in form four (16-years old). Their responses are
gauged using a 13-item questionnaire developed by Winfried et al. (2015). The
questionnaire measures attitudes towards twenty-first century skills such as their
ability to lead and time management. Further descriptions of the items are given in
the result section. In this study, Rasch analysis is conducted in terms of
(1) assessing the model’s assumption, (2) examination of calibration of the atti-
tudes, and (3) test targeting. The model’s assumption is conducted to certify
whether the empirical data collected from the sample fulfill the assumptions of
model-data fit and unidimensionality assumption. Calibration of the attitudes
towards twenty-first century skills items provides information on the ordering of the
skills according to their difficulty that, in turn, provide knowledge easy-to-master
skills and vice versa. Meanwhile, test targeting relates to the investigation on how
well the items are able to target students’ attitudes. The intended result is that the
distribution of the item is wide enough to cover the positive and negative attitudes.
3.1 Model’s Assumptions
From the following Table 1, the infit MNSQ values for all 13 items ranged from
0.67 to 1.30 logits, while outfit MNSQ values ranged from 0.73 to 1.35 logits,
which was within the acceptable range (Bond and Fox 2007). Thus, it confirms the
assumption that the data collected for each item was within expectation of the
model. In addition, the unexplained variance from the second construct extracted
from the procedure is only 8.1%, which is less than 10% (Eakman 2012).
Therefore, it can be said that the residuals did not have strength to be considered as
a second construct. As such, since both assumptions are met, it can be said that the
measurement shows equal-interval property.
3.2 Calibration of the Twenty-First Century Skills
From Table 1, the most important statistics that provides information on the cali-
bration of the attitudes towards twenty-first century skills is the item measure.
Based on the statistic, item 10 (Q10-make own goals, measure = 1.78 logits) is the
most difficult-to-endorse item. In another words, the students have negative atti-
tudes towards making own goal—meaning that they are not able to make their own
goal. It is followed by item 11 (Q11-use time wisely, measure = 1.45 logits) and
Table 1 Item statistic (in logits)

Item Measure SE Infit MNSQ Outfit MNSQ Label
10 1.78 0.13 1.22 1.28 Q10-make own goals
11 1.45 0.13 1.26 1.35 Q11-use time wisely
4 0.99 0.13 1.30 1.35 Q4-doing things well
1 0.67 0.13 0.98 1.00 Q1-lead others
2 0.30 0.14 0.81 0.82 Q2-help others
12 0.14 0.14 1.30 1.31 Q12-identify priorities
9 0.05 0.14 0.87 0.87 Q9-change for better
3 −0.25 0.14 0.76 0.76 Q3-know how to do things
5 −0.72 0.15 0.92 0.88 Q5-responsible
8 −1.00 0.15 0.74 0.73 Q8-making good decisions
6 −1.11 0.15 0.86 0.87 Q6-respectfull
13 −1.14 0.15 1.06 1.02 Q13-work with others
7 −1.16 0.15 0.67 0.80 Q7-try to help others
Mean 0.00 0.14 0.98 1.00
SD 0.97 0.01 0.22 0.23
item 4 (Q11-use time wisely). In contrast, item 7 (Q7-try to help others, mea-
sure = −1.16 logits) is the easiest-to-endorse item. It shows that the students have
positive attitudes towards trying to help others. Or, simply said, they are wiling to
help others. It should be noted that this item only measures the students’ intention to
help others, especially their friends. However, they have less positive attitudes
when it comes to knowing how to help others, as indicated by higher item difficulty
measure for item 2. Based on equal-interval property of the measurement, the
following observations can be made: the students have twice the positive attitude in
helping others (Q2—measure = 0.30 logits) compared to lead others (Q1—mea-
sure = 0.67 logits). Similarly, the students have about half the positive attitude in
helping others compared to identifying their own priorities (Q12—measure = 0.14
logit).
Based on the calibration, we speculate that the students will have difficulties in
deciding what do they want to achieve. The negative attitude is also manifested by
their lack of other related attitudes such as managing time (Q11) and doing things
well (Q4). Note that these three attitudes are important challenges that are reported
from studies among first-year undergraduates (Abdullah et al. 2006; Baharudin
et al. 2013). We predict that if these attitudes are not improved, the students might
face difficulties in the adjustments to university life later. Based on experience, we
relate the finding back to the life of residential school students. At school, their life
is very structured. Typically, students will start their day with morning prayer,
breakfast around 6.30 am before attending classes till 2.30 pm. Then, they need to
attend preparation class at 3.30 pm for 1 h before going for recreational activities
from 5.30 to 6.30 pm. Spiritual activities follow after dinner and they need to attend
another preparation class from 9.00 to 10.30 pm before they go to sleep at
11.00 pm. Also, on many occasions, the school has identified what is the best for
the students such as retention and enrichment classes during weekends. Therefore,
it leaves little opportunity for the students to have control over what they want to
do, i.e. to make their own decisions. One way to increase their attitude in
decision-making skill is through a more student-centered teaching and learning
activities where the students are given more opportunity to decide on the best
solution to solve problems or to suggest different ways to get answers. This
approach is not only able to enhance their skills but is also in line with current
trends of knowledge accumulation.
3.3 Test Targeting
In terms of test targeting, range of the easiest to the most difficult items is nearly 3
logits of attitudes, which is considered appropriate. Nevertheless, an important
aspect that needs further deliberation is the distribution of item difficulty and stu-
dents’ attitudes. Figure 1 shows this distribution, where the items are coded Q1–
Q13, while students are indicated by #. Each # represent two students and ‘.’
representing one student. Items at the top of the vertical scale, such as Q10 and
Q11, are difficult-to-endorse items, while corresponding students at the top of the
scale indicate students with lower (negative) attitudes towards twenty-first century
skills. Going down the line, the items become easier and students demonstrate more
positive attitudes. It is evident from the figure that there are no items that target
students at the upper end of the scale. The measure for these groups of students is
estimated using statistics for items that are far from the students’ true attitudes, such
as by item Q10 and Q11. Since the items are far from the students’ attitudes towards
twenty-first century ability skills, the estimation of their attitude is less accurate.
Rasch Model analysis reports that 25 students (12.76%) showed infit and outfit
MNSQ values of more than 1.4 logits. In addition, there are only a small number of
students who target the items at the lower end of the scale. For instance, items Q5,
Q6, Q7, Q8 and Q13. The sparse number of students who target these items has
ensued less precision in item difficulty estimation by the model. This is indicated by
the higher standard errors (SEs) compared to other items in this instrument.
Therefore, we would suggest more items to be added for this instrument. For
example, since the items are measuring attitudes towards twenty-first century skills,
items that relate to ICT and communication may be added since these two skills are
also considered important for the students to function in the twenty-first century
(Osman et al. 2010).
STUDENTS MAP OF ITEMS

<more>|<rare>
6 .# +
|
. |
. |
|
5 .# +
. |
|
# T|
## |
4 #### +
|
## |
. |
.## |
3 ##### S+
# |
.#### |
|
##### |
2 .###### +T
.###### | Q10-make own goals
# M|
.###### | Q11-use time wisely
######## |
1 . +S Q4-doing things well
########## |
########## | Q1-lead others
.##### | Q2-like to help others
S| Q12-priorities
0 ##### +M Q9-change for better
## | Q3-know how to do things
.# |
. |
| Q5-responsible
-1 .# +S Q8-making good decisions
T| Q13-work with others Q6-respectfull
Q7-try to help others
|
. |
|
-2 +T
|
. |
|
|
-3 +
<less>|<frequ>
EACH '#' IS 2.
Fig. 1 Item—students map

4 Conclusion
The purpose of present study is to calibrate attitude towards twenty-first century

skills among residential school students. Two important observations are pertinent
from the findings of this study. First, the students lack positive decision-making
attitudes that are important for their university life later. Second, there is a need to
add more items especially that relates to ICT and communications attitudes in the
instrument so that it could be used widely across all types of schools in Malaysia.
Nevertheless, we believe that apart from measuring the attitudes, there is also a need
to study the attitudes in relation to other variables such as student success or
competitiveness. Study on the relationship between these attitudes and student
success, for example, would enable relevant stakeholders to focus their attention on
attitudes (and skill) that are important for career in medical, engineering, science
and technology, etc. This will help the students to have a head start when they enrol
at the respective programs in their tertiary level later.
Acknowledgements The researchers would like to extend their acknowledgements to Universiti

Sains Malaysia for providing assistance through research grants that made this research possible.
References
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attitude and perception towards physic. Soc Behav Sci 7:546–554
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literacy and science process skills. Procedia Soc Behav Sci 59:110–116. https://doi.org/10.
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Chapter 15
Students’ Perception on the Use
of Code-Switching in Mathematics
Classroom: Looking at Gender
Differences
Asyura Abd Nassir, Nor Habibah Tarmuji and Khairul Firhan Yusob
Abstract Issues involving code-switching have been widely discussed in many

studies. To what extend does code-switching usage in the classroom affect students’
learning success in a subject? This study focuses on gender differences in students’
perception on the use of code-switching between English and Malay language in
Mathematics classroom. This study took place in a university, where English is
regarded as the medium of instruction. It involved 100 students from different
faculties as respondents. They were asked to answer a set of questionnaires on
students’ attitude, attention and learning success under code-switching practise in
Mathematics classroom. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and t-test.
The findings of this research show that there is no gender differences in regards to
students’ perception of code-switching practise in Mathematics classroom.
Keywords Attention Attitude Code-switching Gender Mathematics
1 Introduction
Classroom interaction has been given a lot of attention by instructors or teachers

since it can be a great tool to a successful lesson. A significant classroom interaction
is believed to increase students’ understanding of the lesson. With a lot of issues
A. A. Nassir N. H. Tarmuji (&)

Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi
Mara Pahang, Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: norhabibah@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. A. Nassir
e-mail: asyuraan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
K. F. Yusob
Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi Mara Pahang,
e-mail: khairulfirhan@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_15
156 A. A. Nassir et al.
concerning classroom interaction, with the use of code-switching being one of

them, a question has been raised as to what extent code-switching used in a
classroom relates to students’ satisfaction in a subject.
In most universities, English is used as a medium of instruction and as a result
English becomes a language, which should be used in teaching and learning pro-
cess. However, lecturers normally code-switch in the classroom as this is consid-
ered as their teaching strategy (Cook 1989, 1991). On top of that, code-switching is
often seen as an important guide especially by students whose proficiency is rather
weak (Badrul and Kamaruzaman 2009).
Studies on code-switching mostly focus on the perceptions of teachers and
students on code-switching. Studies on the correlation between students’ prefer-
ences and their learning satisfaction in content subjects especially Mathematics,
however, have been scarce. Most studies investigate preferences among ESL
learners (Noli Maishara et al. 2013), learners’ and instructors’ attitudes (Lee 2010;
Kamisah and Misyana 2011), implications of code-switching in Mathematics
classroom (Jegede 2011) and the use of code-switching as a tool in classroom
(Zazkis 2000). Therefore, the present study aims to identify the significant differ-
ence of the students’ perception (attention, attitude and success) on code-switching
in Mathematics classroom between genders.
2 Literature Review
Many scholars have been defining and discussing code-switching in conversations.

However, the gist of all definitions given show code-switching is the use of more
than one language in the same speech. Gumperz (1982) referred the term as using
languages with different grammatical systems in the same speech. Adler (1998)
later defined code-switching as a speech which uses more than one language as
alternation. Hoffmann (1991) also noted code-switching happens when two lan-
guages are used in the same utterance. The term was also further explained by
Myers-Scotton (1993) as a situation in which switching of linguistic varieties
occurs within a single speech act. Milroy and Musyken (1995:7) also suggested
code-switching as ‘the alternative used by bilinguals of two or more languages in
the same conversation.’
Despite the issue of code-switching in ESL classrooms which has been discussed
widely, code-switching in content subjects classrooms especially Mathematics has
gained attention among researchers. Many studies which took place in non-English
speaking countries claim that Mathematics teachers or lecturers practise
code-switching in delivering their lessons (Lim and Presmeg 2011; Nur Hafeezah
and Masitah 2014). The primary factor of code-switching practice is it is seen as a
beneficial tool in the classrooms. Niesche (2009) argued that code-switching should
be seen as significant since it enhances students’ understanding especially those
who come from rural areas. Webb and Webb (2008) noted that instructions in
15 Students’ Perception on the Use of Code-Switching … 157
Mathematics classrooms can be easily absorbed by students if the instructors

code-switch.
In many previous studies, the findings suggested that learners found
code-switching as facilitative and beneficial. They often regard the practise as a
helpful strategy and can guide them at comprehending lessons (Amina and Naheed
2015). Badrul and Kamaruzaman (2009) found significant relationships between
teachers’ code-switching and students’ affective support as well as teachers’
code-switching and students’ learning success in their study. Other studies by
Collins (2001) and Noli Maishara et al. (2013) also found that students perceived
code-switching as having positive impact to their understanding of lessons deliv-
ered in classrooms.
Studies on code-switching have also been done to find out which gender has
greater tendency to apply it. Results from previous studies also vary as they were
undertaken in different place, setting and involved respondents from different
background. Some studies claim that female speakers code-switch more than male
speakers. Ismail (2015) in his study, for example, found that female speakers
applied code-switching more in their conversation than male speakers. The quali-
tative study which involved six married Saudi couple noted that the females view
English as a more prestigious language, and thus often use it in their conversation.
Gulzar et al. (2013) studied eight EFL teachers of different genders in their ESL
classroom and discovered that young female teachers used code-switching in a
greater number than male teachers.
However, there are also studies which claim that there is no significant difference
in the use of code-switching between male and female speakers. Rabbani and
Mushtaq (2012) in their study could not suggest which gender code-switch more as
the respondents showed equal number of code-switching in their text conversation.
In a study done by Ashgar et al. (2016) which looks at students’ attitude towards
code-switching and gender relation showed no significant difference between
gender when it comes to their attitudes on code-switching.
3 Methodology
This study randomly selected 100 students from two different faculties; Faculty of
Civil Engineering and Faculty of Applied Sciences who enrolled in Calculus
course. Throughout the semester, students were taught using code-switching. At the
end of the semester, a set of questionnaire was distributed to measure students’
perception towards learning under the lecturer’s code-switching exercise. Before
answering the questionnaire, explanation on code-switching was given to students
as they were not familiar with the terms used. The questionnaire is adapted from
Lee (2010), Kamisah and Misyana (2011), Noli Maishara et al. (2013) and Lee
et al. (2014). It consists of six sections including demographic information being
the first section. It is followed by students’ general idea of code-switching, how
frequent they think code-switching is used in their classroom, as well as their
perceptions on attention, attitude and success under lecturer’s code-switching
exercise. All items for frequency of code-switching used in classroom were a brief
statement followed by a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘always’ (5), ‘a lot of
times’ (4), ‘sometimes’ (3), ‘rarely’ (2), to ‘never’ (1). Other questions on students’
attitude and affective aspects, students’ perceptions on lecturers who code-switch
and student’s success in learning under lecturer’s code-switching exercise were
measured by a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ (5), ‘agree’ (4),
‘neutral’ (3), ‘disagree’ (2), to ‘strongly disagree’ (1). The data collected were
analysed using descriptive statistics and t-test using SPSS.
Out of 100 respondents in this study, 48% are male students and the other 52% are
female. The questionnaires for the variables in the present study were constructed
based on previous researchers’ questionnaires. All items were measured with
Cronbach’s alpha with a score of over 0.8 is considered as acceptable reliability and
normally distributed with skewness between −1 and 1.
Table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation for how often the Mathematics
lecturers practise code-switching in different situations. A higher value indicates a
higher frequency of code-switching as measured by each item. Students claim that
their lecturers often code-switch when it comes to helping them to feel more
confident and comfortable (mean = 3.9). Besides that, code-switching in discussing
assignments, tests and quizzes (mean = 3.68) was also practised a lot in class.
Lecturers explaining words and giving feedback also receive high value with the
Table 1 Mean and standard deviation for lecturers’ practise on the use of code-switching in
Mathematics classroom from students’ perspectives
How often does your Math lecturer practise code-switching in different m SD
situations?
Giving instruction 3.38 0.90
Giving feedback 3.53 0.84
Checking comprehension 3.32 0.93
Explaining words 3.65 0.86
Helping students feel more confident and comfortable 3.90 0.88
Discussing assignments, tests and quizzes 3.68 0.85
Overall 3.58 0.75
mean of 3.65 and 3.53, respectively. The findings above, therefore, support a study
conducted Greggio and Gill (2007).
Tables 2, 3 and 4 show the mean and standard deviation for all the items in the
questionnaire. A higher value indicates a higher level of agreement as measured by
each item.
Table 2 indicates that all items for students’ attention have means higher than
3.5 except for the last item. It shows that students agree that lecturers tried to make
students understand by practising code-switching. Therefore, students agree that
they felt more confident, comfortable, less stressful and bored, more concentrated
and more engaged in the class when code-switching is practised. Students neither
agree nor disagree when asked if they perceive lecturer’s practise of code-switching
as reflecting their low proficiency in English (mean = 3.27).
Table 3 shows students’ attitude towards lecturer’s code-switching. The four
highest mean for this table reveal that students agree that lecturers used both Malay
and English language during lecture to make students understand the lesson.
However, it is interesting to note that the students neither agree nor disagree that
they felt challenged if lecturers used English in Mathematics classroom and min-
imised the use of Malay language. Meanwhile, for the item with the lowest mean
(2.49), students did not prefer if the lecturer use only English while teaching. The
findings support what Kamisah and Misyana (2011) found among less proficient
ESL learners in their study.
Table 2 Mean and standard deviation for students’ attention to their perceptions towards
lecturer’s code-switching and affective aspects
Students’ attention to their perceptions towards lecturer’s code-switching and m SD
affective aspects
I see my lecturer as trying to make me understand what she is teaching to me 4.13 0.77
by practising code-switching
I feel less stressful in my English class because my lecturer will explain 3.59 0.87
meaning of difficult words in Malay language
I feel that it is okay to mix my broken English with other language(s) when I 3.61 0.84
speak and slowly improve by using standard English
I feel more comfortable to learn when my lecturer code-switches 4.10 0.79
I feel more confident in scoring an A for this subject 3.94 0.87
It makes the class less boring when my lecturer code-switches, so I enjoy my 4.05 0.85
lesson more
I feel closer to my lecturer because he/she practises code-switching 4.10 0.77
I feel more engaged to the whole class and understand what is going on in 4.05 0.79
class
I can concentrate more easily because my Math lecturer catches my attention 4.14 0.85
in class
I see my Math lecturer as less proficient in English because he/she practises 3.27 1.17
code-switching
Overall 3.90 0.54
Table 3 Mean and standard deviation for student’s attitudes towards lecturers’ code-switching
Student’s attitudes towards lecturers’ code-switching m SD
I would like my Math lecturer to minimise their use of Malay language in his/ 3.20 0.76
her lectures
I would prefer my Math lecturer to use only English in his/her lectures 2.49 0.85
I need the Math lecturer to use both Malay and English to better understand 4.05 0.77
the lectures
I feel challenged if/when my Math lecturer uses English in his/her lectures 3.04 0.79
I feel satisfied when my Math lecturer uses both BM and English during his/ 3.93 0.78
her lectures
My Math lecturer’s mixing of English and BM is not a problem to me 4.25 0.73
When my Math lecturer mixes BM and English in his/her lectures, I become 4.17 0.82
interested in the lesson
Overall 3.92 0.52
Table 4 Mean and standard deviation for student’s success in learning under lecturer’s
code-switching exercise
Student’s success in learning under lecturer’s code-switching exercise m SD
I am able to understand a difficult concept or idea when my lecturer practises 3.98 0.72
code-switching
I am able to learn and understand new words when my lecturer practises 3.90 0.72
code-switching
I am able to understand my lecturer’s instructions more easily when he/she 4.06 0.66
practises code-switching
I am able to carry out tasks successfully when my lecturer practises 3.98 0.66
code-switching
Overall 3.98 0.59
Table 4 exhibits the overall mean with 3.98, which demonstrates that students
agree that code-switching practise has helped them understand difficult concept or
idea, new words and instruction in learning Mathematics. Therefore, they could
carry out task successfully when lecturers practise code-switching. This further
supports the study by Jianjun (2014).
An independent t-test was conducted to determine whether there is a significant
difference in the students’ attention, attitude and success towards code-switching
practises between male and female respondents. The test showed that the difference
in the students’ attention between male respondents (N = 48, M = 3.99, SD = 0.54)
and female respondents (N = 52, M = 3.81, SD = 0.53) was not statistically
significant, t (98) = 1.69, p = 0.094, 95% CI [−0.31, 0.39]. For students’ attitudes,
the same conclusion of no difference between male respondents (N = 48, M = 3.93,
SD = 0.52) and female respondents (N = 52, M = 3.91, SD = 0.52) was found
with t (98) = 0.169, p = 0.87, 95% CI [−0.19, 0.22]. Students’ success also had the
same conclusion of no difference between male respondents (N = 48, M = 4.01,
SD = 0.64) and female respondents (N = 52, M = 3.96, SD = 0.55) with t
(98) = 0.405, p = 0.69, 95% CI [−0.19, 0.29]. Thus, there is no evidence that the
students’ perceptions toward code-switching were different between male and
female respondents. These findings were in line with Ashgar et al. (2016) that there
is no significant difference between both genders when it comes to their attitudes on
code-switching.
5 Conclusion
As can be seen in the findings, students view code-switching as a tool to help them
in learning Mathematics. On top of that, they also feel that code-switching can
bridge the gap with their lecturers. The findings also confirm studies by Rabbani
and Mushtaq (2012) and Ashgar et al. (2016) that there is no significant difference
between male and female students in their view of code-switching.
The findings of this study also imply that students’ preferences of
code-switching are very much related to their learning satisfaction. Since English is
considered as a second or foreign language to all students involved in this study,
Mathematics lecturers should consider code-switching as one of the strategies in
teaching. However, too much use of code-switching can bring negative effects too
as it can cause confusion due to different words and meaning used in different
languages.
It is recommended that studies on the effectiveness of code-switching in content
subject classroom to be conducted in the future. This is important as we can
measure how useful code-switching really is in helping students understand lessons
in classroom. It may also serve as a proof as to why students prefer code-switching
practise in classroom.
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20(3):38–43
Chapter 16
Facilitating Learning via AMIT
(Aplikasi Mudah Istilah Teknikal)
in Civil Engineering Course: Users’
Perception
Nur Asmaliza Mohd Noor, Kamisah Ariffin, Asmidar Alias

and Anis Hasliza Abu Hashim
Abstract This chapter presents users’ perception on the use of a mobile application
of bilingual technical glossary called, AMIT (Aplikasi Mudah Istilah Teknikal). The
development of this application is motivated by the need of the technical students in
Malaysia to comprehend the terminology learned in English in their mother tongue
(in this case, Bahasa Malaysia). This is because of failure to correctly understand a
certain terminology or concept, may result in failure to find solution to any related
problem in the field. However, the only bilingual reference published by the Dewan
Bahasa dan Pustaka (the country’s Literary Agency) specifically in the engineering
field is available in hardcopy, bulky and outdated version. With the fast techno-
logical development nowadays, one of the most convenient ways to retrieve
information is through apps software. However, to date, the available electronic
dictionary apps specifically for engineering terminology are all in English. Thus,
AMIT is presented as a solution to the problem. 30 undergraduates of an engi-
neering course in a public university in Malaysia were chosen to test the AMIT
application in class. Although the development of the application is still at its infant
stage, the users’ acceptance has been overwhelming. Using self-evaluated ques-
N. A. Mohd Noor (&) A. Alias

Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pahang,
e-mail: nurasmaliza@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. Alias
e-mail: asmidar@pahang.uitm.edu.my
K. Ariffin
A. H. Abu Hashim
Teknologi MARA Pahang, Bandar Tun Abdul Razak, Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: anishasliza@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_16
164 N. A. Mohd Noor et al.
tionnaire to evaluate users’ perception towards AMIT’s facilitative role in the

learning process, the findings indicate that most of the respondents perceived the
application as a convenient, practical and quick source of reference compared to the
conventional, hardcopy terminology book. AMIT is also valued in terms of its
mobility and compatibility for any smartphones, making it usable as an education
tool and digital content for engineering students. Further works for AMIT are also
recommended such as making it more interactive with pictures and enhanced
examples and quizzes.
Keywords Aplikasi mudah istilah teknikal Engineering terminology

Mobile application
1 Introduction
Most higher learning institutions in Malaysia have moved towards using English in
teaching content, an approach known as content and language integrated learning
(CLIL). The main motivation behind the move is to improve the local students’
English language competency since mastery in this language is an asset in seeking
employment in the globalised economic world (Mahathir 2003). Furthermore, with
the vast amount of information available in English, it is hoped that the availability
of English and more exposure to the language in the classroom can contribute
towards the students’ English language competency (which holds the key to access
information in a variety of fields and also to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge).
The converging feature of CLIL is that the content of a subject/course is taught
through a second/foreign language. The curricular model of CLIL is based on five
dimensions: culture, environment, language, content and learning
(Rodriguez-Bonces 2012; Marsh et al. 2001a). The main objective of cultural
dimension is to build students’ intercultural knowledge and understanding, hence,
develop their intercultural communication skills (Marsh et al. 2001a). The envi-
ronmental dimension aims at preparing students for globalisation, as they are
supposed to be multilingual after having gone through the CLIL process of learning
(Rodriguez-Bonces 2012; Marsh et al. 2001b). In addition, the language dimension
sees that by exposing the target language in learning, students’ competence in the
target language should be improved in terms of oral communication skills, multi-
lingual interests and attitudes (Rodriguez-Bonces 2012; Marsh et al. 2001b). On the
other hand, the content dimension provides different opportunities in studying the
subject content such as the target language terminology. The learning dimension
teaches various methods and forms of learning which allows students to use indi-
vidual learning strategies (Toth 2014).
However, the implementation of the CLIL approach in Malaysia can pose a
problem to those whose level of competence in English is quite weak. In technical
courses, in which understanding concepts of terminology is very important for any
decision-making and problem-solving related to the field, a strong competence in
16 Facilitating Learning via AMIT (Aplikasi Mudah Istilah Teknikal) … 165
the English language is mandatory. Students with low level of English language
competence need constant help in understanding the concept (Yassin et al. 2009;
Gill 2005).
The researchers’ classroom observations in a public university reveal that
engineering students heavily rely on the English–Bahasa Malaysia terminology
book, Buku Istilah Kejuruteraan, in the field produced by Dewan Bahasa dan
Pustaka (DBP), the country’s Literary Agency, to understand the technical termi-
nology in the target language. However, the book is only available in the hardcopy
and bulky version, making it rather inconvenient to carry around. Furthermore, it is
also outdated and not up to date, with the latest edition published in 2005. With the
fast technological development nowadays, one of the most convenient ways to
retrieve information is through apps application (Rafizah et al. 2015). However, to
date, the available electronic dictionary apps for engineering terminology are all in
English. The one produced by the DBP is too general, likened to an electronic
bilingual dictionary, where the meaning of the concept given is not specific to one
field. Thus, users need to choose the right equivalent for the right field from the list.
For example, the equivalence of the word ‘slab’ in Bahasa Malaysia is listed in
several fields like engineering and geography. Furthermore, it does not provide any
description or explanation of the terminology (Carian Istilah 2016). The need for a
more convenient, practical and quick source of reference to the terminology in
Bahasa Malaysia to facilitate student learning has motivated the development of a
mobile application of bilingual technical terminology called AMIT (Aplikasi
Mudah Istilah Teknikal). This chapter presents users’ perception on the use of the
application which aims at assisting students derive the meaning of a concept in a
quicker and more convenient way compared to the use of the conventional termi-
nology book or any other dictionaries, online or conventional.
1.1 Concept and Vocabulary Understanding in Learning
Understanding concept is essential to make sense of a discussion or lesson.

A person tends to seek patterns and use this pattern to make meaningful explanation
(Brookfield 1996). Rosch (1978) put forward that learners categorise new concepts
according to their similarities with the existing concepts. This suggests that stu-
dents’ incorrect understanding of scientific concepts and natural phenomena can
affect engineering and technological performances, hence, affecting the important
goal of engineering education such as problem-solving skills. The profound mas-
tery of relevant concepts and phenomena provides an essential foundation for the
attainment of knowledge and understanding in engineering subjects, thus, making it
a prerequisite for good problem-solving skills (Goris and Dryenfurth 2012;
Savander-Ranne and Kolari 2003). However, to understand the concept, a learner
must have proficiency in an available language. Latha (2014) suggested that
without a good command of language, engineering students will find themselves
unable to understand the underlying concept or idea. Therefore, Wanpena et al.
(2012) contended that in the professional and technical areas of study, vocabulary
learning strategies are considered to be one of the most important factors for stu-
dents’ success in learning technical English.
1.2 Mobile Learning
The evolution of mobile technologies has affected the teaching methods in edu-
cational setting and this has contributed to the development of the quality of mobile
devices. Mobile learning is a new concept which emphasises on the ability of the
learning process without being tied to the traditional method, which, in turn, is tied
to physical location (Rafizah et al. 2015; Kukulska and Traxler 2005). With the
availability of the technology, there is an opportunity to change the learning method
by creating broad learning community, connecting people in real time and virtual
world, and supporting lifelong learning (Sharple 2007).
According to Trifonova and Ronchetti (2003), mobile learning is e-learning
through mobile computational devices such as digital cell phones and iPod. Wu
et al. (2012) found that mobile phones and PDAs were the most widely used
devices in mobile learning. Along the same line, Al-Aamri and Kamla’s (2011)
study on the use of mobile phones in learning English language indicates students’
positive attitude towards the use of mobile phone in learning and believed the
effectiveness of using mobile learning. Similarly, a research by Nassuora (2012) on
students’ acceptance of mobile learning for higher education in Saudi Arabia
reports that the group had a good impression and high level of acceptance using this
method.
It is also reported that most mobile learning studies demonstrated positive
results. For example, Hwang and Chang (2011) reported that mobile learning
appears to be a more interesting approach of learning compared to the conventional
instruction or information from textbooks. It is also able to generate learners’
interest and motivation.
The application of mobile learning in Malaysia can be considered as being at an
early stage since it only just started around 2010. However, a study conducted at a
number of universities and colleges in Malaysia indicated high level of acceptance
among the students towards mobile learning. Mobile learning in education is
beginning to be accepted among community in Malaysia where some schools have
already started implementing mobile learning in the teaching and learning process.
Studies on mobile learning in Malaysia also found similar results that m-learning
method was able to improve students’ interest and their performances in learning
(Isham and Ramlee 2011; Irwan and Norazah 2011). Thus, there has been
increasing interest in developing mobile applications to aid learning. Among these
projects include a mobile learning prototype for Science subject (Wahab et al.
2010), a mobile learning application for Basic Computer Architecture course
(Kamaludin et al. 2012), mobile learning tool for Windows for structural
programming course (Wendeson et al. 2010) and a mobile application for Islamic
Education Course was developed (Nawi and Hamzah 2014).
The development of mobile learning applications must take learners’ perception
on the usefulness of the applications into consideration. Perceived usefulness can be
defined as the perceptions of a person using a new technology that it will enhance
satisfaction and performance. Many studies have shown that perceived usefulness
has strong effects on learner performance in learning process. Jairak et al. (2009)
focused on assessing the acceptance of mobile learning in higher education. The
results show that only effort expectation and social influences affect students’
intention to use mobile learning. The study also reveals that performance expectation
and social influences will affect the attitudes of students regarding mobile learning.
Having discussed the escalating interest in mobile learning and the significance
of users’ perception on the usefulness of an application, this study examines stu-
dents’ perceived usefulness of AMIT, an application developed to help students
understand the terminology meaning and concepts before it can be introduced for
classroom learning and self-study.
2 Background
2.1 AMIT (Aplikasi Mudah Istilah Teknikal): A Mobile

Application for Technical Terminology
AMIT (Aplikasi Mudah Istilah Teknikal) is a tool developed to assist engineering

students understand the technical terminology both in BM and English in a more
convenient way compared to using the conventional terminology book. It is a
software application that can be utilised using any smartphones with android
application. Users can download the application easily and use it just like any
electronic dictionary.
2.2 Features of AMIT
AMIT has several advantages over the conventional terminology book and other
electronic dictionaries available in the market. First, it is compatible with any type
of Android smartphone. Thus, availability and affordability is not an issue for any
user who wants to download the application. Second, AMIT does not pose any
issue on connectivity and accessibility as it does not need an internet connection to
operate once downloaded. In other words, users can retrieve information needed
anytime and anywhere as AMIT can work offline. Since AMIT does not require an
internet connection, the retrieval of the information is fast and not buffered by
connectivity problem. The time recorded for each retrieval is about 3–4 s.
Fig. 1 AMIT’s interface
Unlike the terminology book published by DBP, AMIT provides both English—
BM and BM—English terminology. Users can simply type the terminology that
they need and AMIT will lead them to the desired terminology. In addition, for
quicker information search, the terminology in AMIT is categorised into topics like
‘Structure and Materials/Struktur dan Bahan’, ‘Geotechnical and Highway/
Geoteknikal dan Lebuh Raya’ and ‘Water Source and Environment/Sumber Air
dan Persekitaran’. Figure 1 shows AMIT interface on the smartphone.
AMIT also benefits the users as it provides explanation of each of the termi-
nology. This can aid further understanding. Users can also be assured of the
credibility of terminology equivalents and explanations since the DBP’s standard
terminology as well as handbooks produced by the Malaysian Public Works
Department (Jabatan Kerja Raya) are regularly consulted for accuracy and updates.
3 Methodology
The main objective of this chapter is to find out users’ perception on AMIT as an
alternative tool to the conventional terminology book and other electronic dic-
tionaries to facilitate learning. Thus, 30 undergraduates of an engineering course in
a public university in Malaysia were chosen to test the AMIT application in their
learning. These students were chosen as they fulfilled the criteria needed for the
testing. First, they were engineering students who needed to deal with engineering
and technical terminology in their learning. Second, the students have had expe-
rience using the Buku Istilah Kejuruteraan to facilitate their learning process. Third,
the students each owned an Android smartphone.
The study was divided into three phases. The preliminary phase employed a
survey questionnaire method in gauging students’ level of understanding of tech-
nical terminology and concept in English and the tool(s) that they use to help them
understand the terminology if the need arises. The students were asked to rate their
level of understanding from a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly
understand’ to ‘do not understand at all’. In addition, the students were asked to tick
the tools that they had been using to help them understand the terminology and
concept from the list given (such as terminology book, translation machines like
Google Translate, general bilingual dictionaries and online dictionaries. They were
also asked to rate their satisfaction on using each tool from a five-point Likert scale
ranging from ‘very satisfied’ to ‘not satisfied at all’. The students were also asked to
state the strategies that they employed (other than relying on the tools) to help them
understand the terminology and concept.
The second phase involved the application of AMIT in learning. First, the
respondents were asked to download the application into their smartphones. They
were briefed on the objective of the study, and thus, were reminded not to use the
Buku Istilah Kejuruteraan should they need to find the terminology equivalent in
Bahasa Malaysia. The learning process took place as normal, but the students were
asked to consult the AMIT application for information needed on any terminology
that they come across. While using AMIT, the students were also asked to take
notes on their use of the application in terms of its content, time spent, practicality
and features.
The third phase involved a survey on the users’ perception on AMIT. The survey
used questionnaires and group interview method to gauge information on AMIT’s
usability and viability for learning purposes. The questionnaire was divided into
two sections. Section A contained 18 perceived statements on AMIT’s features and
users’ satisfaction on the use of AMIT. The students were asked to rate each
statement on a five-point Likert scale. Section B contained an open question on
users’ suggestions on further development of AMIT. The data from section A were
treated into simple frequency counts while the data from section B were qualita-
tively analysed and reported. The data were complemented by group interview to
probe further information on the users’ perceptions in using AMIT.
4.1 Students’ Level of Understanding of Technical

Terminology
On the whole, the level of understanding of technical terminology and concept

among the students is quite low. The analysis shows the average mean score of 2.3.
This indicates that the students’ competence in the target language in the classroom,
i.e. English, is not sufficient to handle the learning content. This also gives a strong
indication that these students need help in understanding the terminology and
concept in their learning process.
The data reveal that the students tried to cope with their learning. The analysis
shows that 100% of the students relied on the Buku Istilah Kejuruteraan published
by the DBP, (86.7%) used online machine translators such as Bing Translator,
Worldlingo, Reverso and IMTranslator, (60%) used online dictionaries like
Merriam-Webster, Cambridge and Oxford, and (43.3%) claimed that they used
Table 1 Users’ satisfaction No Tool Mean

on learning tool
1 Terminology book/Buku Istilah Kejuruteraan 3
2 Online machine translators 2
3 General dictionaries (online) 2
4 General dictionaries (hard copy) 1
general dictionaries in their hardcopy versions like Longman, Oxford, Collins and
Cambridge. As for the satisfaction, the data record a range of mean score between 3
and 1 with the terminology book being the highest (mean score = 3) and general
dictionaries (hardcopy) being the lowest (mean score = 1) (Table 1).
However, the interview data also reveal that, even though the terminology book
received the highest score, the students claimed that the satisfaction was based on
the accuracy of the translated terminology. The book itself is bulky, heavy and
inconvenient to be carried around. Thus, they wished for a more practical and
convenient tool.
The analysis of the strategies employed other than these tools reveal that a
majority of the students claimed that they relied on the lecturers’ explanation and
help from friends. This indicates that the students need a practical and independent
tool to help them during their self-study.
4.2 Users’ Perception on AMIT
On the whole, the students’ acceptance towards AMIT was overwhelming. All the
respondents strongly agree that they preferred AMIT over the conventional ter-
minology book and other tools that they had been using (average mean score = 5).
The interview session reveals some interesting views on mobile learning. The
respondents felt that it was time mobile apps took over the terminology book and be
used in the classroom. The students also mentioned the use of mobile apps had
somehow changed the classroom environment into a more sophisticated and pro-
fessional setting. Thus, the respondents unanimously were of the opinion that
AMIT was developed to enhance both the learning process and environment.
AMIT was also rated positively in terms of its content and features, usability and
practicality. The following section discusses the findings in detail according to its
content and features, usability and practicality.
4.3 AMIT’s Content and Features
The students had been briefed that the development of AMIT was still at its infant
stage. Thus, the amount of terminology was limited in number. However, the main
objective of the study was to find out whether the content of AMIT can satisfy the
learning needs or not. Having tried AMIT for the first time, the students agree
(average mean score = 4.5) that the terminology included in AMIT covers the
terminology in the field. Furthermore, the content is similar to the one in the
terminology book used in the classroom, thus, there would be no issue of incon-
sistency if they were to use AMIT.
In addition, the students agreed that AMIT has an added advantage over the
terminology book as it offers explanation for each terminology. However, they felt
that AMIT could be more interesting if other features such as pictures and sound/
pronunciation are provided. The students particularly liked that AMIT’s content is
topic specific. In other words, the terminology is categorised topically, thus, users
will get the right reference. for the right field.
4.4 AMIT’s Usability
The students also rated AMIT’s usability as high (average mean score = 4.3). The
analysis indicates that AMIT is easy to use and resourceful for their learning.
Table 2 shows the details of the findings.
As can be seen from Table 2, the students felt that AMIT is useful to use. AMIT
was also seen as resourceful and helpful for their learning as the score mean for
Statement 3 is 5. The students also saw the usefulness of AMIT in their self-study
as the score mean for Statement 9 is 4. AMIT is also seen as prospectful not only for
students but also for those involved in the technical fields. This can be seen in the
average mean score of 5 for Statements 8 and 10.
Table 2 Users’ perception on the usability of AMIT

No Statement Mean
1 It is easy to use AMIT 4
2 AMIT helps me to find engineering terminology 4
3 AMIT helps me to find the translation of engineering terminology in Bahasa 5
Melayu/English
4 The application is useful to me and is resourceful in learning 4
5 I enjoy using AMIT 4
6 It is satisfying to use AMIT as a quick reference 4
7 AMIT helps me to understand the engineering terms better 4
8 I will use AMIT in the future 5
9 I will use AMIT during my self-study 4
10 I feel AMIT is important to help others who are involved with technical terms 5
4.5 AMIT’s Practicality
All of the students rated AMIT as highly practical (average score mean = 5).
Having had the experience using the conventional terminology book and other tools
to assist them in their learning, the students considered AMIT as a better alternative.
First, they found that the application is more convenient and practical compared to
the bulky and heavy terminology book. In addition, AMIT can be easily down-
loaded and is compatible with any android smartphones. Compared to any online
dictionaries, AMIT is better as it can be used offline once downloaded. This makes
it accessible to anyone, anywhere and anytime. One of the comments that is worth
mentioning is that using AMIT is practical as users do not need to sit properly at a
desk (like when using the terminology book). Thus, AMIT can easily be used when
they are on the move or when they are doing any practical tasks at the laboratory or
in the field.
The students also found AMIT practical in terms of time spent on searching the
meaning of the terminology. They claimed that the current tools used were not able
to provide them with the meaning as fast as AMIT. With the terminology book,
they had to flip through the pages and search for the terminology on the relevant
page while the online tools depended on the internet connection and its speed.
AMIT proved to be a quicker provider of the references as it would take less than
5 s as users did not have to search all the pages and it can be operated under offline
mode.
4.6 Further Recommendations
While the students were mostly satisfied with the content and features of AMIT and
strongly agreed on its classroom potentials and benefits, they felt that some features
should be included to give AMIT more added value compared to the available
online dictionaries on the market. They suggested photos, figures or pictures be
added to complement the meaning and explanation to enhance understanding.
Another suggestion is to include phonetic features and pronunciation for the ter-
minology. Another recommendation that is worth considering is to make AMIT an
interactive application rather than a passive one. This may include the gamification
of the terminology and quizzes to strengthen users’ understanding in a fun way.
5 Conclusion
This study has shown that AMIT has great potentials to be used as a learning aid
either in class or during self-study. The respondents in this study had shown pos-
itive attitude towards adopting AMIT to facilitate learning. The practicality of
AMIT and the resourcefulness of its content and features may be able to facilitate
learning better and, thus, give better understanding to the users. AMIT’s potential is
not limited to students only but can be extended to the practitioners in the field.
Since AMIT is still in its infant stage of development, some of the recommenda-
tions given by the respondents should be taken into consideration.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to express gratitude to the Universiti

Teknologi MARA for supporting this study. This work was supported under Academic and
Research Assimilation Grant Scheme with grant no 600-RMI/DANA 573, ARAS 41/2015.
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Chapter 17
Development of an Online Peer
Assessment System in Teamwork
Skills—A Preliminary Survey
Nur’Ain Ismail, Thuraiya Mohd, Nor A’aini Othman,

Mohammad Nasir Abdullah and Nur Hasni Nasrudin
Abstract In the learning process, teamwork is often a crucial part where students
learn to work together using their individual skills despite any personal conflict.
Students often enjoy learning in teams and developing teamwork skills, but criticize
team assessment as unfair if there is equal reward for unequal contribution. In order
to evaluate these teamwork skills, a peer assessment often used to measure the
performance each of the team members. Peer assessment can be defined as the
responsibility of assessing work of peers against various set of assessment criteria.
It is one of the powerful tools for the students to have better understanding on
assessment criteria and also transfer certain percentage of ownership of the
assessment process and marks to them that subsequently will help increasing their
self-motivation and teamwork skills. Group assignment is one type of assessments
that is widely used by the lecturers in UiTM (Perak) especially in the Faculty of
Architecture, Planning and Surveying (FSPU). However, no study has been con-
ducted to measure the level of awareness among the lecturers. Thus, this research
seeks to identify the level of awareness of peer assessment among the lecturers in
UiTM (Perak). In addition, this research will determine the most preferable medium
N. Ismail (&) N. A. Othman

Faculty of Architecture Planning and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Seri Iskandar Campus, 32610 Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: nurai948@perak.uitm.edu.my
N. A. Othman
e-mail: noraa034@perak.uitm.edu.my
T. Mohd
Division of Academic Affairs, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Seri Iskandar Campus, 32610 Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: thura231@perak.uitm.edu.my
M. N. Abdullah N. H. Nasrudin
Faculty of Science Computer and Mathematics, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Tapah Campus, 35400 Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: nasir916@perak.uitm.edu.my
N. H. Nasrudin
e-mail: nurha932@perak.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_17
176 N. Ismail et al.
for peer assessment by the students. To achieve the objectives of this research, data
collection through survey analysis method were used. Set of 50 questionnaires was
distributed to the lecturers in UiTM (Perak). Data from the questionnaire survey
was analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics involving frequency and
percentage distribution using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).
The finding from this research clearly shows that most of the respondent answer
completely agree and agree for all of the questions which lead to high awareness
about peer review assessment for their students. We also found that most respon-
dents who have high awareness preferred online and paper as their medium of peer
assessment. It is hoped that this preliminary study will be used as indicator to shows
that the need of development of online peer assessment.
Keywords Teamwork skills Peer assessment Awareness Teamwork
1 Introduction
Teamwork is commonly applied in the working environment. Teamwork skills can

be learned and should be nurtured. Therefore, higher institution uses the teamwork
assessment widely for it can train students and prepare them for the working world.
It is imperative that the students appreciate the necessity of working together as a
team and of prioritizing team goals and objectives over individual goals and
objectives. In order to assess the commitment of team members, peer assessment is
one of the assessment tools that has been used widely.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Teamwork Skills
One of the significant components in the soft skills module is the teamwork skills.
Teamwork can be defined as the process of working collaboratively with a group of
people in order to achieve a common goal. Therefore, it is often necessary for
colleagues to work well together, trying their best in any circumstances. Teamwork
also means that people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and
providing constructive feedback, despite any personal conflict between individuals
(Business Dictionary.com). Teams are composed of individuals who share several
defining characteristics: they (1) have a shared collective identity, (2) have common
goals, (3) are interdependent in terms of their assigned tasks or outcomes, (4) have
distinctive roles within the team, and (5) are part of a larger organizational context
that influences their work and that they, in turn, can influence others (Morgeson
et al. 2010a, b; Kozlowski and Ilgen 2006). It is useful to think of these five
17 Development of an Online Peer Assessment System … 177
(5) characteristics as dimensions along with which all groups naturally vary. Taken
collectively, they are useful in distinguishing teams from certain other social col-
lectives, such as a group of friends. Goodwin and Bonadies (2005) stated that
teamwork is used to refer to overall team performance or effectiveness. Teamwork
as one of the essential learning outcomes in university; it underscores the impor-
tance of developing the attitudes and skills in individual students necessary for
contributing productively to the numerous groups and teams they will serve on later
in life. Arguably, the latter meaning of teamwork is a necessary condition for the
former; you could not have effective collective teamwork without effective sup-
porting behaviors on the part of individual team members. Whereas the levels of
analysis are different, the term teamwork refers in both cases to a process involving
how team members interact more than to the team’s ultimate success or the quality
of its end product (Hughes and Steven 2011).
2.2 Awareness of the Teamwork Skill Among Academicians
Group assignment has long been applied by academicians in the higher education
system. This group assignment is not intended to make the work easier but rather to
promote collaborative learning among students which later will develop their
teamwork skills. According to Shiba and Walden (2007), teamwork is not only
about a group work but also involves two kinds of efforts which are group effort and
individual effort. A successful group work not necessary mean a good teamwork.
Sometimes, it is a result of an individual working in a silo or several individuals
working in a group leaving one or two members getting a free ride. Aware of the
need to develop the teamwork skill among students, lecturers who assign the group
work have to monitor the progress of the team systematically and give a formative
feedback to the group.
2.3 The Importance of Teamwork Skills
Hughes and Steven (2011) argued that higher education should involve developing
critical teamwork skills among students to prepare them for success in life.
According Hart (2010), 71% of employers said they wanted universities or colleges
to place greater emphasis on “teamwork skills and the ability to collaborate with
others in diverse group settings”. Many studies, in fact, have identified teamwork as
one of the most valued and necessary skills among university graduates. A report by
the Conference Board (2008) indicated that for four (4) year university graduates,
prospective employers rated the importance of effective teamwork and collaboration
second only to oral communication in contributing to job success. This is consistent
with findings from U.S. Air Force Academy, in which graduates deem teamwork
“very important” to one’s performance as an officer. Tellingly, the percentage of
officers who endorse this view goes up as rank increases (O’Donnell 2008). Thus,
even though teamwork skills are viewed as important at all levels of employment,
their importance may become increasingly evident and valued with ever-greater
seniority in the organization. Teamwork was identified as one of 11 essential
learning outcomes in the Malaysian Qualifications Framework. Furthermore,
teamwork also plays an important instrumental role in education. Kuh (2008) found
that collaborative assignments and projects are especially potent in having a posi-
tive impact on student development. In other words, working and solving problems
actively with others is not just a desirable outcome of student development; it is also
an educational practice that has demonstrably high developmental impact.
2.4 Assessing Teamwork
The ability to work well in a team is a vital skill that can differentiate one from the
other. To become a good team member one must be able to listen to other team
members and on other occasion he or she must be persuasive enough to convince
others to listen to his or her ideas. According to Lingard and Berry (2000), it has a
strong correlation between teams’ self-evaluation of effectiveness and project
success but this does not help much when it comes to assessing the effectiveness of
individual team members. Assessing individual teamwork skills is difficult. A more
comprehensive approach is needed to accurately assess the individual teamwork
skills of students. Teamwork skills have been assessed using several methods such
as Written Teamwork Tests, Team Role Test Comprehensive Assessment of Team
Member Effectiveness (CATME), Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate
Education (VALUE) and AACU’s Teamwork Rubric.
2.4.1 Written Teamwork Tests
One possible approach to assess teamwork is through a written test. Stevens and
Campion (1994, 1999) developed a paper-and-pencil selection test for staffing work
teams. Their test was designed to assess individuals’ knowledge, skills, and abilities
in five major areas: (1) conflict resolution, (2) collaborative problem solving,
(3) communication, (4) goal setting and performance management, and (5) planning
and task coordination. This was done with a 35 item test in which students read
brief scenarios and then chose a response from four multiple-choice alternatives.
2.4.2 Team Role Test
A similar effort is illustrated in the work of Mumford et al. (2008), Team Role Test
is designed to measure respondents’ knowledge of relevant team roles. Similar to
the work described earlier, this test consists of a series of brief scenarios, followed
by multiple possible responses. Test takers are asked to rate the effectiveness of
each response, ranging from “very ineffective” to “very effective.”
2.4.3 Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness

(CATME)
Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness, or CATME, devel-

oped by Loughry et al. (2007). The CATME consists of 87 items that load onto five
(5) factors: (1) contributing to the team’s work (for example, “Did a fair share of the
team’s work”), (2) interacting with teammates (“Communicated effectively”),
(3) keeping the team on track (“Stayed aware of fellow team members’ progress”),
(4) expecting quality (“Expected the team to succeed”), and (5) having relevant
knowledge, skills, and abilities (“Had the skills and expertise to do excellent
work”). To respond to the CATME, college students are asked to “think of a student
project team that you worked on last semester. Select one (1) member of the project
teams and evaluate that one person on all of the items in this survey.” The result is a
detailed set of feedback from the rater about the quality of the students’ teamwork
skills. In initial testing, the CATME has been used only to measure the students’
past performance.
2.4.4 Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education

(VALUE)
The Association of American Colleges and Universities (Rhodes 2010) has pub-
lished rubrics for 15 of their essential learning outcomes as part of their program
Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE). Broadly
speaking, a rubric is a scoring tool that reveals the standards by which a particular
piece of work will be judged (Huba and Freed 2000; Stevens and Levi 2005).
2.4.5 AACU’s Teamwork Rubric
AACU’s Teamwork Rubric is available electronically at http://www.aacu.org/value/

rubrics/index.cfm, the standards of performance are (1) contributes to team meet-
ings, (2) facilitates the contributions of team members, (3) individual contributions
outside of team meetings, (4) fosters constructive team climate, and (5) responds to
conflict. For each of these standards, descriptions of relevant behavior are provided
for four (4) levels of performance, allowing a student’s teamwork skills to be rated
relatively low on one dimension but markedly higher on another. AACU has stated
that their VALUE rubrics are intended for institutional-level use, rather than for
grading individual students. However, the teamwork rubric could be easily adapted
to serve as a guide for students enrolled in a specific course. Then, the rubric could
be used in many of the same ways in which the CATME could be used: students
could rate teammates on their performance, and faculty members could also rate
individual students on the basis of their observations of team functioning.
2.5 The Need for Peer Assessment in Measuring Teamwork

Skill
One of the essential elements in measuring teamwork skills is peer assessment.

According to Topping (2003), peer assessment is a method for learner to evaluate
the level, value or quality of a product or performance of another learner. In most of
the studies conducted, peer assessment has been incorporated in the teamwork
assessment (Boud et al. 2006; Hugo et al. 2013). Peer assessment, in most cases,
has been used as a tool to meet the social demand of the group. It is common for a
group to face negative social processes such as free rider effect, irresponsibility, and
communication breakdown among the group members (Cohen 1982 in Topping
2003). By having the peer assessment will help to overcome these grievances. In
addition, the integration of peer assessment with teamwork assessment help in
promoting and improving student learning skills such as communication skills for
university, future workplace, and life in general (Issa 2012). Once the students
know they will be assessed individually, they will strive to perform better to prove
that they are an asset to the team.
3.1 Data Collection
This research applies descriptive survey using cross-sectional study research design
to ensure validity and the smoothness of this research process. Data were gathered
through a set of structured questionnaire distributed to the lecturers of UiTM
(Perak). The sample was drawn from the lecturers who are teaching subjects that
have teamwork cooperation among students.
The total sample size was calculated to be 40. A set of questionnaire with five
items regarding awareness of peer assessment review was designed based on the
literature and expert opinion. Furthermore, the reliability and content validity were
tested. Convenience sampling techniques were applied for selecting and distributing
the questionnaire. There were 50 set of questionnaire distributed and 45 were
returned back. The researcher inspected the questionnaires for qualities checking
such as all questions were answered by respondent or otherwise. There were 41
valid questionnaires to be considered and analyzed.
3.2 Data Analysis
In analyzing and evaluating the results of this research, quantitative approaches

were used involving data and information analyzed through perception survey
method. Quantitative data obtained through structural questions involving Likert
scale type questions contained in structured questionnaire forms were analyzed by
using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 23 (SPSS) software. At
the beginning of the analysis, the data was checked and cleaned to avoid any
missing data. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics involving frequency
tabulation and percentages and presented in the form of tables. Neuman (1994)
proposed that descriptive statistics provides a method to reduce large matrix data
into suitable summaries to facilitate the understanding and interpretation of the data
which is later tabulated into percentages and frequency distribution forms for
univariate analysis.
4.1 Reliability (Internal Consistency)
The questionnaire that was checked on its validity in terms of contents and language
based on the expert opinion. Table 1 shows the result of total correlations for each
item and Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for awareness of peer assessment review.
Cronbach’s Alpha act as an indicator of internal consistency (Pallant 2013). The
ideal value of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient must be above than 0.7. The total
correlation is a linear correlation coefficient that provides the measurement to
evaluate the strength of relationship between x and y values (Kya et al. 2012).
Based on Table 1, the value of total correlations for each item is more than 0.3.
Thus, it indicates as good correlation (Abdullah et al. 2013). In a nutshell,
Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was acceptable for awareness questionnaire on peer
assessment review which was 0.789.
Table 1 Item-total statistic for awareness of peer review questionnaire (n = 41, p = 8)

Items Corrected Cronbach’s
item-total Alpha
correlation
I always make sure my student’s groups made an 0.464 0.789
assessment about their team member regarding
teamwork skills
I regularly take time to figure out ways to improve 0.682
student’s teamwork assessment skills
The peer assessment among student regarding teamwork 0.516
skills is very important
When my student’s group team member succeeds in 0.550
their task, it works out positively for me
My student’s group team totally depend on me for 0.278
information and advice
I spent time to make sure that every student’s groups 0.550
understand the team objectives
Shortly after the start of forming my student’s groups, 0.689
most of them understand of how to deal with the task
Source Researchers’ study, 2016
Table 2 Distribution of collective answer on assessment of peer review among lecturers (n = 41)
Items 1 2 3 4 5
I always make sure my student’s groups made an assessment 15 14 3 0 5
about their team member regarding teamwork skills
I regularly take time to figure out ways to improve student’s 11 21 3 0 5
teamwork assessment skills.
The peer assessment among student regarding teamwork skills 19 13 5 0 0
is very important
When my student’s group team member succeeds in their task, 17 18 2 0 0
it works out positively for me
My student’s group team totally depend on me for information 9 11 11 4 2
and advice
I spent time to make sure that every student’s groups understand 10 18 7 1 0
the team objectives
Shortly after the start of forming my student’s groups, most of 8 18 10 1 0
them understand how to deal with the task
Indicator: 1 completely agree, 2 agree, 3 fairy agree, 4 disagree, 5 completely disagree
Based on Table 2, it clearly shows that most of the respondent answer com-
pletely agree and agree for all of the questions which lead to high level of awareness
about peer review assessment for their students. Furthermore, based on the total
score of awareness, the mean total score of awareness of peer review assessment
Table 3 Comparison Medium Current [n (%)] Expected [n (%)]

medium of current practice
and expected student Paper or manual 4 (9.8) 12 (29.3)
comfortable medium (n = 41) Online system 2 (4.9) 14 (34.1)
Telecommunication 1 (2.4) 6 (14.6)
Face to face 24 (58.5) 7 (17.1)
None 10 (24.4)
was 24.16, which indicated that the awareness among the lecturers about assess-
ment of peer review of their students can be considered as quite good because the
total score was 40. Hence, the percentage of awareness among lecturers was
60.41%.
Based on Table 3, the comparison of current practice of peer assessment review
by respondents and their opinion on the medium that students might be interested in
doing peer assessment review. 41 respondents (58.5%) were doing assessment face
to face, followed by 24.4% did not do any assessment of student peer review. Then,
four (4) of the respondents currently conducting the assessment using paper or
manual.
On the other hand, the respondents opinion on expected medium that students
might be interested were 34.1% on online system followed by on-paper assessment
(29.3%).
5 Conclusion
This research has investigated the level of awareness among lecturers regarding
teamwork assessment. The data collected shows that the level of awareness among
lecturers is quite good. However, not all lecturers surveyed incorporate peer
assessment in assessing teamwork. As has been discussed in the literature above, it
is proven that peer assessment is vital in ensuring a non-biased teamwork assess-
ment and, therefore, must be part of the teamwork assessment. For those who have
conducted the peer assessment majority have done it manually. Therefore, the
researchers feel that development of online peer assessment would be able to
expedite the process of peer assessment.
Acknowledgements The researchers wish to thank Universiti Teknologi MARA for providing
the ARAS to fund this research, and most importantly we express our deepest gratitude to all the
respondents involved for giving their time to complete the questionnaires, thus providing us the
primary data which forms the backbone of this research.
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Chapter 18
Undergraduate Computer Science
Students’ Perception and Motivation:
A Feasibility Study and a Proposed
Technique for Multimedia Approach
in Teaching and Learning Introductory
Programming
Norahimah Hj Hamzah, Nazrul Azha Mohamed Shaari

and Hayati Abd Rahman
Abstract Programming is a challenging subject to be learned because it contains

abstract concepts, requires understanding on syntax and semantics, the need to
acquire different set of skills, and the need of all those skills in order to applied
problem-solving techniques; thus, making it difficult to learn by traditional method.
Multimedia approach is one good solution to be applied in the teaching and learning
process for introductory programming subject since it can incorporate different
learning skill at the same time. The survey had been conducted targeting under-
graduate computer science students in local university and the result of the study
show that there are four topics (polymorphism concept, recursion, pointers, and
problem-solving strategies), considered as the most difficult concepts to be learned
in introductory programming courses among local undergraduate computer science
students and their current motivation state of learning programming is positively
high, though most of them think programming subject is a tough subject to learn.
Using topics from the survey result as an example, a technique that can be used to
assist in decision-making for choosing correct multimedia element used in multi-
media approach, called Chain Relation Approach had been proposed.
Keywords Introductory programming Motivational Multimedia approach
N. H. Hamzah (&) N. A. M. Shaari H. A. Rahman

MARA Shah Alam, Shah Alam, Malaysia
e-mail: norahimahhamzah@gmail.com
N. A. M. Shaari
e-mail: nash@tmsk.uitm.edu.my
H. A. Rahman
e-mail: hayatiar@tmsk.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_18
188 N. H. Hamzah et al.
1 Introduction
Learning programming is considered a very difficult task to undergraduate student

(Malik and Coldwell-Neilson 2016) and even harder to those who have never
learned programming in secondary education (Krpan et al. 2015; Saito and
Yamaura 2013). Programming is a challenging subject to learn especially with the
use of traditional method because it contains abstract concepts (Malik and
Coldwell-Neilson 2016; Krpan et al. 2015; Othman et al. 2014). It requires
understanding of syntax and semantics of programming language (Cakiroglu 2013),
as well as the need to acquire different set of skills (Malik and Coldwell-Neilson
2016). Subsequently, learning programming requires student to be able to use all
those important skills and knowledge to resolve real problems (Looi 2013).
As a result, students who lack understanding of the basic programming concepts
in introductory programming course will lead to low confidence level and low
motivations to study programming that ends up contributing to increasing the rate
of dropout or failure of undergraduate students (Krpan et al. 2015) which has been
reported to vary from 25 to 80% (El-Zakhem 2016). It is more obvious in the world
of computer science, which is mostly considered an evolving science where new
applications and technology appears every day (Doukakis et al. 2013). This is a
serious issue (Saito and Yamaura 2013) and a significant concern to this field since
it will affect the recruitments of students and also struggle to fulfill the requirements
of professionals for industry (Malik and Coldwell-Neilson 2016).
2 Background
The researchers believe of various reasons that lead to difficulties to most under-
graduate students in learning the programming courses. According to Doukakis
et al. (2013), students who are facing difficulties in understanding the rudimentary
are the students who have never learnt about programming in secondary school,
thus intimidated by those who have learnt it before. Programming is a one course
that perceives more skill and practical (Yanqing et al. 2012; Looi 2013), but some
of the curriculum mainly focus on syntax and semantics of the programming lan-
guage, overlook or less emphasis on problem-solving skill (Malik and
Coldwell-Neilson 2016), which critically in necessary to complete one of the two
phase in programming process (problem-solving and implementation) (Cakiroglu
2013).
Programming is a challenging course not only to students but also to the teachers
(Krpan et al. 2015). The responsibility and ability to create a learning environment
which is more student-centered, where student and teacher can cooperate and
working together to find out about the misunderstandings and at the same time to
18 Undergraduate Computer Science Students’ Perception … 189
facilitate understanding of the conceptual change (Mathew 2013) are not an easy
task to do. This is because not all students have the same learning style.
Many researchers believe that in introductory programming, visual learning style in
presenting the basic concept of programming is the best (Mathew 2013), while
other student perceive other learning style like auditory who learn best by hearing
and peaking and also kinesthetic learner who learn better by doing it rather than
reading and hearing (Malik and Coldwell-Neilson 2016). Multimedia approach is
said the best way to achieve this since it can incorporate different learning style at
the same time (Arvind 2014).
In this study, we have conducted a survey to classify the difficult areas in
introductory programming courses and also to identify the motivation level of local
undergraduate computer science students. This survey had involved 38 local stu-
dents with two different majors, which is software engineering and network engi-
neering that will be described further.
2.1 Objectives of the Study
The goal of this study is to classify the difficult areas in learning introductory
programming courses among local undergraduate computer science students and to
identify their current motivation level of learning programming. A teaching module
that will incorporate multimedia element is proposed, emphasizing the most difficult
topics of introductory programming courses based on the result of the survey. This
study is based on the following questions:
1. Which topic in introductory programming course is the most difficult for the
local students?
2. Do the local students enjoy/get motivated in learning programming?
3. Which type of multimedia approach that is the most appropriate to be recom-
mended in learning topics from the question (1)?
3 Literature Review
3.1 Introductory Programming
Introductory programming is imperative in programming specifically and computer

science generally (Cakiroglu 2013) because it focuses on knowledge acquiring of
basic concept and programming skill (Krpan et al. 2015). And the students learning
introductory programming often refer as novice programmer.
3.2 Issue in Introductory Programming
According to El-Zakhem (2016), dropout or failure rate of introductory program-

ming course is, unfortunately, very high, which varies from 25 to 80%. Although
much research had been done to analyze factor and cause, until today, it is still not
fully understood on how and what makes introductory programming course is
successful to some but difficult to others (Malik and Coldwell-Neilson 2016). To
novice programmer, learning introductory programming is a problematic and
challenging task (Malik and Coldwell-Neilson 2016), as it requires more than
knowledge and theories. Learning syntax alone might not be that difficult, though it
is a new thing to learn, but at the same time, novice programmer also need to
understand the semantics out of it which will be quite difficult to them (Cakiroglu
2013). Besides that, novice programmer also needs to acquire what is called as
“abstract” thinking (Krpan et al. 2015) and analytical thinking in order to develop
creativity and vision in design as well as methodology skill (Doukakis et al. 2013).
All those theories, knowledge, way of thinking and skills are formulated to solve
real problems (problem-solving skill) (Doukakis et al. 2013). The objective is to
achieve the three first step of the programming process that is to analyze, to design
and to code (Cakiroglu 2013). Since computer programming is practically
problem-oriented (Yanqing et al. 2012), novice programmer need to achieve dif-
ferent kinds of knowledge and skill in parallel way and need to apply it practically,
pushing the cognitive process way more than it should (Malik and
Coldwell-Neilson 2016).
3.3 Learning Motivation
Learning motivation and confidence level of the novice programmer is closely

related with programming logic understanding as specified by Doukakis et al.
(2013). They had revealed that student with prior education of basic programming
in secondary school would have higher rate of confidence and motivation than those
that are not. While (Krpan et al. 2015) accentuate the importance of understanding
important concepts and basic skill in introductory programming, an early letdown
of doing that will weaken student’s confidence and will lead to lack of motivation
which in the end will increase dropout rate.
The motivation can be conceptualized in two ways; extrinsic motivation and
intrinsic motivation where extrinsic focus on the outsider factors, such as grades
and rewards whereas the intrinsic motivation is focused on the internal factors, such
as determinations and feelings (Motivation 2016).
3.4 Multimedia Approach
Multimedia approach is an innovation of educational technology with the main

objective is to achieve better and efficient teaching and learning process (Arvind 2014).
It is also proven to be capable of encouraging the interaction between students and
teachers, learning by doing things that can improve problem-solving skill and much
more with no limitation of education quality it can achieve (Malik and Agarwal 2012).
The results from the quantitative study appear to support the notion that use of mul-
timedia can assist novices in learning introductory computer programming. It is clearly
demonstrated the advantage of multimedia elements with students with a low GPA.
They outscored significantly their counterpart in the final test of the study (Chansilp
and Oliver 2002). Students consistently perform much better in questions requiring
application of material taught in carefully animated algorithms (Junaidu 2008).
Interactive Multimedia proved beneficial, where it is easier to explain main concepts,
playing animation during lectures again and again. It helps students to visualize the
concepts and memorize it easily (Choi 2004). These suggest that multimedia element
can be the significant component for students’ learning outcome (Chansilp and Oliver
2002; Junaidu 2008; Choi 2004) and should be carried out unfailingly.
4 Methodology
The first research question of this study is on the introductory programming area
where students percept it as the most difficult topic to be learned. The second
research question is on the students’ motivation level in attending programming
course. In order to answer these research questions, a survey had been conducted
where the subjects of the study are local undergraduate computer science students,
majoring in software engineering and network engineering that had already taken
introductory course in their university.
4.1 Questionnaire Design
The questionnaire is divided into three parts: Demographic Data, Programming

Content and Motivational Expression as can be seen in Table 1.
4.2 Questionnaire Design Reliability
Cronbach Alpha had been used as the method to test the reliability of internal
consistency of the questionnaire, which has varied value scale from 0 to 1 (NCBI
Table 1 Questionnaire design

Part Categories Scale
Part A: demographic Gender Male and female
Age 20–30 years old
Program Software Eng and Network Eng
Semester 2–5
Latest pointer Open
Part B: programming Programming Open with a scale of
content language beginner-intermediate expert
Programming 5+1-level Likert scale
topic
Part C: motivational Expression 5-level Likert scale
expression
Part D is removed due to an error
Table 2 Questionnaire reliability

Part Cronbach Alpha (a) No. of items
Part A: demographic 0.57 5
Part B: programming content 0.98 19
Part C: motivational expression 0.82 8
Resources: Making sense of Cronbach Alpha 2016). License-free software known

as PSPP had also been used to analyze the data and the reliability test of the
questionnaire. The detailed value of the Cronbach Alpha is shown in Table 2.
A commonly accepted rule of Cronbach Alpha value range according to
(Cronbach’s Alpha 2016), the range value of Cronbach Alpha a > 0.9 can be
considered excellent, 0.9 > a > 0.8 can be considered good, 0.8 > a > 0.7 is
acceptable, and 0.6 > a > 0.5 is considered poor. The value of Cronbach Alpha for
the Part A is 0.57, which is in poor range of Cronbach Alpha values, listed by
(Cronbach’s Alpha 2016). However, since the scales of items in Part A are not
measuring the same traits from each other, the Cronbach Alpha value underesti-
mates the reliability of it (NCBI Resources: Making sense of Cronbach Alpha
2016). The value 0.98 for Part B is in the range of excellent and for Part C the value
is 0.82 in the good range, which prove that items in Part B and Part C are reliable
for this research.
The total respondents of this survey are 38 local undergraduate students from the
program of computer science. The demographics of all the respondents are listed in
Table 3.
Table 3 Demographic data Demographic profile No. % Missing

analysis value
Gender Male 15 39.47 2
Female 21 55.26
Age 20–22 22 57.89
23–25 16 42.10
Program Software 19 50
engineering
Network 19 50
engineering
Semester 2 23 60.53 2
4 5 13.16
5 8 21.05
Pointer 3.0 16 42.10
3.5 and >3.0 10 26.31
4.0 and >3.5 12 31.57
5.1 Programming Content
In Part B, there are 19 questions altogether on the topics related to the introductory
programming course. In this chapter, we analyze the data using a top–down
approach, which start from overall, then proceed to the details. Figure 1 shows the
summary of responses from all of the respondents related to all of the questions in
Part B.
Referring to Fig. 1, item that is labeled as natural is considered as an easy option
for respondents. It holds the highest value of 45%. In this chapter, we consider the
Programming Content
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Very Easy Easy to Natural / Difficult to Very I Don't
to Learn Learn Okay Learn Difficult to Know This
Learn
Fig. 1 Programming content

item labeled as natural as “not confident enough” because natural literally can be
misunderstood, whether it is a fact, “natural” or because it is an unsure option
(Likert Scale 2016). However, to compare between labeled as easy (very easy, easy
to learn) with the item labeled as difficult (difficult, very difficult to learn, “I do not
know”), the percentage of the item labeled as difficult is higher (38%), compared to
easy (17%). This is an evidence that shows the students’ general view on learning
programming (learning programming is difficult). Table 4, shows the mean value
and the frequency of the programming content.
Table 4, shows the result on the Understanding Problem-Solving Strategies
(3.5), Understanding Polymorphism (3.66), Understanding Recursion (3.84) and
Learning Pointers (3.87) are the most difficult topic for the students. Meanwhile,
Learning Data Types (2.97), Learning Variable/Function Declarable (2.94) and
Learning Output/Input Statement (2.84) are the easiest. Other topics that the student
thinks that are easy are Learning Variable/Function Declaration (2.92), Learning
Data Types (2.97), Learning Operators and Expression (3.08) and Learning
Conditional Operators (3.08).
Table 4 Demographic data analysis

Content Mean Very Easy Natural/ Difficult Very I do
easy to to okay to learn difficult not
learn learn to learn know
this
I found…
Understanding the 3.21 5.3% 7.9% 63.2% 15.8% 7.9%
purpose of 2 3 24 6 3
programming language
Understanding the 3.39 2.6% 7.9% 55.3% 23.7% 2.6% 7.9%
types of programming 1 3 21 9 1 3
language
Understanding 3.50 13.2% 34.2% 44.7% 5.3% 2.6%
problem-solving 5 13 17 2 1
strategies
Understanding 3.42 2.6% 7.9% 47.4% 31.6% 7.9% 2.6%
programming 1 3 18 12 3 1
structures
Learning programming 3.24 5.3% 7.9% 55.3% 23.7% 5.3% 2.6%
language syntax 2 3 21 9 2 1
Designing a program to 3.53 13.2% 36.8% 36.8% 10.5% 2.6%
solve certain task 5 14 14 4 1
Compiling and 3.13 5.3% 15.8% 52.6% 13.2% 13.2%
executing programs 2 6 20 5 5
Finding bugs and error 3.42 13.2% 44.7% 29.0% 13.2%
in my own programs 5 17 11 5
Learning variable/ 2.92 7.9% 23.7% 47.4% 10.5% 10.5%
function declaration 3 9 18 4 4
(continued)
Table 4 (continued)
Content Mean Very Easy Natural/ Difficult Very I do
easy to to okay to learn difficult not
learn learn to learn know
this
Learning calling 3.18 5.3% 15.8% 47.8% 18.4% 13.2%
functions 2 6 18 7 5
Learning data types 2.97 7.9% 21.1% 14.7% 18.4% 7.9%
3 8 17 7 3
Learning input/output 2.84 2.6% 34.2% 47.4% 7.9% 7.9%
statements 1 13 18 3 3
Learning operators and 3.08 2.6% 21.1% 50.0% 18.4% 7.9%
expressions 1 8 19 7 3
Learning conditional 3.08 5.3% 18.4% 50.0% 15.8% 10.5%
operations (If, else, 2 7 19 6 5
switch, etc.)
Learning looping 3.18 5.3% 21.1% 42.1% 13.2% 18.4%
structures (for, while, 2 8 16 5 7
etc.)
Learning arrays 3.45 5.3% 7.9% 42.1% 26.3% 18.4%
5 3 16 10 7
Learning pointers 3.87 2.6% 26.3% 52.6% 18.4%
1 10 20 7
Understanding 3.84 5.3% 21.1% 55.3% 15.8% 2.6%
recursion 2 8 21 6 1
Understanding 3.66 2.6% 2.6% 39.5% 39.5% 13.2% 2.6%
polymorphism 1 1 15 15 5 1
5.2 Motivational Expression
The purpose of the questions in Part C is to explore the motivational aspects of the
students in learning programming and doing programming. However, the analyzed
data in this part involves data from most part of the questionnaire that contain
motivational factor. There are eight items in this part and the summary of the
responses are shown in Fig. 2.
Referring to Fig. 2, it is obvious that students respond on natural has the highest
percentage of 35%, while the total percentage of agree (agree, strongly agree) are
45% while total percentage of disagree (strongly disagree, disagree) is only 20%.
To sum up, the motivation aspects of the local students are reflected as encour-
agingly high.
Based on data presented in Table 5, the situation where the student feels very
motivated is “when my program is executed successfully”; “I feel the satisfaction
and excited to create other program” (4.18). It is a decent extrinsic factor for
students as they will have the will of feeling to explore more and that they feel what
they learn are significance to them (Motivation 2016). The fact that most of the
MoƟvaƟonal
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Strongly Disagree Natural/ Agree Strongly Agree
Disagree Maybe
Fig. 2 Motivational expression
Table 5 Motivational expression

Content Mean Strongly Disagree Natural/ Agree Strongly
disagree maybe agree
Programming 3.39 7.9% 10.5% 42.1% 13.2% 26.3%
language is new to 3 4 16 5 10
me
I learn programming 3.26 7.9% 10.5% 36.8% 36.8% 7.9%
language because it is 3 4 14 14 3
interesting
I enjoy learning 3.24 7.9% 10.5% 42.1% 29.0% 10.5%
programming 3 4 16 11 4
language
Learning 2.53 18.4% 26.3% 44.7% 5.3% 5.3%
programming 7 10 17 2 2
language is easy
No one forced me to 3.79 2.6% 7.9% 26.3% 34.2% 29.0%
learn programming 1 3 10 13 11
language
I enjoy creating a 3.05 10.5% 7.9% 52.6% 23.7% 5.3%
program 4 3 20 9 2
I would like to learn 3.58 7.9% 7.9% 21.1% 44.7% 18.4%
other languages than 3 3 8 17 7
I learn in class
When my program is 4.18 2.6% 15.8% 39.5% 42.1%
executed 1 6 15 16
successfully, I feel
the satisfaction and
excited to create
other program
students felt that no one forced them to learn programming language (3.79) is
important as one of factors for their intrinsic motivation. Learning programming
language is easy (2.53) are the least agreed on by students which directly support
the result presented in Fig. 1 which students do really think that learning pro-
gramming is difficult.
Most of the students also agree to “I would like to learn other language than
I learn in class” (3.58), which implicitly explain their interest in programming,
which will be a good intrinsic motivation for the local student. As the result for
Part C, it is also known that there are 18.4% of the local students who had expe-
rience with programming before, who do not agree that “Programming Language is
new to me”.
5.3 Program Versus Programming Content and Motivation
In this section, data of the students between different programs are compared. This
is to see how different is the motivation level between programs in learning
introductory programming. Two programs that are involved in the study are the
Software Engineering (SE) and Network Engineering (NE) (Fig. 3).
Figures 4 and 5 show the difference between overall content of the introductory
programming and overall motivational expression of respondents. It is clearly seen
that students in NE program tend to choose natural answer as compared to students
from SE program. In the content of programming, the percentage of a natural
answer for NE students is 49% compared to SE students with only 40%. While for
motivational expression, 30% are from SE students and 41% are from NE students.
Fig. 3 Student percentage by

semester in each program
Fig. 4 Compare value of

motivational expression
Fig. 5 Compare value of

programming content
As mentioned earlier, a natural answer is considered as “not confidence enough”.

Also, comparatively, student in SE programs tends to give more positive answer
than NE students. As for easy (Very easy, easy) in programming content, the
responses from SE students are 25% and NE students are only 9%. Referring to the
motivational expression chart, in the agree (strongly agree, agree), the responds
from SE students are 54% while from SE students are 39%.
Based on the data above, it can be concluded that the confidence level of
students from NE program are lower than of students in SE program. One of the
reasons that lead to this is because the total respondents of the two programs by the
semester they were in are compared. The percentage of students in fifth semester in
SE program is 32% as compared to NE students with only 11%. According to
Siegmund et al. (2013), it is important to measure programming experience, which
in this context is educational experience of programming, where students with a
longer period had a longer experience and longer time of acquired knowledge of
programming than those who are not. The more knowledge or experience you gain,
the more confidence you get.
6 Discussion and Suggestions
Based on findings, there are four topics that students percept as really difficult to
comprehend. They are the concept of polymorphism, recursion, pointers, and
problem-solving strategies. Although, most of the students think that learning
programming is difficult, fortunately, in terms of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation,
they are motivated enough to keep on study the introductory programming.
6.1 Suggestion for Multimedia Approach
It is well known that multimedia comprises of five elements; Text, audio, video,
graphics, and animation. Applying multimedia approach in education had implicitly
overcome the weakness in education itself in such a way that innovate a new
multidisciplinary approach in order to improve teaching and learning process

(Malik and Agarwal 2012; Arvind 2014). In order to make an optimum effect and
positive impact to students, especially their motivation to learn programming,
choosing the correct multimedia element in presenting the concept or idea is the
crucial parts in the process (Arvind 2014). In this study, a proposed approach on
choosing the right multimedia element for presenting concept; focusing on the topic
(recursive, polymorphism, pointer, and problem-solving) is presented and called as
Chain Relation.
In this technique, the first vital thing to do is to find the concept relationship; in a
way, that particular concept is needed in order to implement the concept (chain).
This can be seen in Fig. 6.
There are two basic symbols that will be used in the approach and are shown in
Fig. 7.
In Fig. 8, the concept had been placed in a form of symbol in order to show the
type of relationship. Since pointer and recursion is an independent concept,
therefore, they were placed in a circle, while polymorphism had been placed in a
single triangle and problem-solving had been placed in more than one triangle and
this indicates it can have many relations. The main aim of this approach is to save
time and effort in making multimedia content. While for the independent concept,
such as recursion and pointer, the presentation needed does not have to use ani-
mation or video. Instead, a simple graphics and image presentation is enough to
deliver the concept (Arvind 2014). Finally, when everything has been put in place
together, it forms a big concept map with different symbols.
Fig. 6 Concept relation Pointer
Polymorphism
Class Inheritance
Could be vary
Problem Solving
Fig. 7 Basic symbol
No Relation Have relation

Pointer Recursion
Use text & Image / text Use text & Image / text
& graphic & graphic
Problem Solving
Polymorphism
Use text & Image / text

& graphic / animation Use text & Image / text
& graphic / animation /
video
Fig. 8 Type of relationship
7 Conclusion
This chapter had succeeded in answering all the three research questions. There are
four topics that students considered really difficult for them to understand. They are
polymorphism concept, recursion, pointers, and problem-solving strategies.
Although, most of the students think that learning programming is difficult, for-
tunately, in terms of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, they are motivated enough to
keep on studying the introductory programming. However, the proposed technique
is yet to be tested, especially in facilitating misunderstanding as mentioned by
Mathew (2013). As for now, it only demonstrates the basic steps of deciding on
multimedia content that can be used as tools in addressing students’ learning styles.
To bring this research forward, it is hoped that the proposed technique will be
improved especially in helping novice programmers acquire beforehand, skills in
abstract and analytical thinking. Evaluation from experts in the area of teaching
programming should also be considered.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by the project 600-IRMI/DANA 5/3/LESTARI

(0139/2016), The Use Of An Interactive 3D Analogies In Helping Students Learn Object-Oriented
Programming, funding from the Institute of Research Management & Innovation (IRMI),
Universiti Teknologi MARA.
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Chapter 19
Design of the Icon-Based Interactive
Video for English Vocabulary Learning
Siti Norakmal Md Ariffin and Marina Ismail
Abstract Videos can be useful for teaching and learning. However, a conventional
video does not allow interaction which is the key to learning. Hence, interactive
video is recommended. Designing interactive video for learning requires special
consideration. It must adopt the suitable learning approach and video development
technology. This chapter will discuss the design of an interactive video which uses
the picture-in-picture video design approach, iconic metaphor, and storytelling as a
learning approach for teaching English vocabulary to Secondary 1 students in
Malaysia. The interactive video uses pictures and sounds to assist students in
learning vocabulary. Icons are used for symbolic representations. To make learning
interesting, the storytelling approach is adopted. Students interact with the video
sequence and feedback is provided to create a two ways interaction. The effec-
tiveness of the interactive video has been tested on 50 students from two schools in
Kelantan and Selangor. The pre- and posttest evaluation were conducted. Analysis
showed that the use of interactive video has attracted students to use the application,
and thus remain in the learning process. This has resulted in an improvement in
their vocabulary mastery, thus proven that the icon-based interactive video is
effective as an additional learning tool.
Keywords Interactive video Picture-in-picture Storytelling approach

Vocabulary learning
S. N. M. Ariffin (&) M. Ismail

Faculty of Computer & Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi
MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
e-mail: siti_norakmal@yahoo.com
M. Ismail
e-mail: marina@tmsk.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_19
204 S. N. M. Ariffin and M. Ismail
1 Introduction
There are many approaches in teaching English vocabulary. Teaching English

vocabulary is important to English language, it is the fundamental (Zheng et al.
2009). Vocabulary gives meaning to a sentence even when the sentence is gram-
matically incorrect (Jiaa et al. 2012). Therefore, when it comes to writing, it does
give a very big impact where the writer has to be careful in choosing the correct
word in order to produce a good quality essay (Nik et al. 2010).
In Malaysia, the English language is compulsory within the school’s curriculum.
The Ministry of Education develops two curriculums that are Kurikulum Bersepadu
Sekolah Rendah (KBSR) and Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM)
for the primary and secondary level, respectively. KBSR emphasize in the four
language skills that are listening, speaking, reading, and writing in order to develop
the basic English skills. KBSR is designed to create the basic knowledge in English.
Meanwhile, KBSM focused on developing the English language for the students so
that they are able to use it in their future. One of the main objectives of learning
English is to mold students’ capability in creating their own opinions and ideas
using their imagination and creativity in speaking and writing (Muhamad 2013a, b).
2 Research Background
A preliminary study was conducted to ascertain the secondary student’s English

language performance in rural areas in Kelantan and Selangor. The study consists of
two activities: interviews with the English language teachers and a review of the
students’ English language result. The findings of the preliminary study showed
that students in the rural areas are still weak in English Language and teachers
agreed that inability to master the English vocabulary hinders them from per-
forming well in English.
A thorough literature search has been done on the approaches to learning the
English language. A survey was conducted in two schools in the rural area in
Kelantan and Selangor on the approaches used by English teachers in their class-
room teaching. Teachers used the variety of approaches to teaching in class which
includes the textbooks, reading storybooks, providing translations, and introduction
of symbols in remembering the vocabulary. Despite the many approaches used,
students are still weak in the English language. The result of the survey is shown in
Fig. 1.
A study conducted by Winnie et al. (2008) showed that video is the right
medium for learning and it helps improves student’s performance. The video is
suitable for learning especially in a situational content because the situation can be
represented by pictures and moving images. As stated by Martin (2012), one picture
can tell a thousand stories, that is how important picture in learning and under-
standing vocabulary. The video is linear in nature and does not allow interaction
19 Design of the Icon-Based Interactive Video for … 205
Fig. 1 Approaches in
learning English language
which is very important in learning. An interactive video will have all the learning
requirements: pictures, sound, and the icon-based interaction. The icon-based
interactive video will be able to assist and also guide students in learning English
language vocabulary.
Malaysian Ministry of Education encourages student to learn more on
Information and Communication and Technology (ICT), therefore, e-learning
medium has been introduced to the student in the school. Interactive video is
attached in the e-learning medium, to gather the student attraction during the
learning session. This chapter will discuss the design and effectiveness of
icon-based interactive video as a method to teach English vocabulary to Secondary
One school children.
3 Methodology
There are six phases involved in the research methodology as shown in Fig. 2.
The first phase is the problem identification where the main problem faced by
students in learning English vocabulary is identified. It consists of interviews and
Fig. 2 Phases of the research methodology

review of the students’ ‘Penilaian Berdasarkan Sekolah’ (PBS) results. The second
phase is to identify the current learning approaches and suitable learning approach
for English vocabulary learning. Learning approach is identified by interviewing the
teachers and based on the result from the questionnaire distributed to the learners as
well as through a thorough literature review. The third phase is to identify the
technique that will be used to develop the icon-based interactive video. The tech-
nique is identified by doing analysis on the questionnaire data and literature of the
past researchers. The questionnaire focuses on what approach that most student like
to use in learning English. This is important in designing the icon-based interactive
video (IV) in order to make sure that the design of icon-based interactive video
(IV) can meet the students’ interest and attract them. A literature review has been
gathered to support the questionnaire result. The fourth phase is the design phase. It
determines the element that should be included in the video and how the icon-based
interactive video (IV) should look. The storyboard for the icon-based interactive
video and the interface is created during this phase. For this study, the content will
be based on form 1 English textbook. The icon-based interactive video (IV) design
must suit the learners’ learning style and relevant to their studies. The next phase is
the development phase. The development was implemented using software such as
Adobe Photoshop, Flash, and mp3 Cutter. The last phase is to evaluate the IV for its
effectiveness. The IV is evaluated through the pretest and posttest taken by the
students. The effectiveness is measured by comparing the differences in their score
before and after using the IV to learn.
3.1 The Design
There are three learning phases involved in the icon-based interactive video:
Phase 1: The learner listens and understands the situation in the story that is shown
in the video. This activity will introduce new words that can be added up to the
students’ vocabulary.
Phase 2: The learner needs to understand the instruction given in the video. The
instructions are regarding the direction that they need to take to reach their
destination.
Phase 3: The learner will be tested what they have learned by choosing the correct
word on their quest to reach the destination.
There are several checkpoints on the map. All these checkpoints are where
learner’s comprehension was tested through question and answer interaction. This
question and answer approach will also help learners to memorize the new words.
The technique is known as the systematic technique, which emphasizes on repe-
tition. If the learner makes a wrong decision they are required to try again and select
the correct direction. The flow of this icon-based interactive video is shown in
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 Flow of the icon-based interactive video
The video incorporates the picture-in-picture video developing techniques, sto-

rytelling and icon-based approach in its design. Picture-in-picture placed several
images on the same screen at the same time. This icon-based interactive video
combines the three types of images, which are the map, the icon and the Flash
created the image. The map is the background for the video, the icon is used as the
checkpoints on the map and the Flash created images is for the user to interact with
the video. The video scenes are the using the storytelling approach to introduce the
new words. Figure 4 shows the video scene with the picture-and-picture concept.
Fig. 4 Picture-in-picture concept in the IV
Fig. 5 Video content taken from textbook
The picture-in-picture view also allows interaction. Learners can click the two
images on the scene as an interaction and to navigate. The learner has to determine
the correct path to end the story in the video correctly. The character and objects in
the video were represented in the symbols similar to the requirement of the syllabus
in textbooks. Figure 5 shows the video content that allows interaction based on the
textbook.
4 Results
The evaluation has been done in order to see the effectiveness of the icon-based
interactive video to assist in learning English vocabulary.
The pretest and posttest have been conducted with the experimental group that
involved 50 respondents. For the pretest, respondents are required to answer a set of
objective questions about direction (according to the syllabus). After the pretest, the
respondents were exposed to the icon-based interactive video. The posttest is
administered after the session using the IV ends.
Table 1 shows the data collected from the pretest and posttest that have been
answered by the respondents. Respondents need to answer 20 questions which have
been divided into two parts, part A for the first scenario and part B for the second
scenario. Each part consists of two sections, which are the objective and the true
and false sections.
From Table 1, the first column represents the respondents. The second and third
columns are for the pretest and posttest, respectively. The full marks are 20. The last
column is the differences in score between pretest and posttest, the negative value
showed that respondent gets that higher marks during the pretest while positive
value showed the improvement when using the icon-based interactive video.
Table 1 Students result for Result Number of Differences pretest and

pretest and posttest students posttest
Pretest Posttest
0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0
2 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
4 0 0 0
5 1 0 1
6 1 0 1
7 1 0 1
8 0 0 0
9 1 1 0
10 0 2 −2
11 6 2 4
12 16 9 7
13 8 6 2
14 8 7 1
15 7 4 3
16 0 9 −9
17 0 8 −8
18 1 2 −1
19 0 0 0
20 0 0 0
18 12
Post Test
16 Pre Test
10
14
12 8
Frequency
10
6
8
6 4
4
2
2
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Marks distribution
Fig. 6 Pretest and posttest result
Figure 5 showed the result of pretest and posttest. In Fig. 6, the x-axis represents
the frequency which is the number of the respondent that get the marks and y-axis
represent the score distribution with the highest score is 20. For the posttest, none of
the respondents get a score below 9, which means there is some improvement after
using the icon-based interactive video, and here we can see that the icon-based
interactive video does assist respondent in learning English vocabulary.
A paired-samples t-test was conducted to compare the score that most students
get before they using the interactive video and after they using the interactive video.
Below is the paired sample statistic for all students from both schools (Table 2).
VAR00001—Result t-test for all student pretest. VAR00002—Result t-test for all
student posttest.
The result for paired samples correlations for all students from both school stated
as Tables 3 and 4.
There was significant difference in the score for VAR00001 (M = 12.48,
SD = 2.27) and VAR00002 (M = 14.22, SD = 2.30) conditions; t(49) = −5.541,
p = .000
Therefore, there was significant increase in the number of student score higher
after using the interactive video (M = 14.22, SD = 2.30) than before they use the
interactive video (M = 14.22, SD = 2.30); t(49) = −5.541, p = .000. These results
Table 2 Paired sample statistic for all students

Mean N Std. deviation Std. error mean
Pair 1 VAR00001 12.4800 50 2.26995 .32102
VAR00002 14.2200 50 2.29720 .32487
Table 3 Paired samples correlations for all students

N Correlation Sig.
Pair 1 VAR00001 & VAR00002 50 .527 .000
Table 4 Paired samples test for all students

Paired differences t df Sig.
Mean Std. Std. 95% confidence (2-tailed)
deviation error interval of the
mean difference
Lower Upper
Pair VAR00001– −1.74000 2.22059 .31404 −2.37108 −1.10892 −5.541 49 .000
1 VAR00002
suggest that interactive video is one of the effective learning approaches to learning
English vocabulary. Specifically, the result shows the increment result of the stu-
dent score after they using the interactive video.
5 Conclusion
The icon-based interactive video approach to learning English vocabulary has been
chosen to assist learners in learning vocabulary. Findings from the data, interviews
and classroom observation, helped in the design and creating the Icon-based
interactive videos (IV). Icon-based interactive videos were created by incorporating
the picture-and-picture technique, storytelling, and icon-based approach. The
videos are used to teach Form 1 student of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Kota
Bharu, Kelantan and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Jeram, Selangor. This model
was based on the English language textbooks of the schools. Pretest and posttest
results were taken to measure the effectiveness and the limitation of using
icon-based interactive video as the method of learning English vocabulary. Based
on the results of the pretest and posttest it proves that using icon-based interactive
videos (IV) can help learners in learning the English vocabulary.
Acknowledgements Due acknowledgment is given to the Headmaster and Headmistress,

teachers, staffs, and students who were involved in the survey from Sekolah Menengah
Kebangsaan Kota Bharu, Kelantan and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Jeram, Selangor and also
to the management of the schools.
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Chapter 20
Turn-Taking Strategies Adopted by Low
Proficient ESL Learners in Group
Discussions
Ahmad Nazri Jelani, Norhidayah Md Yusof, Khairul Firhan Yusob,

Khairunisa Nikman and Iza Nurhidayah Ismail
Abstract Group discussion is one of the assessments in almost all English profi-
ciency subjects. In this assessment, candidates are required to display a variety of
speaking skills that are essential to having an effective group discussion. One of the
most important skills is turn-taking strategies. Poor grasp of turn-taking strategies
may cause candidates to face difficulty in participating in the discussion or even
cause the discussion to come to a complete halt. This is often the case for low
proficient students who are unable to apply the correct turn-taking strategies
properly. Because of this deficiency, low proficient students often turn to other
methods to ensure their participation during the group discussion. This study sets
out to document and analyze turn-taking strategies employed by low proficiency
students by ESL learners. The data were analyzed using Allwright’s Turn-taking
Analysis (1980). Results show that low proficient ESL learners’ were generally able
to apply a variety of turn-taking strategies to participate in a group discussion.
Keywords Turn-taking strategies Low proficient ESL learners

Group discussion
A. N. Jelani (&) K. F. Yusob K. Nikman

e-mail: ahmadnazrij@pahang.uitm.edu.my
K. F. Yusob
e-mail: yune@pahang.uitm.edu.my
K. Nikman
e-mail: khairulfirhan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. M. Yusof
Raub, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: norhidayahmy@pahang.uitm.edu.my
I. N. Ismail
Center of Language Studies, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn, Parit Raja,
Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: iza@uthm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_20
214 A. N. Jelani et al.
1 Introduction
Interaction in a classroom is important as it allows the students to experience social

activities which are vital in building their knowledge, confidence and identity as
competent language users (Luk and Lin 2007). This is supported by Vygotsky’s
sociocultural theory (Hall and Walsh 2002) which illustrates the act of learning as a
social activity which allows the students to learn the knowledge through the help of
teachers or friends who have more knowledge. Thus, this will make the students
learn and acquire the language in more effective ways (Berhanemeskel 2008). One
of the ways in ensuring the effectiveness of an interaction is through group
discussion.
According to Padilha (2006), there is a vital element when it comes to interaction
within a group discussion which is the organization of turn-taking. Turn-taking is
important in social interaction, especially in group discussions. Turn-taking is the
systematic process of how students coordinate their talk. Therefore, several
turn-taking strategies must be employed in a group discussion to ensure effective
participation. On the other hand, poor grasp of turn-taking strategies will lead to
students having difficulty participating in a group discussion and in certain cases
may even cause a discussion to reach a complete halt.
Poor mastery of turn-taking strategies is partly because ESL learners find diffi-
culty in practising turn-taking strategies (Kramsch 1987; Van Lier 1988; Hedge
2000), while other factors such as English language proficiency also impedes
mastery of the skills (Brumfit 1984). Hence, both factors are crucial for speakers to
achieve an effective group discussion while fulfilling objectives. In the context of an
English language speaking assessment, participants with limited mastery of the
skills often focus more on the given task and objectives despite their inability to
apply correct turn-taking skills. This limitation is rectified using alternative methods
apart from the skills taught by instructors.
Therefore, this study aims to address these questions:
1. What are the turn-taking strategies employed by low proficient ESL students in
classroom group discussion?
2. What are the most common turn-taking strategies employed by low proficient
ESL students?
This study also aims to achieve the objectives as followed:
1. To identify turn-taking strategies employed by low proficient ESL students in
classroom group discussion.
2. To analyze the most common turn-taking strategies employed by low proficient
ESL students.
20 Turn-Taking Strategies Adopted by Low Proficient … 215
2 Literature Review
Turn-taking is seen as a significant topic, especially in conversation analysis. It

became a highlight after many studies had been done on conversation analysis
(Sacks et al. 1974). In normal conversation, turn-taking always takes place to
determine who should be talking at that time. A more complicated turn-taking
occurs when a conversation involves more than two people. As Van Lier (1988)
notes, one owns a turn whenever he or she continuously speaks in a conversation.
In analyzing turn-taking patterns, some scholars created their own model of
analysis. However, among the prominent ones are Sacks et al. (1974), Allwright
(1980) and Van Lier (1988). Sacks et al. (1974) tried to look at how turn-taking
occurred in conversation among native speakers. To do this, they established basic
observations about turn-taking patterns among native American English speakers
which can be seen in Table 1.
Allwright (1980) came up with a turn-taking analysis of classroom behaviour.
His analysis is seen to be more significant for ESL learners as he tried to see the
patterns used by them instead of native speakers. He divided the analysis into two
categories; turn getting and turn giving. The analysis is further explained in
Table 2.
Another prominent framework was developed by Van Lier (1988). Unlike other
scholars, he classified turn-taking into four groups. Under each group, there are
subcategories to further explain each group. However, as noted by Van Lier (1988)
Table 1 Sacks et al.’s (1974) set of basic observations about turn-taking in American English
conversations between native speakers
1 Speaker change happens within a conversation and may happen more than once
2 Usually, one person talks at a time
3 Times when more than one speaker talks at once are common but brief
4 It is common to find transitions between turns occurring without a gap or an overlap
5 Turn order is not preset
6 Turn size is not preset
7 The length of the conversation as a whole is not preset
8 What speakers should say is not decided in advance
9 The distribution of turns is not decided in advance
10 The number of people in the conversation can change
11 Talk may or may not be continuous
12 Turn allocation techniques are clearly used. The current speaker may select the next
speaker or someone who wants to be the next speaker may self-select
13 The length of turn units can vary from one word to many phrases
14 There are ways to repair the conversation if there are violations of turn-taking rules
Table 2 Allwright’s (1980) turn-taking analysis of classroom behaviour

No. Turn getting Turn giving
1. Accept Respond to a personal solicit – Fade out and/or give way to an
interruption
2. Steal Respond to a personal solicit Ø Make a turn available without
made to another making either a personal or
general solicit (e.g. by simply
concluding one’s utterance with
the appropriate terminal
intonation markers)
3. Take Respond to a general solicit P Make a personal solicit (i.e.
nominate the next speaker)
4. Take Take an unsolicited turn, when G Make a general solicit
turn is available–”discourse
maintenance”
5. Make Make an unsolicited turn, during
the current speaker’s turn,
without intent to gain the floor
(e.g. comments that indicate one
is paying attention
6. Make Start a turn, during that of the
current speaker’s, with intent to
gain the floor (i.e. interrupt, make
a takeover bid)
7. Make Take a wholly private turn, at any
point in the discourse (e.g. a
private rehearsal, for
pronunciation practise, of a word
spoken by the teacher)
8. Miss Fail to respond to a personal
solicit within whatever time is
allowed by the interlocutor(s)
himself, there were some subcategories which could not be easily coded. For
example, ‘rehearsal’ and ‘private’, which fall under ‘Neutral’ category. This is due
to the difficulty of hearing the recorded audio as participants often used soft voice
when applying these two subcategories in their conversation (Table 3).
Many studies have found that lack of turn-taking strategies has become an issue
that is difficult to overcome in ESL classrooms especially among low proficient
learners. Therefore, in ESL classrooms, teachers are often the ones who initiate
conversation and control interactions as long as English is concerned (Gremmo
et al. 1977). This problem can become dire during assessed group discussions
especially when they are being graded. In speaking assessments, teachers are silent
examiners, forcing learners to rely on their more proficient counterparts. As a result,
students with higher proficiency have difficulty interacting with the lower profi-
ciency members in the target language (Smith 1986).
Table 3 Van Lier’s (1988) classification of turn-taking patterns

No. Categories Definition Subcategories
1 Prospective The way the turn is linked to the Allocating: nominate, signal or
subsequent turn(s) gaze—specific solicit
Soliciting: verbal (general
solicit) or behavioural
Ending: end, give up or give
way
2 Retrospective The way the turn is linked to the Allocated: pre-allocated or
preceding turn(s) locally allocated
Unallocated: response to solicit
or self-select (WTA)a, floor
seeking (WTNA)b, negative
feedback or stolen
OK—pass
3 Concurrent A turn that is taken during a Listening response
current turn which is related to Intra-turn repair/
that turn in a servicing sense repair-initiation
4 Neutral A turn which is indeterminate as Rehearsal
to (a), (b) or (c), and which is not Private
implicative of prospective or
retrospective relations to its
surrounding turns
a
WTA When Turn—Available
b
WTNA When Turn Not Available
3 Methodology
This study applies qualitative method using video recording as the primary data
collection. To achieve the objectives of the study, 48 students were involved as
respondents. The sampling method employed is purposive sampling, where these
respondents were chosen among the four classes of Semester 2 students taking
ELC150 course in UiTM Pahang. This is because the study requires the respondents
to participate in a conversation and one of the assessments prescribed for ELC150
course is Speaking Test, where students have to take part in a group discussion.
Since the current study focuses on investigating the turn-taking strategies
employed by low proficient students, data collection method was primarily video
recording. The four classes were divided into 11 small groups, where each group
comprised three to four members including a group leader. Each group would have
to engage in a 10-min group discussion, discussing a situation assigned to them.
Each session was video recorded and full transcriptions were used for the analysis.
In answering the research questions of the current study, data were transcribed
with focus on turn-taking strategies employed by only the low proficient students.
Low proficient students were identified and selected based on the scores they
attained during the group discussion. Participants scoring lower than 5 of 10 marks
were categorized as low proficient students. The transcribed data was later analyzed
to identify the turn-taking strategies applied by participants. Subsequently, the data

was further analyzed using descriptive statistics to determine the most common
strategies employed by the low proficient students.
Several models or frameworks for analyzing turn-taking strategies in conver-
sation were found, yet only Allwright’s model (1980) was found relevant to be used
since the target samples are ESL students. According to Allwright’s model of
Turn-Taking Strategies (1980), turn-taking is divided into two categories: turn
getting and turn giving. As discussed in the literature review, this model was
deemed as the most useful and usable for this study since it is equally applicable to
both verbal and non-verbal responses in a conversation. Further discussion of these
responses can be found in the discussion of findings.
4 Findings
This section presents the findings based on the research questions.

Research Question 1—what are the turn-taking strategies employed by low
proficient ESL students in classroom group discussion?
Based on the video recordings of the discussions, the findings show that par-
ticipants’ turn-taking strategies can generally be categorized into all of the cate-
gories for turn getting except for category 7. The categories identified are discussed
below.
Accept—The findings show that participants get their turns or participate in the
discussion by responding to questions or even gestures which were specifically
directed to them by another group member. Accept was identified in four situations;
1. When a participant was asked to introduce his/her own point for the first time by
another candidate.
2. When a participant was asked to comment on another candidate’s point or
suggestion.
3. When a participant was asked a question for clarification or further explanation
about a point previously made.
4. When asked about which point was the best point.
Steal—Another category identified is Steal where participants got a turn by
responding to a question or gesture that was not meant for them, but for another
participant. Two different types of situations were identified as Steal.
1. When participant did not realize that a question was meant for another
participant.
2. When answering on behalf of another participant.
Take (3)—Findings also show participants took a turn by responding to a
question the was made by one participant to everyone in general and not directed
specifically at them. The situations that were identified here are the same as
described below.
1. One group member asks what all the candidates think about his/her statement or
suggestion that he/she had just presented.
Take (4)—Participants were also found to have taken a turn by speaking out
without being directed any questions. Participants were observed to have done this
when a group member had just finished speaking or making a point either by
agreeing or disagreeing or moving on to another point.
Make (5)—Some participants spoke while another candidate was still speaking
or making a point. However, in this category, the intention would not be to gain the
floor from the current speaker. The situations can be considered as assistance rather
than interruption. For example, one participant was at a loss of words, the other
candidate spoke one word to help that participant finish his/her sentence.
Make (6)—In this category, it classifies the interruption with intention to gain
the floor. There are several examples of situations that were identified in this
category.
1. Participant asks the current speaker for permission to interrupt by saying
‘Excuse me, may I interrupt?’, the current speaker then stops to give him/her the
floor.
2. Participant interrupts with a question about current speaker’s statement, without
asking for permission.
Fail to respond—Some participants had failed to take a turn despite being given
a turn. In some situations, participants kept quiet when asked a question while
others would give a non-verbal response like nodding.
As for turn giving, results show that turn giving was done using all categories,
i.e. fade out or make way for interruption, make turn available, make personal
solicit and make general solicit.
Fade out or make way for interruption—Some participants stop in the middle
of a speech to allow other group members to speak. There are two types of situ-
ations when participants apply this category.
1. When a group member interrupts their speech by speaking over them or asks
them a question.
2. When a group member gestures them to give way for another speaker to speak.
Make turn available—Findings also show that participants make a turn
available by ending their speech without making any form of solicitation. For
example, ‘If you be alone, good friends will be there to a cheer you up. That is my
point.’
The phrase ‘that is my point’ signals the end of the speech for anyone else to
pickup from. Another example is when a participant answered a question with a
simple ‘no’. The participant does not continue with any elaborations or solicitation
and, therefore, making the turn available from anyone to take.
Make personal solicit—The findings show participants gave turns by soliciting
specific people. When giving turns, participants mention the name of the next
speaker. This is usually at the beginning of the discussion when participants want to
hear all of the suggestions. Participants also made personal solicitation when
directing questions to the chosen member.
Make general solicit—Last, general solicitation is also made by the participants
to give a turn. Findings show that participants make general solicitation by asking
the whole group about their comments on some points that were made during the
discussion.
Research Question 2—What are the most common turn-taking strategies
employed by low proficient ESL students?
In Table 4, findings show that a total of 135 turns were taken by all the par-
ticipants. A majority of the turns were taken by 1. Accept, accepting personal
solicitation (83/61%). This is followed by self-initiated turn getting categories such
as 7. Make, interruptions (17/13%), 5. Take, discourse maintenance (15/11%) and
less than 10% of turns were taken by 3. Take (10/7%), 3. Miss (3/2%), 2. Steal
(5/4%), and 5. Make (2/2%). None of the participants took a turn by 7. Make, a
private turn.
In Table 5, findings show that a total of 115 turn were given. Most of the turns
were given by making personal solicit (72/63%). This is followed by Fading out
(17/15%), making general solicit (14/12%), and by making a turn available
(12/10%).
Table 4 Frequency and percentage of turn getting

Category Freq. %
1. Accept 83 61
2. Steal 5 4
3. Take 10 7
4. Take 15 11
5. Make 2 2
6. Make 17 13
7. Make 0 0
8. Miss turn 3 2
Total 135
Table 5 Frequency and percentage of turn giving

Category Freq. Percentage
(%)
– Fade out and/or give way to an interruption 17 15
Ø Make a turn available without making either a personal or general 12 10
solicit
P Make a personal solicit 72 63
G Make a general solicit 14 12
Total 115
5 Discussion
Based on the findings, students with poor English language proficiency used a
variety of turn-taking strategies during group discussion. From Allwright’s
turn-taking analysis (1980), students’ turn-taking strategies cover the whole range
of categories, except for the seventh in turn getting. Students took turns by
accepting questions directed to them and passing on the turn by selecting the next
candidate to be asked a question as to ensure that all group members were involved.
Generally, these students seem to be somewhat capable of participating in a
group discussion. However, responding to personal solicit being the most common
strategy in turn-taking, it may imply that the transitions were well rehearsed and not
as natural as one would expect. A majority of the students would sit by waiting to
be asked a question. They may or may not even be engaged in the discussion. The
response may only come after their names were mentioned by the other group
members. After one is done presenting their point the group, he/her would then
make sure the next candidate continues. This may also explain the reason the most
common way to give a turn is by making personal solicit. Some groups may have
rehearsed the sequence of turns during the discussion to ensure a fluid transition
throughout.
There were only a few cases where students gave a turn through without per-
sonal solicit. It is a good strategy to ensure a continuous flow of the discussion.
Asking questions and making interruptions may increase the risks of the discussion
getting to a complete stop. When a student interrupts a speaker, the speaker may
lose track of their point. It is also important to note that these group discussions
were conducted as part of their evaluation. Therefore, students would prefer to
avoid getting stuck on a point. That being the case, some students may feel that
active engagement in the discussion would benefit in scoring higher marks. This
may explain why interruptions still take place.
6 Limitations
In this study, there were a few limitations. Since the Allwright’s (1980) model was
exclusively used to identify and categorize turn-taking strategies, participants
strategies that may not have belong to any of Allwright’s strategy types may have
been overlooked or dismissed. Furthermore, labelling of low proficient students
were not inter-rated nor was any proficiency test conducted. Participants were
selected based on their performance during the English language speaking
assessment and poor performance often reflects weak control of English speaking
skills. Since no proper proficiency test was done, test scores may not accurately
reflect students’ true language proficiency.
7 Conclusion
Based on the findings, it is possible to conclude that students with low English
proficiency are able to apply a certain range of turn-taking strategies in a classroom
group discussion. However, there is a big tendency for weaker students plan their
turns to ensure a more fluid transition throughout the discussion, especially during a
speaking test. Therefore, it would be possible to recommend that teachers
encourage students to be more natural and involved in the discussion. Being too
dependent on the planned sequence makes the discussion appear too mechanical
and stiff. The implication of this study is on English teacher and trainers. Much
attention is needed to improve students overall speaking ability.
To strengthen the findings of this, future research can compare between
turn-taking strategies of high-proficiency ESL learners and low-proficiency learners
and gain possible insight into their perception of turn-taking strategies.
References
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teaching. In: Discourse analysis in second language research, pp 165–187
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pédagogiques, pp 42–55
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Oxford, England
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classroom research. Longman, London
Chapter 21
Game-Based Approach in Teaching
and Learning: Fun, Knowledge or Both?
A Case Study of MDAB Students
Mohd Aidil Riduan Awang Kader, Suhanom Mohd Zaki,

Mohd Faizal Azrul Azwan Muhamed, Roslina Ali
and Mustafa Kamal Mat
Abstract “Program Mengubah Destini Anak Bangsa” (MDAB) is a pre-diploma

program with the aim to provide higher education experience to Bumiputera stu-
dents who come from low-income family and have minimal qualification to pursue
studies at tertiary level. This program fulfills and realizes their dream and hope of
becoming university students since they were not selected to further studies in other
higher education institutions. Most of the students are categorized as average stu-
dents. They hardly understand the content of the subjects and conventional
approach in teaching and learning found ineffective. Therefore, the use of games as
an interesting and fun method of teaching and learning was introduced in order to
improve students’ understanding. The purpose of this study is to examine the
relationship between the use of games in teaching and learning process and stu-
dent’s academic performance. Furthermore, this chapter aims to investigate the
factors that contribute to the use of games in teaching and learning for management
subject. In order to achieve these objectives, quasi-experimental research design has
been conducted to compare the test score between students who had involved with
the games (treatment group) during class period and students who were not
M. A. R. Awang Kader (&) S. Mohd Zaki M. F. A. A. Muhamed M. K. Mat

Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pahang,
e-mail: aidilriduan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
S. Mohd Zaki
e-mail: suhanom@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. F. A. A. Muhamed
e-mail: faizalazrul@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. K. Mat
e-mail: muskamal@pahang.uitm.edu.my
R. Ali
Kampus Raub, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: roslinaali@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_21
224 M. A. R. Awang Kader et al.
involved with the games (control group). Questionnaires were also distributed to the
treatment group in order to identify the factors that contribute to the use of games in
teaching and learning process. It was found that factors such as perceived useful-
ness, ease of use, and soft skills improvement had contributed to the use of games in
teaching and learning process. Furthermore, there was relationship between the use
of games in teaching and learning process and students’ academic performance.
Keywords Game-based learning Perceived usefulness Students’ performance

Teaching learning
1 Introduction
A pre-diploma program in UiTM which is known as “Program Mengubah Destini

Anak Bangsa” (MDAB) was established to provide educational opportunity to
Bumiputera students who come from low-income family and have minimal qual-
ification to pursue studies at tertiary level. They may face difficulty to understand
the content of the subjects if the teaching is done in conventional way. Hence,
traditional teaching and learning approaches in a usual class environment have
become monotonous and posed many problems. This is the factual challenge faced
by educators to ensure teaching and learning environment to be entertaining in a
competitive market. According to Hainey (2010), one of the problems faced is due
to lack of practice during the teaching. It is important to provide realistic situations
to help students relate the knowledge learned from the ordinary textbooks to their
own daily life. As we noticed, grown-up students today are those who prepared to
accept and explore new learning in life and are eager to discover new technology
expansion. New visionary generation today was born and grown with special
characteristics and it made them a very unique generation (Howe and Strauss 2000).
Therefore, learning is no longer seen as painful exercise but rather as enjoyable
where we learn in a pleasant situation. Various educational games are widely used
to improve and enhance students’ skill. Among those popular learning games used
in classroom are puzzles, letter games, word games, card games, guessing games,
and many more. Game-based learning may create dynamism, rebalancing, and
positively energizing the classroom. It has proven that participation of the learner is
encouraged via investigation, competition, collaboration, and experimentation
activities (Hainey et al. 2013). As highlighted by Jean and Val (2016), innovative
and inspired teaching is the most dominant instrument in higher education. The
effective teaching may result in many positive outcomes such as the ability to think
deeply, more creative in solving problem, and participate as a dynamic team player.
In this study, the use of game as an interesting and fun method of teaching and
learning was introduced to improve students’ understanding. Nevertheless, there are
also driving factors that led students to be more interested in using the games in
21 Game-Based Approach in Teaching and Learning: Fun … 225
learning the subjects. Thus, the objectives of this chapter are to examine the rela-
tionship between the use of game in teaching and learning process and student’s
academic performance, and to investigate the factors that contribute to the use of
games in teaching and learning for management subject.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Game-Based Learning and Students’ Performance
The use of games in teaching and learning process can help to improve students’
performance. Gamification means “the careful and considered application of game
thinking to solving problems and encouraging learning using all the elements of
games that are appropriate” (Kapp 2012, p. 12). Among the benefits of using
game-based learning, the students can apply what they have learned, building skills
and competencies, developing critical thinking skills, and provide engaging,
effective experiences that students may be more likely to use than other materials
(Bert 2016). This is also proved by several studies on the effectiveness of
game-based learning towards several courses such as Construction Management,
Economics, Mathematics, Business Management, and Accounting. Bee and Benson
(2016) revealed that game-based learning is effective in enhancing student learning
in construction management course. Meanwhile, Kebritchi et al. (2010) found that
games promoted a more positive attitude towards mathematics subject. Delacruz
(2011) examined how different levels of games (Save Patch) affect mathematics
learning and performance and found that playing Save Patch leads to higher
mathematics achievement. Saflina and Mustafa (2008) also found that games
(crossword puzzle) had stimulated the students level of thinking in Accounting and
Finance subjects. In addition, Miller and Robertson (2011) did a study on the
educational benefits of using game consoles in a primary classroom. They found
that students improved in speed and accuracy of computation during the course of
the intervention and had significantly improved on students’ grade. However, a
study by Roslina et al. (2011) found that there were no significant positive rela-
tionships between using games and student’s performance. This is due to the fact
that game-based approach is considered very new and most students have not
played any games for learning. The purpose of this study is to determine the
effectiveness of game-based learning by comparing the test result between students
who have been involved in the games during class period and who were not
involved with the games. Therefore, this study hypothesizes the following:
H0: There is no difference in mean score on the test results between students who had
involved with the games and who were not involved with the games.
2.2 Behavioral Intention
Behavioral intention refers to an indication of an individual’s readiness to perform a

given behavior (Ajzen 2002). High interrelations were found among behavioral
intention, learning opportunities and usefulness and the preceding factor analysis
confirmed that these scales represent distinct constructs, it follows that a high score
on usefulness is related to a high score on learning opportunities and behavioral
intention and statistically significant (Jeroen et al. 2013). Ming (2009) also inves-
tigated whether flow experience, perceived enjoyment, and interaction affect peo-
ple’s behavioral intention to play games in education or not. She found that
behavioral intention had significant influence on actual behavior in playing online
games.
2.3 Perceived Enjoyment
The use of games in teaching and learning process is fun and enjoyable compared to
the conventional method. Bee and Benson (2016) did a study on game-based
learning in construction management courses. The results showed that the overall
student feedback is positive with the vast majority of the students enjoying the
experience. In addition, Roslina et al. (2011) discovered that students tend to
believe that use of game-based learning would be a good idea and fun. Ha et al.
(2007) did a study on broadband gamers and mobile video games. They revealed
that perceived enjoyment is better predictor of game acceptance. Furthermore, Ei Pa
et al. (2015) investigated the effects of individuals’ perceived enjoyment and output
quality on their intention to play human computation games (HCG). The study
found that individuals’ derived enjoyment from the affective and cognitive
dimensions, which further influenced their intention to play HCGs. Duyen (2015)
also found that perceived enjoyment had significant effect on continuance intention
to use game-based learning. Therefore, this study hypothesizes the following:
H1: There is a significance relationship between perceived enjoyment and behavioral
intention of using game-based learning.
2.4 Perceived Ease of Use
Roslina et al. (2011) did a research on students’ perceptions of educational games in

Malaysian higher education. They found that the level of ease of use associated
with system usage and 92% of the students believe that they have the skills and
ability to operate the educational games. Duyen (2015) also revealed that perceived
ease of use is closely related to the behavioral intention to use the mobile game.
The findings also consistent with the study by Jeroen et al. (2010) who found that
students’ perceptions of learning opportunities on game-based learning are strongly

influenced by ease of use. Based on this argument, the following hypothesis is
proposed:
H2: There is a significance relationship between perceived ease of use and behavioral
2.5 Perceived Usefulness
Ali et al. (2016) discovered that perceived usefulness is an important factor for
predicting students’ and teachers’ behavioral intention to use game-based learning
in Libyan higher education. The finding is congruent with a study by Herman et al.
(2016) who also made an impermeable inference that the educational game was
indeed perceived to be useful in developing pervasive skills in accounting students
and improve performance. Conversely, this research is contradicted with a study by
Jeroen et al. (2013) who found that the use of game in learning is not an important
factor in relation to the perceived usefulness for classroom use. Following these
traits, this study, therefore, posits the following:
H3: There is a significance relationship between perceived usefulness and behavioral
2.6 Soft Skills Development
Soft skills refer to combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, com-
munication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes, and emotional intel-
ligence quotient (EQ) among others. Herman et al. (2016) revealed that game-based
learning can be recommended as an effective and innovative teaching method that
can positively contribute to the soft skills development of accounting students.
Furthermore, game-based learning also offers a real potential for applying leader-
ship soft skills training and education in a system where more sophisticated mea-
sures of leadership can be measured and evaluated more convincingly than in
conventional face-to-face settings (de Freitas and Routledge 2013). Thomas et al.
(2012) examined the potential positive impacts of gaming on users aged 14 years or
above, especially with respect to learning, skill enhancement and engagement. The
findings revealed that playing games are linked to a range of perceptual, cognitive,
behavioral, affective and motivational impacts, and outcomes. However, the study
is incongruent with a research by Juho et al. (2016) who investigated the impact of
flow (operationalized as heightened challenge and skill), engagement, and
immersion on learning in game-based learning environments. Surprisingly, they
found that skill has no positive direct effect on perceived learning. Following this
trait, this study postulates that:
H4: There is a significance relationship between soft skills development and behavioral
3 Methodology
This research used quasi-experimental as a research design to compare the test score
between students who had involved with the games (treatment group) and who
were not involved with the games (control group) during class (McMillan 2008).
This quasi-experimental design was used to replace the actual experimental design
because this study was carried out during the whole semester by using the available
classes, in that the research subject for the treatment group and control group could
not be selected randomly (Chua 2006).
A total of 140 respondents from pre-diploma programs at University Teknologi
Mara Pahang were involved in this study. They have been divided into treatment
group and control group which were 70 students involved with the games (treat-
ment group) and another 70 students were not involved with the games (control
group). The lecturer in the treatment group integrated games in the teaching and
learning process while the lecturer in the control group used the traditional
approach. The game-based learning approach was adopted during classes for the
whole semester. It contains a teaching manual as the learning instrument, a board
game as the practical tool and a scorecard to record students’ achievement. The test
results of all respondents were analyzed to acquire students’ performance.
Questionnaires were also distributed to the treatment group in order to identify
the factors that contribute to the use of games in teaching and learning process. The
questionnaire was divided into two sections; parts A and B. Part A was designed to
measure the factors that contribute to games intention. A five-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) was used. For each
statement, respondents were required to indicate their level of agreement to the
statements. Amongst the construct was “behavioral intention”, “perceived useful-
ness”, “perceived ease of use”, “perceived enjoyment” and “soft skills develop-
ment”. The input for the games behavior statements was derived from Bee and
Benson (2016), Delacruz (2011) and Jeroen et al. (2013). Part B was designed to
obtain the demographic information of the respondents.
The survey data was analyzed using the latest Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. The analysis consisted of three major parts. First, a
summary of the demographic profile of the respondents. Second, t-test was carried out
to compare the results between students who had been involved in the games during
class period and who were not involved with the games. Third, a measurement model
comprising all the construct of interest was evaluated. The partial least squares path
modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to estimate complex cause–effect relationship
models with latent variables. SEM provides a powerful method for assessing a
structural model and measurement model because of the minimal demands on mea-
surement scales, sample size, and residual distributions (Chin 1998).
4.1 Respondents’ Profile
Table 1 shows that from the total of 140 respondents, 58.6% are female while
46.8% are male. Most of the respondents (75, 53.2%) come from rural areas and the
balances of 46.8% are from urban areas. Respondents with less than 2As in their
SPM result are dominant in this study (103, 73.6%), followed by 2AS–4As (33,
23.6%) and 5As–7As (4, 2.9%). Majority of the respondents (72, 51.4%) have a
family income range from RM1001 to RM2000.
4.2 T-Test Analysis
To evaluate the first hypothesis, an independent t-test was conducted after checking
all assumptions. Tables 2 and 3 show the results of the independent t-test were
significant, t(140) = 10.509, p = 0.00, indicated that there was significant differ-
ence between the test scores of students who had involved with the games
(M = 44.21, SD = 6.55, n = 70) and the test score who were not involved with the
games (M = 32.26, SD = 6.91, n = 70). The 95% interval confidence was 9.71–
14.21. Therefore, the null hypothesis H0 was rejected. This result indicated that the
test score for students who had involved with the games is higher than the test score
Table 1 Respondents’ demographic profiles

Demographic profiles Frequency (N) Percentage (%)
Gender Female 82 58.6
Male 58 46.8
Hometown Rural 75 53.2
Urban 65 46.8
SPM result Less than 2A 103 73.6
2A–4A 33 23.6
5A–7A 4 2.9
Family income Less than RM1000 35 25
RM1001–RM2000 72 51.4
RM2001–RM3000 32 22.9
More than RM3001 1 0.7
Table 2 Descriptive statistics for test score

Game involvement N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean
Test score
Play game 70 44.2143 6.55333 0.78327
Not play game 70 32.2571 6.90502 0.82531
Table 3 Descriptive statistics for independent sample test

t-test for equality of means
t df Sig (2-tailed) 95% confidence
interval of the
difference
Lower Upper
Test score
Equal variances assumed 10.509 140 0.000 9.70731 14.20697
Equal variances not assumed 10.509 139.625 0.000 9.70726 14.20703
who were not involved with the game-based learning. This finding shows that the
use of game-based learning can improve students’ academic performance.
However, this finding was inconsistent with the study by Roslina et al. (2011) who
found that there was no significant positive relationships between using games and
student’s performance.
A measurement model, comprising all the construct of interests was evaluated.
Two psychometric tests—validity and reliability were performed based on the full
measurement model generated. As shown in Table 4, all the constructs had com-
posite reliability (CR) values of greater than the threshold point of 0.7 (Hair et al.
2013). In addition to composite reliability, the average variance extracted (AVE) of
these constructs achieved the cut-off point, indicating a satisfactory degree of
reliability. We also tested discriminant validity using Fornell and Larcker (1981)
approach. All the scales appeared to have a substantially higher AVE value com-
pared to their correlation with other constructs, providing evidence of discriminant
validity (Table 5). Additionally, all the factor loadings of items were above 0.6, at
significant at p < 0.001, demonstrating a good convergent validity (Table 4). The
results of the measurement model indicate that various validity and reliability cri-
teria are satisfied. Therefore, constructs developed in this measurement model could
be used to test the structural model and the associated hypotheses. Assuming that
the measurement model satisfied the psychometric assessment, a structural model
was constructed based on the results of the measurement model. Figure 1 shows the
final model of the research.
Nonparametric bootstrapping was applied (Wetzels et al. 2009) with 2000
replications to test the structural model. As suggested by Chin et al. (2003), we
employ a hierarchical approach to test our hypotheses, in which we first estimate a
model with the main effects (and covariates) only and then add the interaction
effects. Table 6 shows the structural model analysis. The results indicated that
perceived ease of use (b = 0.544, p < 0.001), perceived usefulness (b = −0.297,
p < 0.05) and soft-skilled development (b = 0.308, p < 0.05) on behavioral
intention to use game-based learning were significant. Therefore, H2, H3, and H4
were supported. However, we found that perceived enjoyment was not significant
(b = 0.243, p > 0.05), hence H1 was not supported. The R2 for the value of
behavioral intention to use game-based learning in the final model (including both
main and interaction effects) is 0.602 or 60.2% (Fig. 1).
Table 4 Measurement model

Construct Factor loading T-value Composite Average variance
reliability (CR) extracted (AVE)
Behavioral intention 0.88 0.648
BI1 0.825* 17.998
BI2 0.844* 16.202
BI3 0.844* 23.955
BI4 0.697* 10.059
Perceived ease of use 0.849 0.586
EOU1 0.839* 16.56
EOU2 0.801* 13.413
EOU3 0.71* 12.129
EOU4 0.702* 8.576
Perceived enjoyment 0.927 0.761
PE1 0.925* 25.546
PE2 0.924* 24.851
PE3 0.811* 18.55
PE4 0.824* 12.778
Perceived usefulness 0.934 0.824
PU1 0.913* 7.062
PU2 0.877* 6.994
PU4 0.932* 5.999
Soft skill development 0.903 0.758
SD1 0.899* 21.854
SD2 0.817* 11.884
SD4 0.894* 35
* p<0.001
Table 5 Discriminant validity

PU BI PEOU PE SD
Perceived usefulness (PU) 0.908
Behavioral intention (BI) 0.355 0.805
Perceived ease of use (PEOU) 0.474 0.733 0.765
Perceived enjoyment (PE) 0.676 0.553 0.591 0.872
Soft-skilled development (SD) 0.748 0.565 0.606 0.617 0.87
Based on the analysis above, there is lack of support for H1: There is a signif-
icance relationship between perceived enjoyment and behavioral intention of using
game-based learning. (b = 0.243; t = 1.432; p < 0.05). It can be concluded that
most of the players are not enjoying while playing this game especially for those
who were not qualified to the next level. This is due to the fact that the game is
Fig. 1 Final research model
time-consuming because there are three level set of questions need to be completed.
Therefore, players have to wait for a long time for this game to end. This situation
causes them feel bored to play. Surprisingly, this finding contradicts with previous
studies (Bee and Benson 2016; Roslina et al. 2011; Ha et al. 2007), which found
that there were significant relationship between perceived enjoyment and behavioral
intention to use game-based learning.
However, the above result demonstrates a strong positive link between perceived
ease of use and behavioral intention to use game-based approach. This study
indicated that perceived ease of use (b = 0.544; t = 4.281; p < 0.001), was a sig-
nificant factor. This is due to the fact the rule of this game is easy to understand.
The finding of this study is consistent with several previous studies (Roslina et al.
2011; Duyen 2015; Jeroen et al. 2010). The findings depict that the ease of use is
upmost important in an adoption of game-based learning for pre-diploma students.
Therefore, H2: There is a significance relationship between perceived ease of use
and behavioral intention of using game-based learning is supported.
The findings also show that perceived usefulness is a significant factor in
behavioral intention of using game-based learning (b = −0.297; t = 1.801;
p < 0.05). Therefore, H3: There is a significance relationship between perceived
usefulness and behavioral intention of using game-based learning is also sup-
ported. It can be concluded that the game-based learning is useful to increase
Table 6 Structural model analysis

Hypotheses Relationship Path T- Decision
coefficient value
H1 Perceived enjoyment ! behavioral 0.243 1.432 Not
intention supported
H2 Perceived ease of use ! behavioral 0.544** 4.281 Supported
intention
H3 Perceived usefulness ! behavioral −0.297* 1.801 Supported
intention
H4 Soft-skilled 0.308* 1.805 Supported
development ! behavioral intention
*p significant at 0.05
**p significant at 0.001
students’ understanding of the subject and also can increase students’ academic
performance. Students also acknowledged that by playing this game, it has indi-
rectly encouraged them to do some revisions in order for them to answer the
questions. In contrast, this finding is incongruent with the finding by Jeroen et al.
(2013) who found that the use of game-based learning is not an important factor in
relation to the perceived usefulness for classroom use.
For hypothesis H4: There is a significance relationship between soft skills
development and behavioral intention of using game-based learning is also sup-
ported (b = 0.308; t = 1.805; p < 0.05).This finding suggested that by playing this
game, students’ believed that it can develop their soft skills such as interpersonal
skills, social skills, and communication skills. Furthermore, it is coherent with
Herman et al. (2016) who revealed that game-based learning can be recommended
as an effective and innovative teaching method that can positively contribute to the
soft skills development of accounting students. However, this finding contradicted
with the study by Juho et al. (2016) who found that skill has no positive direct effect
on perceived learning.
5 Conclusion
In this study, the relationship between the use of games in teaching and learning and
students’ academic performance along with factors that contribute to the use of
games in teaching and learning are examined. The findings have insight implica-
tions for researchers and university educators in offering various types of approach
in teaching and learning in ensuring effective learning experience. First, the
game-based approach in teaching and learning is able to increase students’ aca-
demic performance. This finding is proved by the higher test scores among students
involved in the game compared to those who did not. Second, there are three factors
that contribute to the use of game in teaching and learning which are perceived ease
of use, perceived usefulness, and soft skills development. Nevertheless, perceived

enjoyment is not a factor in determining behavioral intention of using game-based
learning explaining that majority of the respondents do not perceive the game as
enjoyable. As this study employed quasi-experiment as a research design, it does
not involve all pre-diploma students taking management subject, future research
should consider all students as participants to make it more comprehensive and
more accurate results can be obtained. In overall, the objectives of the study have
been accomplished and it is hoped that the study contributes to the use of gaming
elements for ongoing development of innovative pedagogies in teaching and
learning.
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Chapter 22
Gender Differences in Perceived
Usefulness and Attitudes Towards
VocBlast in Learning Specialized
Vocabulary
Zuraina Ali and Nurul Nadia Muhammad
Abstract Evidence suggests that technology enables teaching and learning to be

more enhanced. One example where technology is used nowadays is through the
use of mobile app. In the market, numerous mobile app software packages are
developed for smartphone users for their convenience. For learning, particularly the
learning of vocabulary, mobile apps are developed to assist young and adult
learners to learn vocabulary in entertaining ways. Nevertheless, a primary concern
with the use of mobile apps for the purpose of learning vocabulary is related to the
players’ perceived usefulness and attitudes since they are the ones who will
determine the level of acceptance of a particular mobile app. The current study,
therefore, aims at identifying whether or not there are significant differences in male
and female students’ perceived usefulness and attitudes in using VocBlast; a mobile
vocabulary app to learn engineering and technology vocabulary. The study
employed a survey method in collecting its data among 129 students studying at a
higher education level in the East Coast of Malaysia. The results from the study
revealed that there were no significant differences for male and female students in
relation to their perceived usefulness and attitudes while playing VocBlast. These
results may be explained by the fact that VocBlast is still new to the students, and
thus more time is required to play the game. Moreover, having only 30–40 minutes
to play the games for once seemed to be too short for them to show a positive
attitude towards the app.
Keywords Vocabulary Mobile app Gender
Z. Ali (&) N. N. Muhammad

Modern Languages Department, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26600 Pekan,
Darul Makmur, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: zuraina@ump.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_22
238 Z. Ali and N. N. Muhammad
1 Introduction
There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of m-learning

in assisting students to learn language. In fact, vocabulary is the most acquired areas
when m-learning is used for learning since it enables a learner to memorize as well
as to assess meaning and context of words they learnt (Steel 2012). Moreover, it is
reported that using mobile language learning apps supports 93% language learning,
particularly in the learning of vocabulary compared to other skills in English (Böhm
and Constantine 2016).
In another regards, recent evidence suggests that the use of iPad and mobile
technology provides opportunities for both language learners and teachers to teach
and learn vocabulary (Deng and Trainin 2015). Using this technology, the learners
are able to revise the vocabulary learnt at their convenience (Stockwell and
Hubbard 2013). Gikas and Grant (2013) identify that learners gained a lot of
advantages while using mobile computing devices for their language learning. In
their study, it was reported that the students and teachers were still able to learn and
teach, although they were not in the class as students could communicate and
receive instructions from their teachers at any time and place.
Studies that will be elaborated in the following discussion highlight a few
vocabulary apps that are investigated empirically. In Malaysia, a mobile app,
namely I-MMAPS for learning the Iban language was developed to help users
speak a basic level of the language. Chachil et al. (2015) surveyed 30 non-native
speakers of Iban after they were instructed to learn the Iban language in three
(3) learning contexts: vocabulary, basic phrases and conversation using I-MMAPS.
The study’s overall findings proposed that the app promoted positive interest
among the participants in learning the language. This is true when the audio using
the voice of a native speaker and samples of graphic, is integrated in the app. Shih
et al. (2015) identified that college students demonstrated a positive learning atti-
tude towards vocabulary, in particular spelling, using Line app. In their study, the
vocabulary list of the app was derived from the Test of English for International
Communication (TOEIC). Using LINE app, they reported that the students’ level of
confidence has increased to a certain degree. In learning English vocabulary, the
app enables them to improve their listening skill. In particular, it helps them to the
correct the use of vowels, consonants and syllables. Wu (2014) showed that the use
of Word Learning-CET6 among medical school students assisted them to obtain
direct and indirect learning of specialized words in medicine in the form of wordlist.
The app lessened the burden of having to memorize the meaning of the words. In
fact, it helped them to know spelling, pronunciation and Chinese definitions of the
targeted words. In a study which was set out to determine the possibility of using
mobile apps to improve the memorization of vocabulary, Hong et al. (2014) found
that the use of EVL@S improved students’ confidence level in storing the
vocabulary they have learnt. The app integrates a calibration scheme that helps
learners to preview or review their vocabulary learning autonomy. The words in
EVL@S are provided with a set of a memory cycle and allows learners to practice
22 Gender Differences in Perceived Usefulness and Attitudes … 239
them regularly. In other words, if they were unable to recognize the targeted words
in their first-round attempting to memorize the words, they might play the app for
the second round. A study that was conducted by Steel (2012) among 134 students
revealed that some students in their study used dictionary apps to check and refer to
the words they did not understand. The dictionary apps enabled them to check and
refer to the words whenever and wherever they found convenient.
In comparing the learning of vocabulary and gender, Viberg and Grönlund
(2013) compared the difference between learners’ gender and attitude in learning
vocabulary using m-learning. It was reported that there was a strong correlation
between gender and attitude towards m-learning. However, they argued that the
findings were relative since in general male and female use applications for different
purposes. FernáNdez-LóPez et al. (2013) compared the skills acquired by students
with special needs in using m-learning. It was found that there were no significant
differences between the degree of improvement by gender in terms of language,
math, social and other skills when iOS devices were used to support the students’
learning. In addition, Abadi and Saadi (2015), in their experimental research
reported that there were no significant differences in students’ attitudes between
male and female students when they were instructed to use m-learning to learn
vocabulary. Yet, it was found that students in the experimental group outperformed
those who were in the control groups with regards to vocabulary acquisition.
Factors such as convenience and efficiency made students in the experimental
groups preferred to learn vocabulary using m-learning as they could revise the
vocabulary during their leisure time at any place.
In addition, to date, several studies have examined the association between
genders and gaming in the course of learning vocabulary. In an analysis of video
games that was employed to learn vocabulary, Vahdat and Behbahani (2013) found
that males were more motivated towards video game learning than females. The
results were as such due to the fact that the male-dominated atmosphere contained
in the video. The organization of the game was developed in such a way that it
showed a man who was willing to sacrifice his studies in Physics to save a beautiful
girl’s life. Likewise, Sylvén and Sundqvist (2012) showed that boys in 4–6 grades
outperformed girls in L2 vocabulary learning. However, the researchers believed
that the result was relative depending on the type of game favoured by both gen-
ders. Mazaji (2015) also found that male Iranian low proficiency students tended to
acquire vocabulary better than their female counterparts. The researcher argued that
digital games could serve as an influential tool for vocabulary acquisition for low
proficiency learners taking English for Foreign Language.
From the review of past studies on the use of vocabulary apps, it is shown that
the issue concerning the use of the tools in learning vocabulary, especially in
learning engineering and technical vocabulary has not been given much attention.
In fact, many of the literatures only concern with m-learning and video gaming in
discussing the use of mobile app in the twenty-first century. Therefore, the present
study fills the gap in the literature by identifying the use of a vocabulary app namely
VocBlast in relation to students’ genders. This chapter, therefore, attempts to gauge
engineering students’ opinions on their perceived usefulness as well as attitudes
when they are assigned to play VocBlast to learn engineering and technical
vocabulary. In addition, two (2) research questions are formulated in the current
study: (1) Is there any significant difference in the mean attitude scores for male and
female students in using VocBlast to learn engineering and technology vocabulary?
(2) Is there any significant difference in the mean of perceived usefulness scores for
male and female students in using VocBlast to learn engineering and technology
vocabulary?
2 Methodology
2.1 Research Material
A vocabulary mobile app, i.e. VocBlast is used as the research material in this
study. It is a vocabulary app that contains specialized vocabulary, in particular
engineering and technical vocabulary selected from students’ course books. Ten
(10) interesting games are designed to enhance players’ technical vocabulary. These
games are arranged according to the level of difficulty. The first three games are
easy while Game 5 is moderate in terms of its difficulty. Game 6 until Game 10 are
somewhat challenging. The vocabularies used in the vocabulary mobile app are
derived from students’ engineering textbooks namely AutoCAD, Ordinary
Differential Equations, Circuit Analysis, Engineering Thermodynamics, to name a
few. Some of its features are the use of ‘Hint’ button that may assist players in
figuring out clues for a given item. The ‘Check’ button assists players in reviewing
their answers and knowing their scores, whereas, the time limit is displayed in
VocBlast to challenge players to complete their answers within the duration given.
Figure 1 is a screenshot of the app in the App Store.
2.2 Sample of the Study
Samples for the study were engineering students in a technical university in Pahang.
There were 81 males and 48 females, making a total of 129 students participated in
the current study. An adapted questionnaire from the Technology Acceptance
Model (TAM) is used as the instrument for the current study. The reliability
statistics shows that the Cronbach’s alpha is 0.96. It entails that the instrument is
reliable to be used as the alpha value is greater than 0.70 (Nunnally 1978). The
procedures of collecting the data began with requiring students to sit for a pretest.
Two (2) iPads were provided to them as to ensure that they can play VocBlast in the
class. In groups, they spent 30–40 min playing all the games in the app. Later, they
were required to take a post-test and answer an online survey. However, in this
chapter, only data from the survey is reported. Statistical Package for the Social
Fig. 1 Screenshots of
VocBlast in App Store
Science (SPSS) Version 21 was used to analyze the data. Normality of data was
checked and it was found to be from a normally distributed population, while t-test
was employed to answer the two research questions in the study.
Two research questions were formulated to identify students’ perceived usefulness

and attitudes of using VocBlast in learning engineering and technical vocabulary.
Independent samples t-test were used to analyze both of these questions.
3.1 Mean Scores of the Perceived Usefulness of Using

Vocblast Between Genders
The descriptive analysis in Table 1 shows the mean scores of perceived usefulness
between genders in using VocBlast.
Meanwhile, Table 2 shows the results of independent samples t-tests to compare
the perceived usefulness scores between genders. There was no significant differ-
ence in scores for both genders, males (M = 3.96, SD = 0.69) and females
(M = 3.99, SD = 0.56); t(0.78) = 11, 0.19 (two-tailed).
This outcome is contrary to that of Gaspar’s (2016) study. The use of Ilokano
(also known as Ilocano) to Go; a vocabulary app to learn Philippine diaspora, was
perceived to be useful for students learning the language. Although the study did
not compare its use between male and female students, however, the usability
testing shows that half of the participants who were interviewed believed that the
app is useful to them. Such inconsistency in gender differences pertaining to the
usefulness of VocBlast in the current study might be due to unfamiliarity of playing
VocBlast as the app is still new to the students. Moreover, they were required to
play various games in VocBlast and some of the games contain more than one
level. It took up too much time for them, and therefore, they became exhausted
playing the games in the app.
3.2 Mean Scores of Attitudes Towards Using VocBlast

Between Genders
Table 3 shows the descriptive analysis of mean scores in attitudes between genders
towards using VocBlast.
Table 4 shows the results of an independent samples t-test for mean scores of
attitudes. It demonstrates that both genders did not differ in their attitudes of using
Table 1 Descriptive statistics for mean scores of perceived usefulness

Gender
Male Female
M SD n M SD n
Mean scores of perceived usefulness 4.07 0.60 81 3.99 0.56 48
Table 2 Results of 95% CI for mean difference

independent samples t-test for
Sig. (2 tailed) t df
mean scores of perceived
usefulness 0.18, 0.11 0.19 0.78* 127
*p < 0.05
Table 3 Descriptive statistics for mean scores of attitude

Gender
Male Female
M SD n M SD n
Mean scores of perceived usefulness 4.07 0.60 81 3.99 0.56 48
Table 4 Results of 95% CI for mean difference

independent samples t-test for
Sig. (2 tailed) t df
mean scores of attitude
−0.09, 0.12 0.42 −0.81* 127
VocBlast as males’ scores are (M = 3.96, SD = 0.69) while females’ scores are
(M = 4.05, SD = 0.55); t(−0.81) = 12, 0.42 (two-tailed).
The results of the study are in agreement with those obtained by Liaw and
Huang (2015) in that there was no significant gender difference when an app
namely; APP-based, was used in learning vocabulary. However, the results of the
current study do not support Yau and Cheng’s (2012) study on gender in using
m-learning. Their study showed that male students were more self-reliant unlike
their female counterparts in using technology. Meanwhile, Viberg and Grönlund
(2013) found that gender seemed to be the factor that differentiates the attitudes
towards using m-learning. Nevertheless, this result of no significant difference in
the mean scores of attitudes between genders concerned with the time spent in
playing VocBlast as the students in the current study were only provided with 30–
40 for the task. Another likely cause for the insignificant differences was due to the
fact that they played the game in groups that were appointed by the class teacher. It
can thus be suggested that if the students were able to download the app, they
would be able to show a positive attitude towards VocBlast.
4 Conclusion
The results from independent samples t-tests showed that there were no significant
differences in terms of male and female students’ perceived usefulness and attitudes
of using VocBlast in learning engineering and technical vocabulary. Nevertheless,
the current data highlight the importance of using m-learning at tertiary level,
especially at higher learning institutions as the approach equips students with the
skills to pursue lifelong learning (Lai 2011). The present study makes a noteworthy
contribution in which the learning of vocabulary using mobile app can only be
realized by having students to play the game frequently and individually.
Nonetheless, VocBlast can further be improvised by adding vocabulary relevant
to the subjects that the students are taking in a particular semester. Ali and Ghazali
(2015) found that the teachers who were interviewed pertaining to the usefulness of
VocBlast recommended that the app can be used as a supplementary material for
English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Yet, they need to be creative in using the
vocabulary app in that other conventional vocabulary exercises need to be inte-
grated while using the app to ensure learning can be more holistic. This also entails
that in their attempt to promote positive learning attitudes towards using a vocab-
ulary app, the learning, in the first place, should be tied-up with students’ abilities
(Ali et al. 2012).
Acknowledgements This research was supported by Universiti Malaysia Pahang

(UMP) Project ID RDU1403122.
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Chapter 23
Determining Factors Influencing
Self-employed Intention Among Tertiary
Education Students in East Coast
Malaysia
Musramaini Mustapha, Suhanom Mohd Zaki, Faizan Abd Jabar,

Muhammad Zahran Abd Rahman and Sharifah Norhuda Syed Wahid
Abstract This chapter investigates the factors of becoming self-employed among

tertiary education students in East Coast Malaysia. Among others, three motivating
factors obtained a positive response; intention to upgrade income to a higher level,
be independent at work, and acquire more satisfaction as an entrepreneur.
Self-administered questionnaires adapted from a previous research were distributed
to tertiary education students in East Coast Malaysia. 104 questionnaires were
analyzed and found to be usable for this study. Generally, the results of the study
indicated that the respondents had a positive interest towards becoming
self-employed with a very significant level through the research findings. This is a
good sign to the related tertiary education institutions and country as a whole in
which most of the future graduates are interested in being independent entrepre-
neurs. Thus, Malaysia will be able to increase the statistics of those who are
self-employed among tertiary graduates. Not only that, the Ministry of Education
can emphasize more activities, programmes and courses that are able to develop the
skills to become entrepreneurs among tertiary education students.
M. Mustapha (&) S. M. Zaki F. A. Jabar M. Z. A. Rahman

26400, Bandar Tun Razak Jengka Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: musra_08@pahang.uitm.edu.my
S. M. Zaki
e-mail: suhanom@pahang.uitm.edu.my
F. A. Jabar
e-mail: faizan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. Z. A. Rahman
e-mail: zahran600@pahang.uitm.edu.my
S. N. S. Wahid
Teknologi MARA Pahang, 26400, Bandar Tun Razak Jengka Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: sha_norhuda@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_23
248 M. Mustapha et al.
Keywords Self-employed Students Tertiary education
1 Introduction
The Ministry of Higher Education encourages tertiary education students to become

self-employed in the future in order to contribute to the economic and social
development in the nation. Self-employment careers such as entrepreneurs have
been highlighted by the ministry as to be the alternatives to increase the statistics of
businessmen and businesswomen in Malaysia. Due to that, most of the public and
private universities in Malaysia offer entrepreneurial courses in order to prepare
students with the basic entrepreneurship knowledge. Thus, researches on becoming
self-employed entrepreneurs have been conducted in order to explore the factors
influencing self-employed intention. Based on the positive feedback, a substantial
effort towards entrepreneurship targeted to tertiary education students can be con-
sidered as worthy to develop future entrepreneurs. This is supported by Abd Jabar
et al. (2013) and Gaddam (2008) who stated that universities play an important role
to be the motivator for students through entrepreneurship motivation programmes
since they lack the confidence level and feel discouraged as they have insufficient
knowledge and no guidance. From the perspective of future economic impact, it
will confirm the continuation of job opportunities, increase in the supply of prod-
ucts made from Malaysia and stability in the standard of living. Thus,
self-employed mentality among future graduates is a must in order for locals to
embark in the entrepreneurship field and be exposed to innovations of products and
services based in our country.
1.1 Entrepreneurial Intention-based on Theory of Planned

Behaviour
Individuals’ intention is difficult to describe since it is not an action; thus, it cannot

be seen or gauged directly. Therefore, people cannot be judged based on their
intentions. Intention could be a proximate cause of action (Ajzen 1991, 2001,
2002). This means that for an individual to act in the desired way, she or he must
have formed an intention earlier. According to Krueger and Carsrud (1993), indi-
viduals having an intention for doing something should consider the ends and
means. It is obviously perceptible that to start a business, people must have the
intention first and later think of other matters related to the business such as the type
and nature of the business. More so, self-employment intention normally comes
from the individual ability to see the probability of participating in economic
activities such as becoming an entrepreneur. There are many factors associated with
the decisions to be self-employed or have entrepreneurial intention. In the theory of
23 Determining Factors Influencing Self-employed … 249
planned behaviour, Ajzen (1991) proposed three antecedents that shape one’s
intentions which are individual attitude towards the behaviour, subjective norm and
perceived behavioural control. Entrepreneurship researchers empirically tested
specific parts of the theory using self-employment as the target behaviour
(Kolvereid 1996; Krueger and Carsrud 1993; Luthje and Franke 2003). In con-
structing the theory of planned behaviour according to the entrepreneurship context,
the three attitude measures are defined as follows; attitude towards self-employment
is the difference between perceptions of personal desirability in becoming
self-employed and organisationally employed. Consequently, high attitude towards
self-employment actually indicated that the respondent is more in favour of
self-employment than organizational employment (Kolvereid 1996). Subjective
norm refers to views of importance in others such as family members, close friends
and influential people like successful entrepreneurs and teachers who are believed
to shape the formation of self-employment intentions and weighted by the strength
of the motivation to comply with them (Krueger et al. 2000). Last, perceived
behavioural control reflects the perceived ability to become self-employed
(Kolvereid 1996). Since the above three are attitudinal constructs, they are often
referred to collectively as attitudes. In turn, the intention is defined as a state of
mind directing a person’s attention and action towards self-employment as opposed
to organizational employment (Bird 1988). Researches done by Kolvereid (1996)
and Tkachev and Kolvereid (1999) concluded that high attitude towards the
behaviour, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control significantly
increased the probability of students reporting the formation of entrepreneurial
intentions and this statement is supported by Engle et al. (2010).
1.2 Factors Influencing Self-employed Intention
A number of authors suggested a connection between entrepreneurship education

and entrepreneurial attitudes or self-employed intention. Dyer (1994) suggested that
specialized courses in entrepreneurship or training of how to start a business might
give some people the confidence they need to start their own business. This finding
is supported by Souitaris et al. (2007) who concluded that entrepreneurship pro-
grammes raised some attitudes and the overall entrepreneurial intention among
science and engineering students. This means that many students have experienced
key moments of inspiration by participating in entrepreneurship programmes that
extremely changed and made them consider starting their own business. Agbim
et al. (2013) also agreed that graduates who have gone through entrepreneurship
programmes had the intentions to start their own businesses. Nevertheless, these
intentions varied with respect to their level of creativity, access to start-up capital,
family background, business experience, self-efficacy, the influence of
business-minded friends and exposure to entrepreneurial learning, risk propensity,
age, courses studied and ethnicity. Influence from a family member is another factor
causing individuals to be self-employed. Delmar and Davidsson (2000) found that
persons who have a close relationship with someone with entrepreneurial experi-
ence are more likely to be self-employed, for example, a huge number of entre-
preneurs have parents who were entrepreneurs. This shows that parents can act as
role models. Also, there is a transfer of entrepreneurial skills from parents who look
forward to pass their businesses to their children (Westhead 2003). Based on the
study done by Pruett and Shinnar (2009), students with family members who are
entrepreneurs are more likely to have the intention to start their own businesses.
This finding is supported by Majogoro and Mgabo (2012) who found that students
who had family members who were self-employed had a higher tendency to be
self-employed and even if they missed out on the opportunity of being in the wage
labour market, they can still easily change to self-business. In addition, individual
traits also influence self-employment intention. Isah and Garba (2015) in their study
found that a positive relationship between self-employment intention with
self-efficacy and innovativeness could be an indication that the students may be
positive towards self-employment, while the negative relationship between
self-employment intention with students’ locus of control and risk propensity could
result in negative behaviours. Thus, students with an internal locus of control, high
innovativeness, high self-efficacy and high-risk propensity are more likely to
become self-employed. They will possibly choose to become self-employed upon
graduation.
2 Methodology
Self-administrated and adaptation questionnaires were taken from previous

researchers, Fatoki (2014) and Kolvereid (1996). The questions covered the
intention of students on whether to set up their own business after graduation or be
employed. The questionnaire was divided into six sections; Section A is on the
respondents’ demographic, Section B is about reason of being organisationally
employed, Section C is on perceived behavioural control, Section D is about reason
for becoming self-employed, Section E focuses on motivation factors for
self-employment and section F concentrates on raising awareness of promotional
tools. Section G is the source of financing business, Section H is on obstacles in
business operation and last, Section I investigates on the subjective norm.
Respondents were selected among tertiary education students in East Coast
Malaysia located in Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan. The selected respondents
were representatives since they have been selected by their university to participate
in the East Coast Region Entrepreneurship Programme that met the scope of the
study. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 including frequency,
descriptive and correlational analyses. Frequency analysis was used to analyze the
respondents’ demographic background, descriptive analysis was used to find the
mean, standard deviation and skewness of each of factor to be self-employed and
correlational analysis was used to identify the relationship between the six listed
factors.
In total, 104 first degree students from public universities of East Coast Malaysia
intended to get involved in the business sector upon graduation. Among them, 81
(77.88%) were females and 23(22.12%) were males. Apart from that, 43(41.35%)
of them were from the Faculty of Business Management. In addition, 59(56.73%)
of them have already attended entrepreneurship courses before at least once. As
stated by Aqbim et al. (2013), Souitaris et al. (2007) and Dyer (1994),
entrepreneurship courses will encourage students to start their own businesses. In
addition, family background was also an important factor in influencing students to
become self-employed as proven by Pruett and Shinnar (2009), Delmar and
Davidsson (2000). This study found that 81(77.88%) of them had family back-
grounds in business whereby 56(53.85%) of them have already started their own
businesses using their family, or their own financial sources (41, 73.21%). Majority
of them (44, 78.57%) who have already started their businesses spent more than one
hour per week to promote their businesses using tools such as website, social
networks, newspaper, radio and television. As stated earlier, 87.40% students
preferred to become entrepreneurs rather than being organisationally employed due
to many factors and not limited to the family background only. The factors listed in
the questionnaire were the economic opportunity (F1), challenge (F2), autonomy
(F3), authority (F4), self-realization (F5) and interest to participate in the whole
process (F6). Becoming an entrepreneur and a student at the same time is very
challenging. As shown in Table 1, the challenge factor has become the most
important factor to be an entrepreneur, followed by self-realization, interest to
participate in the whole process, economic opportunity, autonomy and authority.
Apart from challenge factor, these students prefer to have a challenging, excit-
ing, interesting and motivating job by becoming self-employed. Authority became
last factor even though by set up the business, they will have the power to make
decisions. Table 2 shows the motivation factor for becoming self-employed ranked
from best choice among students that already owned business.
Table 2 shows that on the average the students agreed that intend to upgrade
income to upper level become the first motivation factor for becoming
self-employed (m = 4.17, SD = .8412) followed by independence at work is
Table 1 Factor for becoming self-employed

Factor m SD
Economic opportunity (F1) 4.1488 2.4196
Challenge (F2) 4.2500 .6892
Autonomy (F3) 4.1182 .7786
Authority (F4) 4.1000 .9098
Self-realization (F5) 4.1818 .6980
Interested to participate in the whole process (F6) 4.1759 .6810
Table 2 Motivation factor for becoming self-employed

Items m SD
Intend to upgrade income to upper level 4.1667 .8412
Independence at work is important 4.0926 .7338
Being an entrepreneur gives more satisfaction than being an employee in 4.0556 .7871
a big company
Eager to win and to make achievement 3.9815 .9005
Tolerant of high risk 3.7358 .7634
Entrepreneurship is well supported by the government 3.7037 .9241
Having a good mentor in same business field 3.6727 1.0374
The infrastructure of society is favourable for doing start-ups 3.6481 .9144
Satisfied with the current monthly income 3.4444 1.0401
Start-up business with selling existence products 3.4259 1.0746
Having good network to start my own business 3.3636 .9692
Knowing how to start a firm and make it successful 3.3585 .9627
Do not start-up in the area where the competition is high 3.1296 1.1824
Start-up business with selling own product (new product) 3.0545 1.3112
Table 3 Correlational analysis between factors (Krueger et al. 2000)

Factor F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6
F1 1.000 .377a .323a .271a .338a .309a
.004 .016 .046 .012 .023
F2 .377a 1 .690a .483a .701a .660a
.004 .000 .000 .000 .000
F3 .323a .690a 1 .823a .733a .675a
.016 .000 .000 .000 .000
F4 .271a .483a .823a 1 .569a .435a
.046 .000 .000 .000 .001
F5 .338a .701a .733a .569a 1 .763a
.012 .000 .000 .000 .000
F6 .309a .660a .675a .435a .763a 1
.023 .000 .000 .001 .000
a
Significance at 5% level of significance
important factor (m = 4.09, SD = .7338) and being an entrepreneur will give more
satisfaction (m = 4.05, SD = .7871). Next analysis will discussed about the cor-
relation between factors (Table 3).
Table 2 shows the correlational analysis which shows that there exists signifi-
cance positive relationship between the factors since the p-value is less than at most
five percent level of significance. The strongest positive relationship (r = .823)
occurred between autonomy (F3) and authority (F4) and the lowest correlational
Table 4 Subjective norm among students

Items m SD
To what extent do you care about what your closest family think when you 3.7071 .8601
are to decide whether or not to pursue a career as self-employed?
To what extent do you care about what your closest friends think when 3.4545 .9822
you are to decide whether or not to pursue a career as self-employed?
To what extent do you care about what people who are important to you 3.5455 .9397
think when you are to decide whether or not to pursue a career as
self-employed?
value (r = .271) is between economic opportunity (F1) and authority (F4).

In addition, subjective norm among students was also analyzed based on three
items, as stated in Table 4. On the average, students care about the people who are
important to them, including their family or best friend, when they decide to be
self-employed as found by Krueger et al. (2000). This study revealed that the
students will also consider others’ feelings when they need to make the best
decision upon graduation.
4 Conclusion
In conclusion, this study revealed that the majority of the participants preferred to
become entrepreneurs rather than being organisationally employed. More than 50%
stated that they have already started a business and some of them spent more than
one hour per week doing promotion on their businesses by using many tools such as
website, social network, newspaper and television. However, the hardship is to
sustain the success in this field because there are so many challenges that will
appear, especially in terms of interest to participate in the process, self-realization,
economic opportunity, autonomy and authority as a whole. It is easy to set up a
business compared to sustain it in the market. Entrepreneurs must be strong and
never give up no matter what the circumstances they have to confront. Therefore,
motivation from extrinsic and intrinsic factors is important to help them to start-up
or sustain with what they are dealt with. Apart from that, the achievement-oriented
concept could be used to guide them such as upgrading the current target, being
independent, have high-risk tolerance and support from the government and
mentors that can assist them in this challenging field.
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(2):7–21
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(2010) Entreprenurial intent: a twelve-country evaluation of Ajzen’s model of planned
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Azjen’s theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Int J Phys Soc Sci 2(8):67–84
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cross-cultural study. Int J Entrepreneurship Behav Res 15(6):571–594
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Chapter 24
Plagiarism and Originality:
Student’s Perception
Suhaila Osman, Rohayu Ahmad, Mohammed Nor Rashidah,

Nurul Huda Mat Yatim and Muna Kameelah Sauid
Abstract Pertaining to the dumper sources of information available nowadays, the

use of information are inquisitive as some of the students might not realize that they
have committed plagiarism and some of them are not aware of what plagiarism is
about. There is no doubt that the sources of information in this age are known as
one of the important factors towards the excellence of students in completing their
assignment. However, the issue here is do those students use it in an actual way in
performing their tasks? The purposes of this study are to look for the perception of
the undergraduate students in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Johor regarding
the plagiarism activities and their experiences. The studies on plagiarism among
university students have been recognized as an interesting area of study in the
academic world and it is important. Several studies found that the number of
students who committed plagiarism increased at university and this number seems
to be widespread and grows rapidly among the undergraduate students and the
research found that the plagiarism activities were done by more than half of the
undergraduates. Due to this problem, the objectives of this study are to find out the
level of awareness among undergraduate students in plagiarism, to determine the
undergraduate student’s knowledge on the sources of information and also to
investigate the possible factors that contribute to the plagiarism activities. Taking
S. Osman (&) R. Ahmad M. Nor Rashidah N. H. Mat Yatim

Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Johor,
Segamat, Malaysia
e-mail: suhai208@johor.uitm.edu.my
R. Ahmad
e-mail: rohay555@johor.uitm.edu.my
M. Nor Rashidah
e-mail: norra734@johor.uitm.edu.my
N. H. Mat Yatim
e-mail: nurul082@johor.uitm.edu.my
M. K. Sauid
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka,
Alor Gajah, Malaysia
e-mail: munasauid@melaka.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_24
256 S. Osman et al.
this view into consideration, a study was conducted amongst undergraduate stu-
dents in UiTM Johor. This study used quantitative method and 5% of the
respondents are from three different faculties, which are Faculty of Accounting,
Faculty of Business Management, and Faculty of Information Management. This
study used questionnaires as the instruments and those questionnaires were dis-
tributed to the selected classes. The findings of the study reveal the genuine way of
students gaining information and indicate that plagiarism does exist in UiTM Johor.

Keywords Awareness Plagiarisms factors Plagiarism Information sources
Undergraduate students
1 Introduction
Students are been disclosed to the diversity of information in this era nowadays.
With the dumping sources of information, it leads them to the easy way that is by
copying without acknowledging the authors. The issue of student’s plagiarism in
colleges and universities has increased the attention in recent years (Bennington and
Singh 2013). Plagiarism can be defined as passing off someone else’s work or ideas
as your own to gain some benefit. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2008)
stated that for students, the ‘benefit’ may mean trying to get a better grade or mark,
or meeting a deadline so marks will not be lost. Whether student plagiarizes
deliberately or accidentally, it is unacceptable. On the other hand, based on Smith
et al. (2007), they defined plagiarism as a form of intellectual dishonesty, involves
unintentionally using someone else’s work without properly acknowledging where
the ideas came from (the most common form of plagiarism) or intentionally
copying someone else’s work and passing it off as your own (the most serious form
of plagiarism). Citing others’ work without proper citation is considered as
unethical in a learning environment.
1.1 Problem Statement
UiTM is one of the top tertiary education institutions in Malaysia that has generated
successful and high caliber graduates in many educational fields. In conjunction
with this, the management itself has governed the UiTM Plagiarism Policy 2012,
which stated that copying of work and/or ideas of other’s as either from printed or
electronic media without acknowledging the source is known as plagiarism.
Unfortunately, some students are doing their assignments without citing their
sources of information properly. This unethical act must be brought to an end to
ensure that students’ behaviour and integrity are in line with moral virtues and
values. Research on teacher and student perceptions of plagiarism has focused on
three major issues: knowledge of plagiaristic practices, beliefs about causes of
24 Plagiarism and Originality: Student’s Perception 257
student plagiarism and attitudes towards plagiarism (Lei and Hu 2014). Besides,
research on causes of student plagiarism has identified a multitude of potential
contributing factors, such as inadequate understanding of citation conventions,
insufficient language competence, pressure to get a high grade, pressure to complete
too many assignments within a tight timeline, pressure or fear of failing a course,
perceived low risk of being caught and light penalties (Bennett 2005;
Franklyn-Stokes and Newstead 1995; Song-Turner 2008). According to East (2009)
organizations such as the Centre for Academic Integrity claimed the terrible state of
student’s behaviour with evidence from large-scale enquiries across Northern
America showing that over 70% of students admit to some form of cheating.
Research Questions
1. What are the levels of awareness of undergraduate students in plagiarism?
2. What are their levels of awareness about the handling of sources of information?
3. What are the possible factors that contribute to the plagiarism activities?
Objectives
4. To determine the level of awareness among undergraduate students in
plagiarism.
5. To determine the level of awareness among undergraduate students about the
handling of sources of information.
6. To investigate the possible factors that contribute to the plagiarism activities.
2 Literature Review
Studies done by Dawson and Overfield (2006) found that case studies and scenarios
have been used successfully to engage students in the learning process (Davis and
Wilcock 2006; Kreber 2001). Embedding such approach within the relevant subject
area would seem to be useful both in evaluating student’s perception and raising
their awareness of plagiarism. Finally, information about plagiarism is best pro-
vided during the early stages of the students’ programmes of study, prior to their
undertaking any assignments. The student population within HEIs in the UK is
becoming increasingly diversified (Dearing 1997; HEFCE 2000; Farrelly 2003).
Besides that, recent survey data from the Centre for Academic Integrity indicated
that nearly 70% of undergraduate students commit acts of academic dishonesty
during the course of college studies (Kwong et al. 2010).
This was supported by Mohammad et al. (2008) whereby they found that
extensive copying from the Internet is considered to be a plagiarism in which they
defined plagiarism as “the deliberate use of someone else’s language, ideas, or other
original (not common knowledge) materials without acknowledging its sources”.
Nevertheless, if a student intentionally fails to acknowledge the sources used in
258 S. Osman et al.
their writing, they are committing an unethical act. Even if it is unintentional,

extensive copying without acknowledging the source raises issues about an indi-
vidual’s ability to exercise good judgment and the last author define the plagiarism
as using another’s words or ideas without appropriate attribution or without fol-
lowing citation conventions, defined by Zimerman (2012).
In fact, the copying, falsification and plagiarism of essays and assignments have
long been a prevalent form of academic misconduct within undergraduate students’
population. Plus, the forms of plagiarism that the students have been engaging with
traditionally included the reproduction of text from other academic sources such as
journal articles, books or lecture notes without adequate acknowledgement of the
source, copying some or all of other students’ assignments and even having
assignments ‘ghost-written’ by other authors was explained by Selwyn (2008)
quoted from Breen and Maassen (2005).
Ramzan et al. (2012) found that printed books, journal, encyclopaedias and
newspapers remained the main sources of plagiarism until the mid-nineties.
However, the Internet has provided extensive opportunities for plagiarism because
of its high accessibility to an enormous amount of knowledge and learning mate-
rials. More and more information and knowledge are made available throughout the
internet. This provides an opportunity to the students to simply ‘cut and paste’ the
fact, consistently downloading, and plagiarize information. Moreover, the internet
assists in plagiarizing through providing access to relevant website in copying,
pasting the relevant text, exchange of papers with friends and students of other
universities and downloading of papers from free websites of purchasing from
paper mails.
According to Wheeler and Anderson (2010), quoted from Isserman (2003) said
that, in education, plagiarism is “seen as a transgression against our common
intellectual values, carrying justifiably bad consequences for those guilty of the
practice”. Furthermore, that plagiarism in education is the process of analyzing and
synthesizing ideas, and reformulating them in writing, is seen as central to learning.
Only by ensuring that students struggle to assimilate material and develop their own
voice do students go beyond surface information and develop higher order thinking
skills. In short, Wheeler and Anderson (2010) conclude that students need to learn
the importance of academic integrity and understand that it is not just a hoop to be
jumped through, but is integral to intellectual and personal growth.
Nevertheless, there are too many anti-plagiarism and plagiarism detection online
services that exist nowadays and vary from one another based on their techniques,
fees, reporting times, academic papers access, official supporters and other features.
The most popular ones are turnitin.com (iParadigms 2011), ithenticate.com
(iThenticate.com 2011), and plagiarismdetect.com (PlagiarismDetect 2011). These
services compete with each other by making their own databases more compre-
hensive, as well as improving the algorithms for plagiarism detection. This website
analyses plagiarism online while you are typing your text, (Zimerman 2012). For
example, all students submitted their papers electronically, which allow the author
to submit the papers to Turnitine.com to determine whether any of the materials are
copied. Specifically, Turnitine.com compares every word in a paper to an
internet-based multibillion page database. In addition, these services usually pro-

vide the facility to measure the level of similarity between the students’ work and
material publicly accessible online. Often they also store a copy of every submis-
sion in a common database, which facilitates the detection of plagiarism among
peers, (Rísquez and Ledwith 2008). It also compares each paper to other papers
submitted by the classmate. From this comparison, it calculates the proportion of
the total text copied from the internet or other paper (Mohammad et al. 2008).
Besides that, Smith et al. (2007) quoted from Janowski (2002), identifies the
range of activities that might be thought to constitute plagiarism such as buying or
downloading a paper from a research service or a term paper-mill and offering it as
your own, turning in another student’s work, with or without that student’s
knowledge, as your own, copying any portion of another’s work without proper
acknowledgement, copying material from a source and supplying proper docu-
mentation, but leaving out quotation marks or failing to indent properly and
paraphrasing ideas and language from a source without proper documentation. In
addition, Born (2003) quoted from Decamp (2011) said that the ease of use of the
internet technology is the number one factor blamed for the increase in academic
cheating. Born also stated another factor which is increasing numbers of digital
paper-mills much roaming on the internet such as Buyapapers.com, Term Papers
and Term Papers Amazon. This idea by Born (2003) supported the factor that was
identified by Smith et al. (2007) quoted from Janowski (2002).
On the other hand, Sentleng and King (2012) indicate that there are about 10
reasons as to why the students do the plagiarism activities namely: poor writing
skills, lack of referencing skills, teaching and learning methods, laziness or bad time
management, do not understand assignments, education costs, pressure from family
and friends, to obtain better marks, poor understanding of plagiarism and everybody
is doing it. So, based on that reasons, if the number of students who strongly agreed
as well as those who agreed were added together, 82 out of 493 students indicated
that they plagiarize to gain better marks. It is followed by 74 students who will
plagiarize because of laziness and/or bad time management, 71 because of poor
writing skills, 69 because of lack of referencing skills and 61 because they did not
understand the assignment. 56 students agreed in total that poor understanding of
plagiarism was the reason for plagiarizing, while 50 students blamed teaching and
learning methods. Because “everybody is doing it”, 30 students thought that it is
acceptable for them to plagiarize as well.
Sentleng and King (2012) quoted by Devlin and Gray (2007) also concluded that
students might be plagiarizing because they do not understand what constitutes
plagiarism. A total of 139 students indicated that they strongly agreed or agreed that
the reasons for plagiarizing were because of educational costs (27), family and
friends (31) as well as to get better marks (82). It seems as if the pressure to perform
well in order to pass courses had caused the students to plagiarize intentionally. In
the study of Devlin and Gray (2007), 56 Australian University students were
interviewed to investigate their views on the reasons of plagiarism in their school;
and student’s understanding of plagiarism, poor academic skills, teaching and
260 S. Osman et al.
learning factors and some others were found to be the main reasons leading to the
students’ plagiarism in their institutions.
For the overall, it is important to study about the plagiarism among the under-
graduate students in UiTM Johor because there are no other researchers who have
done this research among the UiTM students. Previously, this research was reported
by Smith et al. (2007), this study was conducted to the accounting students in single
university in Malaysia. So, it is possible that the results may not be generalized to
the rest of the Malaysian university. Hence, it is the main reason as to why the study
on the plagiarism attitudes among undergraduate students in each faculty in UiTM
Johor involves the Faculty of Information Management, Business Management, and
Accounting. Therefore, at the end of this study, it is mentioned on identifying the
students experience on how they acknowledge sources of information in their
written assignments and determine the possible factors that contribute to plagiarism
activities among the undergraduate students.
Methodology is a design the research in such a way that the requisite data can be
gathered and analyzed to arrive at the solution. A questionnaire is used for data
collection and some of the questionnaires are quoted from studies done by
Mavrinac et al. (2010). This study used quantitative method to collect and gather
the data. The target population that is being chosen normally depends on the
objective of the research itself. These researches were conducted at UiTM Johor in
where the total population is 3117. Five (5) percent from these three different
faculties which is Faculty of Information Management (592 students), Faculty of
Accounting (584 students), and Faculty of Business Management (1941 students)
will be selected as the respondents in this study and questionnaires will be sub-
sequently distributed to the selected class. This study used Stratified Random
Sampling as the sampling design. This technique that has been chosen is suitable as
the population is made up from three different faculties. Thus, the total sample
number in this study is about 155 of Undergraduate Students in UiTM Johor.
The collected data are analyzed using SPSS software version 22. Below is the
analysis and findings indicated in the study (Table 1).
The finding shows the demographic profile of the students. Majority of the
students who answered the questionnaires were female (70.3%) and only 29.7%
were male. Most of them are 20 years old (77.6%) and majority of them were from
Faculty of Business Management (59.9%). Most of the respondents have CGPA’s
of 3.00 to 3.49 (37.5%) (Table 2).
Table 1 Demographic
Frequency Percentage (%)
Gender
Male 46 29.7
Female 109 70.3
Age
20 years old 111 77.6
21 years old 22 15.4
22 years old 5 3.5
23 years old 5 3.5
Faculties
Information management 32 21.1
Business management 91 59.9
Accountancy 29 19.1
CGPA
3.50–4.00 15 11.0
3.00–3.49 51 37.5
2.50–2.99 48 35.3
2.00–2.49 20 14.7
Table 2 The level of awareness

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.
deviation
I know the existence of UiTM plagiarism 155 1.00 5.00 3.7097 .72942
policy 2012
I know that if I break the plagiarism 155 1.00 5.00 3.9871 .67408
policy, I will face serious consequences
Plagiarism is not a big deal to me 155 1.00 5.00 2.9677 1.05325
I do not see plagiarism as a big problem 155 1.00 5.00 2.9097 .99589
Plagiarism is acceptable if I have more 155 1.00 5.00 3.1355 .98084
important task to do
Plagiarism helps me to avoid hard work 155 1.00 5.00 3.1677 .98574
I know the existence of software that 155 1.00 5.00 3.4839 .93527
detects the plagiarism
Total 3.3373 .59903
The finding indicates that most of the respondents agree that they are aware of
plagiarism. Among these students’ community, it can be perceived that most of
them agree (m = 3.3373, std. dev. = .59903) that they know what is plagiarism
about. Most of them claimed that they know that if they break the plagiarism policy,
262 S. Osman et al.
they will face serious consequences (m = 3.9871, std. dev. = .67408). Majority of
them also know the existence of UiTM Plagiarism Policy 2012 (m = 3.7097, std.
dev. = .72942). Nevertheless, most of them know the existence of software that
detects plagiarism (m = 3.4839, std. dev. = .93527). The findings somehow are
consistent with study conducted by Ramzan et al. (2012) revealed that there is a
significant number of students in their studies who have fairly admitted that they
have intentionally plagiarized written materials (Table 3).
Based on the findings, it demonstrates that sources of information are important
in their learning activities. Among these students’ community, it can be showed that
most of them agree (m = 3.4250, std. dev. = .52001) that sources of information
are important in completing their learning task. Majority of the respondents found
that there is too much information available in electronic format especially from
websites (m = 3.8387, std. dev. = .75148). Most of them also agree that it is easy to
download articles in from websites (m = 3.7806, std. dev. = .57288). They also
concurred that the numerous sources of information available helps them in com-
pleting their assignment (m = 3.7742, std. dev. = .62987). Research was done by
Baruchson and Yaari (2004), their findings of the present study all confirm that
plagiarism from internet sources is perceived as less dishonest than a similar act of
plagiarism using a printed source. Furthermore, the most common argument for
internet plagiarism is related to the widespread opinion among students that the
Table 3 Sources of information

deviation
The numerous sources of information 155 1.00 5.00 3.7742 .62987
available helps me in competing my
assignment
I found it is easy to download articles 155 1.00 5.00 3.7806 .57288
from websites
I found that there is too much information 155 1.00 5.00 3.8387 .75148
available in electronic format especially
from websites
I think that cutting and pasting from the 155 1.00 5.00 3.5226 .84773
internet and word processing is much
easier and faster
I do not feel guilty for copying verbatim a 155 1.00 5.00 2.7290 1.01489
sentence or two from my previous papers
Sometimes I copy a sentence or two just 155 1.00 5.00 3.5613 .79841
to become inspired for further writing
I always quote other works without 155 1.00 4.00 2.8774 .98913
acknowledging them
If a colleague of mine allows me to copy 155 1.00 5.00 3.3161 .95859
from her/his paper, I am not doing
anything bad as I have his/her permission
Total 3.4250 .52001
information on the internet belongs to the public domain in which the use is
unrestricted and requires no citation (Moeck 2002; Oliphant 2002) (Table 4).
Based on the findings, it shows that most of them agree that there is a factor that
contributes to the plagiarism activities. Among these students’ community, it can be
indicated that most of them agree (m = 3.0848, std. dev. = .78932). Majority of
them feel pressure to complete many assignments during a given time period
(m = 3.3484, std. dev. = .97097). Many of them stated that short deadlines give
them right to plagiarize others work a bit (m = 3.2323, std. dev. = .94539). They
also agreed that they feel it is much easier to plagiarize as the types of academic
assessment given by the lecturers are similar (m = 3.1613, std. dev. = .94308). The
findings somehow are consistent with the study conducted by Ereta and
Gokmenoglua (2010) studies revealed that the factors affecting why they plagiarize,
it is seen that the stated factors are generally problems with using foreign language,
time constraints, lack of knowledge about plagiarism, overloaded course require-
ments, difficulty of the assignment, lack of understanding of the assignment, lack of
enough academic skills and others. The results are mainly consistent with the
literature. Supported with research done by Devlin and Gray (2007), found that
students plagiarize because of institutional admission criteria, students’ under-
standing of plagiarism, poor academic skills, teaching and learning factors, per-
sonality factors and external pressures.
Table 4 Factors that contribute to the Plagiarism activities

Deviation
I keep plagiarizing because I have not 155 1.00 5.00 2.7290 1.03390
been caught yet
I do not have the confidence in preparing 155 1.00 5.00 2.9484 1.06779
good assignment
I feel the difficulties to construct 155 1.00 5.00 3.1290 1.03641
sentences in English
It is hard for me to understand articles in 155 1.00 5.00 3.0452 .98917
English
Short deadlines give me the right to 155 1.00 5.00 3.2323 .94539
plagiarize others work a bit
I feel it is much easier to plagiarise as the 155 1.00 5.00 3.1613 .94308
types of academic assessment given by
the lecturers are similar
I feel pressure to complete many 155 1.00 5.00 3.3484 .97097
assignments during a given time period
Total 3.0848 .78932
264 S. Osman et al.
5 Conclusion
The significance of this study divulges a clear picture on how undergraduate stu-
dents’ in UiTM Johor penetrating for the information in completing their assign-
ment. This study also reveals the genuine way of students gaining information.
Students realize that there are authentic guidelines and procedure in citing others
knowledge and information without doing plagiarism. Furthermore, with the
internet-savvy nowadays, students who arrive at tertiary-level institutions today
have fundamentally different attitudes to ownership, intellectual property, and the
electronic transmission of knowledge. This study also is in accordance with the
intellectual property laws and avoid plagiarism. Hopefully that this study will be
inflated to other UiTM branches, so that the management of UiTM can divulge the
real ways of students’ attitudes in their learning process. The consequence of
plagarism activities does not only affect the students themselves but it is also able to
tarnish the good image of UiTM as a higher institution in the world.
Acknowledgements This chapter was sponsored by Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Johor
Grant Phase 3/2015.
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Part VII
Finance/Banking/e-Commerce
Chapter 25
Corporate Governance Accountable
to Financial Distress
Azizah Abdullah, Noorhafizah Abdul Aziz, Nurul Afzan Najid

and Nafsiah Mohamed
Abstract Good corporate governance companies are associated with superior

financial performance. The better the governance practice of companies the better
the performance and the lower probability of financial distress. This chapter
examines whether there is any significant difference in probability of financial
distress of companies with good corporate governance and weak corporate gov-
ernance. Top-ranked MSWG companies representing good quality of corporate
governance practices and non-ranked companies representing weak or poor quality
of corporate governance practices. Probability of financial distress is measured
using Altman Z-score. Lower probability of financial distress is found in the good
corporate governance companies. However, it was found that there is no significant
difference between good and weak companies in their categories of financial dis-
tress. This reveals that whether a firm has high or low quality of corporate gov-
ernance, the chances that the firm being predicted as distress, healthy or grey area is
almost the same regardless of their corporate governance practice.
Keywords Corporate governance Financial distress Financial performance

MSWG
A. Abdullah (&) N. A. Aziz N. A. Najid N. Mohamed

Faculty of Accountancy, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Shah Alam, Malaysia
e-mail: drazizahabdullah@gmail.com
N. A. Aziz
e-mail: noorhafizah_aa@yahoo.com
N. A. Najid
e-mail: nurulafzan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. Mohamed
e-mail: nafsiah793@salam.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_25
270 A. Abdullah et al.
1 Introduction
In the effort of lifting investors’ confidence, following the Asian financial crisis
1997/1998, the Malaysian government established the High-Level Finance
Committee on Corporate Governance (HLFC) and the Malaysian Institute of
Corporate Governance (MICG) in 1998. To further enhance corporate governance
in Malaysia, the Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group (MSWG) was set up in
2000 to encourage shareholder activism. Monitoring companies, providing advice
on the best practices and offering other services like proxy voting are among the
roles of MSWG.
The Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group (MSWG) conducted surveys and
research in an effort to encourage the best practices in corporate governance among
Malaysian listed companies. The aim of the surveys and research is to recognize the
listed companies in Malaysia with the highest governance score.The companies are
ranked based on its level of conformance to MSWG corporate governance index
criterion; complying with the corporate governance best practices, quality of dis-
closures, financial stability and corporate responsibility efforts.
Al-Tamimi (2012) noted that there are many studies conducted on corporate
governance and firm performance but not much about corporate governance and
financial distress. Brédart (2014) argued that little is known about the relationship
between financial distress and corporate governance and it remains fairly inade-
quately investigated. Bredart (2014) also highlighted there are abundant research
questions still waiting to be explored. The prediction of financial distress is a
widespread issue in developed economies but in less developed economies like
Malaysia, it has only just emerged (Karbhari and Zulkarnain 2004). Poor corporate
governance is associated with the cause of financial distress among firms. The
recent financial distress and bankruptcy of large companies in the US and many
countries give signals or indicates that corporate governance practices of firms are
insufficient to prevent financial distress from happening.
There is no empirical analysis done so far in Malaysia to examine the ability of
MSWG ranking to provide valuable information and predict future events or per-
formance. If the rankings have little use or no ability to enhance future performance,
there is no clear need for boards of directors and shareholders to be concerned about
their corporate governance rankings or enhance their governance practices when the
authority impose them to do so (Daines et al. 2010). There is little research done to
assess the impact of overall or comprehensive corporate governance in Malaysia on
financial distress. Most studies in the literature are on specific element of corporate
governance (such as board size, role duality, ownership structure, board composi-
tion or audit committee) instead of a combined and comprehensive measure
(Cheung et al. 2010). Looking at the above situation, there is a need to critically
compare listed Malaysian companies with good corporate governance to companies
with weak corporate governance in terms of their financial distress. It is expected
that the practice of good corporate governance leads to reduction in the likelihood
25 Corporate Governance Accountable to Financial Distress 271
of financial distress. Hence, this chapter aims to examine whether there is any
significant difference in the probability of financial distress between companies with
good corporate governance and weak corporate governance.
2 Literature Review
The corporate governance concept has existed a long time ago before the UK had
formalized it in the early 1990s through the Cadbury Report due to many occur-
rences of corporate failures and scandals (Gupta and Sharma 2014). The Cadbury
Report (1992) discussed various issues of corporate governance. The corporate
governance concept was foreign to most Asian countries in the early 1990s.
Financial crisis experienced by ASEAN countries in 1997 was a major turnaround
event that raised the importance of good corporate governance practices.
Malaysian High-Level Finance Committee on Corporate governance, defined
corporate governance as “the process and structure used to direct and manage the
business and affairs of the company towards enhancing the business prosperity and
corporate accountability with the ultimate objective of realizing long-term share-
holders value, whilst taking into account the interests of other stakeholders” (Mat
Norwani et al. 2011). Monitoring of companies through corporate governance can
be classified into internal mechanisms and external mechanisms. Competitive
atmosphere with various constraints, market forces and laws cause the need for
external mechanism. Therefore, external mechanism should be involved in moni-
toring the companies’ systems (Braga and Shastri 2011).
Theoretically, financial distress should be prevented effectively by having good
corporate governance (Mohd Noor et al. 2012). Companies with good corporate
governance practices are expected to be well managed and have stable returns. It is
argued that companies with appropriate corporate governance should be less likely
to suffer from the costs of financial distress than companies that have poor gov-
ernance (Hui and Jing-Jing 2008). A study by Brédart (2014) on the effectiveness of
internal corporate governance mechanisms found that the size of the board is related
to the probability of financial distress.
Yeh and Lee (2004) found that the probability of a firm being classified as
financially distressed is increased when corporate governance is weak. The weaker
the corporate governance, the greater the probability of firms to be classified as
financially distressed. In Lebanon, Charbel et al. (2013) found a significant rela-
tionship between corporate governance characteristics and financial distress.
Companies with good practices of corporate governance are less inclined to fall into
financially distressed situations. Abdullah (2006b) focuses on directors’ remuner-
ation among financially distressed firms because these firms are argued to face a
number of corporate governance issues, including the board’s monitoring effec-
tiveness. These firms are considered as failed, and thus the boards could be regarded
as having failed in discharging their duties.
Based on the prior studies and discussion above, it is expected that the
top-ranked MSWG ranked companies are already well managed and have consis-
tent returns. The way a company is governed should make a difference to its
susceptibility to financial distress (Alfan and Zakaria 2013). In Malaysia, financial
distress is often associated with the PN17 status of companies (Mohd Noor et al.
2012). Firms with good corporate governance are less likely to experience financial
distress and file for bankruptcy protection (Abdullah 2006b). In this study, it is
hypothesized that the top-ranked MSWG companies would exhibit a strong health
financial condition and, therefore, would be less distressed.
3.1 Sample Selection and Data Collection
This study intends to analyze the financial condition of companies with good
governance and compares against companies with weak governance. The popula-
tion of the study consists of all public listed companies on the Bursa Malaysia. The
sample is divided into two groups, which are the group representing good corporate
governance (Top Corporate Governance Ranked) and the group representing weak
corporate governance (Non-Ranked).The data is collected from a three-year period
from 2011 to 2013. Data collected for this study is secondary in nature.
Thompson’s DataStream was used to obtain the data for calculation of financial
distress and financial performance. In addition, financial data was also extracted
from annual reports and financial statements to obtain sufficient and complete data
for the study. Before selecting the matching companies, total assets and revenues
data for all companies in each industry were obtained and collected. The data were
then ranked on Excel spreadsheet from highest to lowest, based on total assets and
revenues separately. During the data collection, some matching companies did not
have sufficient data and information for Z-score calculation. The process of
matching was repeated numerous times until all the data was complete for further
analysis. Only complete data available in DataStream were chosen. The Z-score for
each company is calculated and analyzed from 2011 to 2013. The results of the
matching group are to be compared with the first group to investigate if there is a
significant difference in the probability of financial distress and their financial
performance.
Corporate governance quality was used to group the sample based on the
ranking of MSWG corporate governance indices. The ranking published by MSWG
measures overall corporate governance practice of Malaysian companies. The use
of MSWG ranking to group the sample is consistent with Jiraporn et al. (2012), and
Epps and Cereola (2008). The study used governance index provided by the
Institutional Shareholders Services (ISS) to measure corporate governance quality
in the US.
The sample of companies with good corporate governance practices was based
on the list of MSWG ranking published annually in the Malaysia Corporate
Governance Report issued by MSWG. The ranking list of companies from 2011 to
2013 was obtained from publicly available MSWG Report downloaded from the
MSWG website (accessed on March 2014 and September 2014). In between 2011
and 2013, companies entered and exited the ranking. The most recent period of the
study is selected to base the analysis on as recent data as possible. Companies with
good governance were selected from the top 100 MSWG ranking. Companies in the
top MSWG ranking achieved high score rating assessment based on their corporate
governance practices. The total list of 300 companies obtained from the MSWG
report for the three years was screened and compared year on year to identify
companies that are in the ranking for three years consecutively in a row. These
companies represent companies with good practice of corporate governance in
Malaysia.
Companies are classified as having good corporate governance in practice
consistently if they make it to the top 100 for three years consecutively. It is
believed that the companies that are consistently in the ranking represent good
corporate governance practices. The focus is on the companies showing stable
corporate governance practices over the years. If the companies are in the ranking
for years 2011 and 2013, it is expected that these companies must be in the ranking
for the year 2012 as well. Sahlan (2011) measures companies as having weak
corporate governance based on their ratings. According to the study, companies not
in the top 50 ratings perform badly in their practices of corporate governance.
Reverte (2009) distinguishes weak and strong governance firms based on summary
of corporate governance measures. The matching group sample consists of com-
panies that do not make it to the top 100 MSWG ranking in any of the three years.
This is consistent with the previous studies by Herlina and Dewi (2012), Sahlan
(2011) and Reverte (2009). Companies that are not in the rank are considered as
having poor or weak corporate governance practice.
Further, each of the 42 companies is matched with a company that is not in the
top 100 ranking based on same industry and closest size, which is consistent with
Chang (2009), Lakshan and Wijekoon (2012), and Brédart (2014). Firm size is
measured by either total assets or sales revenue (Guo and Kga 2012; Iyer 2013;
Lima and Sanvicente 2013). First, the matched samples must be in the same
industry. Second, the matched samples should be of closest size, on the basis total
assets or revenue. The matching process of companies is done based on the fol-
lowing requirements:
1. Condition—companies are not in the top 100 ranking from 2011 to 2013.
2. Firm size and industry—companies in the same industry and closest in size
(total assets or sales revenue) are selected.
3. Time period—the company identified in steps (1) and (2) is included in the final
sample if its proxy and financial statement data are available for the period of the
study (2011–2013).
Only companies that meet the criteria were chosen for the study. This forms 42
companies in the top rank and 42 companies not in the top rank. Companies in the
top rank are companies with good corporate governance and companies not in the
top rank are companies with weak corporate governance. A final sample of 84
companies with complete data and 252 observations are used to test the research
hypotheses.
3.2 Measurement of Variables
Financial distress is measured using the Z-scores multi-discriminant financial

analysis model. The score is derived based on the following Eq. (1):
Z ¼ 1:2X ð1Þ þ 1:4X ð2Þ þ 3:3X ð3Þ þ 0:6X ð4Þ þ 1:0X ð5Þ; ð1Þ
where
X(1) Working capital/total assets;
X(2) Retained earnings/total assets;
X(3) Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT)/total assets;
X(4) Market value equity/book value of total liabilities;
X(5) Net Sales/total assets.
The score is used to differentiate between healthy and distressed firms.
Companies with a Z-Score less than 1.8 are financially distressed and companies
having a Z-Score higher than 2.7 are financially healthy. The lower the score is the
higher the probability of financial distress for the company. However, a score
between 1.8 and 2.7 is regarded as a grey area where companies are considered to
be at risk (Alfan and Zakaria 2013).
Company size and industry are used as the control variables for the study. The size
of the company and industry are considered to have some effects on performance.
Large firms tend to have more and stable profitability than small firms. Each industry
has different nature and characteristics and is expected to have some effects on per-
formance of the companies. Size is controlled and measured by closest total assets or
turnover of the company consistent with previous studies by Lakshan and Wijekoon
(2012), Rad et al. (2013), Vo and Nguyen (2014), and Guo and Kga (2012).
4 Findings
4.1 Descriptive Statistics of Components of Altman Z-Score
Financial distress of the sample companies is determined using Altman Z-score.

Altman Z-score was calculated using five financial ratios. Table 1 shows the
descriptive statistics of Altman Z-score and its components. From the table, the Z-
scores for Weak CG range from −1.54 to 5.10 with mean 1.44. For Good CG
companies, the Z-scores range from −0.23 to 6.22 with mean 1.85. The mean for all
the five of the financial ratios for Weak CG companies is lower compared to the
mean of Good CG companies. The five financial ratios are working capital to total
assets (WC/TA), retained earnings to total assets (RE/TA), earnings before interest
and tax to total assets (EBIT/TA), market value of equity to total liabilities (MVE/
TL) and net sales to total assets (NS/TA).
The ratio of working capital to total assets measures liquidity level. The ratio of
retained earnings to total assets measures the reinvestment level of company.
A company with a higher ratio has more earning power in the future than lower
ratio company. The ratio of earnings before interest and tax to total assets measures
the operating efficiency. The ratio of market value of equity to total liabilities
measures company value based on information available on stock market. The ratio
of net sales to total assets measures the ability of company to generate sales using
its assets (Vo and Nguyen 2014).
The differences in mean of the five components between Weak CG companies
and Good CG companies are large, showing that they are good discriminators (Siew
et al. 2014). Looking at the ratios, Good CG companies have proven that they have
greater potential to sustain for a longer time as compared to Weak CG companies
that have lower potential to survive during financial crisis.
4.2 Frequency of Categories of Financial Distress
This section discusses the occurrence of each category of financial distress among
the good and weak corporate governance companies across the three years. This
Table 1 Descriptive statistics of financial ratios used to calculate Z-score

Mean Median Std. Dev. Min Max
Weak CG
Z-score 1.44 1.47 0.8410 −1.54 5.10
WC/TA 0.1270 0.1159 0.1968 −0.4737 0.8295
RE/TA 0.2360 0.2399 0.3030 −1.1513 0.8661
EBIT/TA 0.0773 0.0707 0.0560 −0.0631 0.2970
MVE/BVTL 0.0024 0.0010 0.0045 0.0000 0.0331
NS/TA 0.7859 0.5099 0.8524 0.0698 4.4494
Good CG
Z-score 1.85 1.42 1.2580 −0.23 6.22
WC/TA 0.1390 0.1244 0.18012 −0.3285 0.4799
RE/TA 0.2481 0.2304 0.1553 −0.1266 0.7588
EBIT/TA 0.1480 0.1094 0.1430 −0.0229 0.8279
MVE/BVTL 0.0048 0.0024 0.0054 0.0000 0.0265
NS/TA 0.8458 0.5011 0.7965 0.0272 3.3209
section provides thorough discussion on the frequency of each category of financial

distress among the companies from 2011 to 2013. The Z-score results were
determined for each company using Altman Z-score model. Then, the Z-scores in
the distressed and healthy zone were identified as well as those in the grey zone
according to the model. A company is categorized as financially distressed if the
score is below 1.8 and financially healthy if it is above 2.70 (Alfan and Zakaria
2013). Any Z-score that falls in between the two points implies that the firm is in the
grey area. The lower a company’s Z-score the higher is its probability to go
bankrupt.
The frequency of sample companies being classified or categorized as distressed,
healthy or grey area is shown in Table 2. Panel A depicts the frequency of
occurrence for each financial distress categories 2011. Panel B depicts the fre-
quency of occurrence for each financial distress categories in 2012 and Panel C
depicts the frequency of occurrence for each financial distress categories in 2013.
From Table 2, in 2011, 2012 and 2013, the most frequent financial distress
category among good corporate governance companies is distressed category. Most
scores of the Z-scores fall into distressed and grey area category. The number of
companies with good corporate governance being classified as distressed is 25
companies or 59.5% in both 2011 and 2012 and 28 companies or 66.7% in 2013.
Table 2 Frequency of financial distress classification

CG Financial distress category
quality <=1.80 1.81 − 2.70 Grey 2.71 + Healthy Total
distressed area
Panel A: Classification of financial distress probability in 2011
Weak CG No. 23 14 5 42
% 54.8 33.3 11.9 100
Good CG No. 25 9 8 42
% 59.5 21.4 19.0 100
Total 48 23 13 84
Panel B: Classification of financial distress probability in 2012
Weak CG No. 25 13 4 42
% 59.5 31.0 9.5 100
Good CG No. 25 11 6 42
% 59.5 26.2 14.3 100
Total 50 24 10 84
Panel C: Classification of financial distress probability in 2013
Weak CG No. 29 9 4 42
% 69.0 21.4 9.5 100
Good CG No. 28 7 7 42
% 66.7 16.7 16.7 100
Total 57 16 11 84
This suggests that the probability of good corporate governance companies to fall
into financial distress is high.
For weak corporate governance companies, the most frequent financial distress
category is also distressed category. There are 23 companies or 54.8% in 2011, 25
companies or 59.5% in 2012 and 29 companies or 69% in 2013 are classified as
distressed. For both groups, there is an increasing trend of the frequency of the
sample companies to be in the distressed area from 2011 to 2013. Most companies
with either good or weak corporate governance were distressed as more than 50%
fall into the distressed category from 2011 to 2013. This is contrary to findings of Li
et al. (2008), Yeh and Lee (2004) and Salloum and Azoury (2012) that the prob-
ability of good governance companies to be distressed is lower as compared to
when firms are poorly managed or having weak corporate governance practices.
On the other hand, very few companies from both groups fall into the healthy
category. Only 19% (2011), 14.3% (2012) and 16.7% (2013) of good corporate
governance companies are classified as healthy. This is a slightly higher percentage
than the weak corporate governance companies, where 11.9% (2011), 9.5% (2012)
and 9.5% (2013) are classified as healthy.
This suggests that there are financial distress companies that are listed in the top
ranking of corporate governance. The number of companies in the distressed cat-
egory is quite high and alarming. This indicates that companies that have good or
excellent corporate governance companies are not immune to the likelihood of
falling into financial distress category. Some top companies listed in MSWG cor-
porate governance ranking have financial difficulties.
4.3 Mann–Whitney U Test
This section specifically discusses Mann–Whitney U test. The test was conducted to
answer the first and the second research question and objective. The first objective
is to examine whether there is any significant difference in financial performance
between good corporate governance and weak corporate governance companies.
The second objective is to examine whether there is any significant difference in
probability of financial distress between good corporate governance and weak
corporate governance companies.
To test for differences between the two groups, Mann–Whitney tests for dif-
ferences were conducted (Harp et al. 2014). The Mann–Whitney test is used as
means of interpreting the results obtained from Z-score and financial performance.
Two-sample Mann–Whitney tests were conducted to explore the differences
between the two sample groups.
Table 3 Mann–Whitney U Z-score Mean Median Mann–Whitney U (Z-value)

test for probability of financial
distress Weak CG 1.53 1.42 −1.718a
Good CG 1.85 1.45
a
Significance at the 0.1 level
4.4 Financial Distress
The results of Mann–Whitney U tests are shown in Table 3. Analysis revealed that
on average, Good CG companies have higher mean Z-score of 1.85 than Weak CG
companies of 1.53. The difference is significant at 10% level Z-value = −1.718,
p < 0.1. This result is consistent with Brédart (2014) and (Hui and Jing-Jing 2008)
which demonstrate that corporate governance has impact on financial distress.
Proper implementation of corporate governance practices makes difference in
reducing the probability of companies to fall into distressed situation.
With good and effective corporate governance practices in place, the risk or
probability of companies to fall into financial distress state could have been avoi-
ded. Corporate governance mechanisms like effective boards would not let com-
panies borrow excessively which would increase the risk of financial distress
(Abdullah 2006a). Therefore, it is proven that there is a significant difference in the
probability of financial distress between good corporate governance companies and
weak corporate governance companies. Hypothesis 2 was supported.
5 Conclusion
The aim of this study is to examine whether the difference in probability of financial
distress is influenced by the difference in corporate governance quality. The anal-
ysis of this study uses publicly available companies’ ranking of corporate gover-
nance published by MSWG in 2011, 2012 and 2013 to differentiate companies with
good and weak corporate governance. This ranking is based on globally accepted
corporate governance parameters according to OECD principles and other best
practices.
Overall, the difference in financial distress appears significant between good
corporate governance companies and weak governance companies. The findings of
this study supported the argument that good or high quality of corporate governance
lower probability of financial distress. Similarly, weak or low quality of corporate
governance is associated with higher probability of financial distress. Proper sys-
tem, procedures and structures of corporate governance allow financial distress to
be detected earlier and avoid harmful consequences. This suggests that firms with
high quality of corporate governance give a better risk-return to investors than firms
with bad or low quality of corporate governance.
The results of the study and previous studies provide red flags for companies and
regulatory bodies in Malaysia to be more alert on financial distress and corporate
governance issues. The results show that all companies, good or weak governance,
are vulnerable to financial distress and cannot escape it easily. In these turbulent
times, nowadays, it is important for companies to focus on sustainability strategies
to sustain in the market for a longer term rather than just focusing on profitability or
short-term goals.
On top of that, the failure of a firm to meet its financial obligations inevitably
leads to a filing of bankruptcy (Hernandez and Wilson 2013). These events of firms
falling into bankruptcy could threaten the economy as seen in previous financial
crisis. Regulatory bodies and standard setters have responsibilities to assist com-
panies to be more responsive and assist them in sustaining their businesses so that
affected parties could be protected.
Corporate governance is the backbone of a company. It is important for regu-
lators and authorities to take proactive approach to encourage good corporate
governance practices. Regulators, authorities, shareholders, managers, government
and other stakeholders have an important role to play. An active participation by all
contributes to adherence of good corporate governance practices. Good and high
quality of corporate governance practices leads to better performance in all aspects
and greater investor confidence.
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Chapter 26
Case Study of Taxpayers Usage
on E-Filing System
Suhana Mohamed, Jarinah Hitam, Nurul Farhana Mazlan

and Nurul Aien Abd Aziz
Abstract Malaysia implemented e-filing system eight years ago. However, there
are still taxpayers who are not using the e-filing system due to lack of awareness of
the system and fear of using any internet services. Hence, the purpose of this study
is to investigate the usage of e-filing systems among individual taxpayers at Inland
Revenue Board Malaysia Southern Peninsular Malaysia Branch. The study exam-
ines the factors that influence the taxpayers’ level of awareness to use an e-filing
system. The survey was conducted using simple random sampling, of 95 individual
taxpayers that come to the Inland Revenue Board Malaysia office from the period of
October to November 2015. The findings showed that respondents have high usage
of e-filing. The results revealed that the perceived ease of use perceived subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control have a significant relationship with the
taxpayer’s usage of e-filing. Conversely, the perceived usefulness and tax knowl-
edge did not have a significant relationship with taxpayers’ usage of e-filing.
Optimistically, with the current e-filing promotion usage among taxpayers, it will
increase the usage of e-filing among taxpayers in Malaysia.
Keywords E-filing Taxpayers Awareness Income tax Usage
S. Mohamed (&) J. Hitam N. F. Mazlan

Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Johor Branch, Pasir Gudang Campus, Bandar Seri Alam, Masai, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: suhan291@johor.uitm.edu.my
J. Hitam
e-mail: rin_2662@yahoo.com
N. F. Mazlan
N. A. Abd Aziz
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Johor Branch, Segamat Campus, KM 12, Jalan Muar, Segamat, Johor, Malaysia

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_26
282 S. Mohamed et al.
1 Introduction
Malaysia has imposed tax payment to its citizen since 1910. Following that
enforcement, the tax revenues have increased gradually. To ease the tax collection
administration, the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) has introduced one
significant transformation by introducing the Self-Assessment System (SAS) to
replace the Official Assessment System (OAS) for individual taxpayers.
The system implemented by the IRBM requires taxpayers to fill in the tax return,
declare income, compute tax payable, and furnish tax return to IRBM and pay the
tax at selected banks in Malaysia. As a result, it reduces tax administration costs and
the timing needed. However, according to Kasipillai (2001), there was weak evi-
dence to report that Self-Assessment System increases evasion. However, evidence
suggested that Self-Assessment System has higher tax compliance costs. IRBM
(2007) mentioned that the aim of the SAS is to reduce the processing cost of tax
collection, to increase the tax compliance and to improve the efficiency of tax
enforcement over the overall improvement of the tax administration system. Also,
taxpayers need to enhance tax knowledge to determine the exact tax liability and
avoid penalties.
As the tax burden has been transferred directly to the taxpayers, the IRBM has
launched electronic filing system or known as e-filing in the year of 2006. E-filing
refers to a system that covers the use of internet technologies and the worldwide
web (www.). E-filing is capable of integrating all tax processes beginning from the
process of tax preparation, tax filing until tax payment. Besides, e-filing can reduce
government operational costs. According to Nor Hafizah (2009), e-filing was
introduced during the Self-Assessment System. The taxpayers will fill in the tax
return and file them electronically while the tax processing will be done using the
system developed by the tax authority.
Mohamad Fikri (2006) explained that the IRBM’s proposal to discontinue
printing tax return forms beginning in 2007 was resisted by many consumer
organizations that argued the action will affect taxpayers who are still computer
illiterate, especially for those who are living in remote areas and without access to
computers and or internet service. Throughout 2015, IRBM still allows for the filing
of tax returns using both manual and electronic forms.
A comparative study by narrowing on tax compliance costs in tax filing methods
which are electronic filing or e-filing was done. The researchers of the prior study,
Alm et al. (2010) stated that the current study recommends the option that tax
information may be an additional element that influences e-filing usage since tax
knowledge was found to have influenced tax compliance in many countries.
Idawati (2012) stated that the implementation of e-filing is crucial to increase tax
compliance. It is important to know whether the tax knowledge influences the
taxpayer’s e-filing usage. Unfortunately, prior studies are yet to provide concrete
evidence on the issues of tax knowledge relationship with the usage of e-filing as a
medium to increase tax compliance.
26 Case Study of Taxpayers Usage on E-Filing System 283
The implementation of e-filing has helped to reduce the IRBM function whereby
the problem of tax management is transferred from the IRBM to the taxpayers.
Therefore, the taxpayers are fully responsible for calculating, determining, filing,
and paying their income taxes. Since the implementation of e-filing is necessary to
increase the tax compliance, it is critical to understand whether the tax knowledge
influences e-filing usage among taxpayers and potential taxpayers.
However, the taxpayers did not use the system because they found it difficult for
them. This also collaborates with Yusri’s (2008) findings that users feel uneasy in
using e-filing. Thus, the reason to do this study is to know the level of awareness
using e-filing after eight years of its implementation to individual taxpayers. The
objective is to evaluate the relationship between the independent variables and the
dependent variable. Perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU),
perceived subjective norms (PSN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), and tax
general knowledge (TGK) as independent variables. The dependent variable is the
taxpayers’ usage of e-filing.
2 Literature Review
This study concentrates on the usage of e-filing among individual taxpayers in

Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s branch. The followings are the variables
used in this study.
2.1 Perceived Usefulness
In the case of e-filing, enabling tax filing and tax payment management is among
the reasons why taxpayers are expected to use a system. Based on the online survey,
Schaupp and Carter (2009) found US taxpayers’ awareness in using e-filing as
influenced by their perception of its usefulness. Fu et al. (2006) also presented
similar findings in the case of Taiwanese taxpayers with regards to e-filing usage.
According to Azmi and Bee (2010), several studies in Malaysia showed that per-
ceived usefulness is a significant factor influencing taxpayers’ awareness in using
e-filing system. The e-filing is expected to assist taxpayers not only on the appli-
cation of the tax filing but also on how to set the tax payment through the Internet.
The perceived usefulness is projected to influence taxpayers’ awareness in using
e-filing which showed the significant relationship between perceived usefulness and
individual taxpayers’ consciousness in using e-filing.
The hypothesis is as follows:
H1: There is a significant relationship between Perceived Usefulness (PU) and
taxpayers’ usage of e-filing in Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s branch.
2.2 Perceived Ease of Use
IRBM (2007) mentioned that apart from reducing the time while processing the tax
filing, providing that the taxpayers were not able to submit the tax return to the
office, the e-filing systems will then help the taxpayers in calculating their tax items
during the management of their tax files. Based on many supporting features
available within the e-filing system, the IRBM expects taxpayers will not feel
threatened when using it. The previous studies suggested that the awareness in
using e-filing is linked with the perception of ease of use, for example in Taiwan
(Wang 2002), the US (Schaupp and Carter 2009) and Malaysia (Azmi and Bee
2010). However, Yusri (2008) mentioned that other studies do not find the per-
ception of ease of use to influence taxpayers’ awareness in using e-filing. The
perception of ease of use is projected to contribute to a higher awareness in using
e-filing among taxpayers; there is a significant relationship between perceived ease
of use and individual taxpayers’ awareness in using e-filing.
H2: There is a significant relationship between Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU) and
taxpayers’ usage of E-filing in Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s branch.
2.3 Perceived Subjective Norms
The research by Lai and Siti Normala (2004) stated that the prior studies also found
individual differences can influence taxpayers’ reactions toward technology
acceptance, such as cognitive, personality, and demography. Alm et al. (2010)
discovered that the real association between individual differences and information
technology usage is still not clear. The issue was not within the scope of the study.
Schaupp and Carter (2009) stated that the influence of perceived subjective norms is
more apparent and found in prior studies to be a significant relationship with the
awareness in using e-filing.
H3: There is a significant relationship between Perceived Subjective Norms
(PSN) and taxpayers’ usage of E-filing in Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s
branch.
2.4 Perceived Behavioral Control
In the context of e-filing, Schaupp and Carter (2009) mentioned that if a person
believes that they are capable of handling e-filing on their own, the person is
expected to perceive it to be easy to use or otherwise. Similarly, if there is a lack of

external sources (such as internet line, computers or technical assistance), the sit-
uation may reduce someone’s awareness in using any application. The same situ-
ation may apply to the incident of e-filing usage among taxpayers. If taxpayers are
equipped with enough computers and internet service, there may be a higher ten-
dency for them to decide to use e-filing. Hence, there is a significant relationship
between perceived behavioral control and individual taxpayers’ awareness in using
e-filing.
H4: There is a significant relationship between Perceived Behavioral Control
(PBC) and taxpayers’ usage of E-filing in Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s
branch.
2.5 Tax General Knowledge
Prior studies by Mohd Rizal (2010) also found that tax general knowledge among
individual taxpayers is at an average level, even though they have at least a
high-level education. Mohd Rizal (2005) also stated that such a weakness could
affect the accuracy of tax returns. According to Barjoyai (1992), the IRBM
developed e-filing to reduce mistakes and increase the accuracy of tax filing by
personal tax general knowledge, which refers to someone’s ability to fill and
complete tax returns and to calculate tax liability without having to depend on
others. Under SAS, Nero and Amrizah (2003) explained that taxpayers are
responsible for calculating their tax liability, implying that they must have
knowledge about the basic information concerning tax, such as taxable income, the
allowable deductions, and the claimable exemptions. Furthermore, there is signif-
icant relationship tax general knowledge between and individual taxpayers’
awareness in using e-filing.
H5: There is a significant relationship between General Tax Knowledge (TGK) and
taxpayers’ usage of E-filing in Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s branch.
3 Methodology
This study concentrates on primary data collection among individual taxpayers in

Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s branch. A questionnaire served as a method
of gathering the data on the awareness in using e-filing. The sample for this study
was the individual taxpayers within Southern Peninsular Malaysia IRBM’s branch.
Adjustments were made to the questionnaire based on suggestions and comments
from the pilot study. Questionnaires were distributed by hand to taxpayers visiting
the IRBM office. Respondents were requested to answer the questions on a
five-point Likert scale, where five represented “strongly agree” to 1 “strongly
disagree” for six constructs. In regards to the TGK construct, respondents were
asked to answer based on a scale where marks are given only for the correct
answers. A total of 106 questionnaires were collected from October to November
2015. Out of which 11 were excluded due to incomplete data. The final sample
comprised of 95 respondents’ questionnaires. The data on awareness using e-filing
systems for personal income tax and Self-Assessment System (SAS) gathered
during the interview session and were then keyed into Statistical Package for Social
Sciences (SPSS) for the analysis.
3.1 Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework developed for this study shown in Fig. 1.
4.1 General Analysis
The respondents participated in this study consisted of 35% of female and 65% of
the male. The age of the respondents was between 25 years and 55 years old, with
those above 30 years old dominated 62% of the respondents. The awareness level
Fig. 1 Conceptual framework adopted for this study

Table 1 Cronbach’s alpha Variables No. of items Cronbach’s alpha

UOE 5 0.941
PU 5 0.666
PEOU 5 0.908
PCN 3 0.947
PBC 8 0.801
TGK 14 0.761
of the respondents was also quite high, with respondents having at least a diploma
or higher comprising approximately 62% of the sample. Similarly, those respon-
dents employed at the level of an executive officer or higher comprised of 91% of
the sample. The majority of the respondents (67.4%) have an average salary of
RM3000 per month or above. In regards to relevant experience, the respondents
have an average of at least seven years of experience using a computer and the
Internet. With regards to facilities, the majority of the respondents (63.2%) have
computer and internet service at home. Hence, the respondents are believed to
represent an appropriate sample for the present study. Among the reasons given by
the respondents when asked why they did not use e-filing before are not knowing
how to use the e-filing system; not being aware of the existence of the e-filing
system, or living close to a tax authority office; and preferring to manually submit a
physical tax return. In the present sample, a total of 78.9% of the respondents filed
tax returns using e-filing.
The result from the SPSS in Table 1 below shows the Cronbach’s alpha for all
the independent variables. It indicates that the highest Cronbach’s alpha is for
Perceived Subjective Norms (PSN) which is 94.7%. This is followed by Usage of
E-Filing System (UOE) of 94.1%, Perceived on Ease of Use (PEOU) at 90.8%,
Perceived Behavioral Control or PBC at 80.1%, and Tax General Knowledge
(TGK) at 76.1%. The Perceived Usefulness (PU) variable has the lowest
Cronbach’s alpha of 66%. However, since Azmi and Bee (2010) and Schaupp and
Carter (2009) recommended this variable, this study maintained the variable.
4.2 Regression Analysis
The five hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis following prior
studies on tax issues (Schaupp and Carter 2009; Azmi and Bee 2010), and the
equation was created based on the following model of Eq. (1) and (2).
UOE ¼ b0 þ b1 PU þ b2 PEOU þ b3 PSN þ b4 PBC þ b5 TGK þ e ð1Þ
UOE ¼ 5:557 þ ð0:943ÞPU þ 0:075PEOU þ 0:177PSN þ 0:22PBC

ð2Þ
þ ð0:0289ÞTGK þ e
where
UOE Usage of e-filing;
PU Perceived usefulness;
POEU Perceived on ease of use;
PSN Perceived subjective norms;
PBC Perceived behavioral control;
TGK Tax general knowledge;
e Error in this regression.
Equation (2) presents the results of the multiple regression analysis. The result
shows that the PEOU variable (β = 0.061, p < 0.000) and the PSN variable
(β = 0.189, p < 0.000) are positively correlated with UOE in the sample, which
supports the first and second hypotheses (H1 and H2). Both findings are consistent
with prior studies, such as (Hung et al. 2006; Fu et al. 2006). The PBC variable
(β = 0.154, p < 0.05) is also positively associated with UOE in the sample, which
supports the third hypothesis (H3). The finding is consistent with prior studies, such
as (Hung et al. 2006; Schaupp and Carter 2009).
4.3 Hypothesis Testing
Table 2 shows that the F-statistic value is 30.326, and the significant p-value is
0.000. Since the significant value is below 5%, it means that the overall relationship
between independent variable has a perfectly positive correlation with the usage of
the e-filing system. Since it is significant, the hypothesis testing should reject the
null hypothesis (H0), and accept alternate hypothesis (H1), which means there is a
relationship between independent variable and it has a positive correlation with the
usage of the e-filing system.
Table 2 Multiple regression of UOE on independent variables

Variables Expected sign Coefficient Std Error Beta t-statistic
Intercept 0.853 5.557 6.514
PU + −.579 0.163 −.943 −5.801
POEU + 0.061 0.122 0.075 0.613
PSN + 0.189 0.095 0.177 1.865
PBC + 0.154 0.140 0.220 1.570
TGK + −.171 0.141 −.289 −2.055
Adj. R2 0.609
R 0.794
F-statistic 30.326
p-value 0.000
The multiple regressions only show how the independent variables are signifi-
cant toward the usage of e-filing. Finally, the analysis shows that 60.90% of the
dependent variable (the usage of e-filing) depends on independent variables (PU,
PEOU, PSN, PBC, and TGK).
The PU and TGK variables do not show any significant association with UOE in
the sample. Hence, the fourth and fifth hypotheses (H4 and H5) are not supported.
Nonetheless, the findings are consistent with prior studies, such as Suki and
Ramayah (2010). One possible explanation concerning the lack of association
between PU and UOE is the respondents in the sample do not know how to use
e-filing system even though the use of computer and the Internet is already part of
their daily life. It does not matter whether it is e-government, e-filing or
e-commerce, they would be able to handle those systems if they wanted to use
them.
5 Conclusion
E-filing is not only seen as a getaway for greater advantages to the tax authority but
also to the individual taxpayers as its usage is still low in Malaysia. This study
examines several factors that may influence e-filing individual taxpayers in
Malaysia since the implementation period from 2006 to 2014. The study examines
whether general tax knowledge can affect taxpayers’ usage of e-filing because tax
knowledge is essential to ensure that tax returns are completed correctly and reflect
a correct tax liability figure.
The results of this study suggest that taxpayers’ usage of e-filing, just like any
other computerized system, is also influenced by constructs within the technology
acceptance model and the theory of planned behavior. Even though general tax
knowledge is argued to be important in many prior studies regarding tax filing
activities, the usage of the e-filing system does not seem to be influenced by
taxpayers’ tax general knowledge in the present study. Nevertheless, the findings
concerning the insignificant effect of tax knowledge on e-filing usage, caution
should be taken with regards to the generalized ability of the findings. The fact that
apart from the limited sample size and sampling frame, the questions on general tax
knowledge are designed based upon prior studies concerning tax compliance issues
and not concerning knowledge about system usage is acknowledged.
While prior studies find a positive association between tax knowledge and tax
compliance, the present study finds an insignificant association between tax
knowledge and e-filing usage. Another way to capture respondents perceptions
concerning whether tax knowledge affects their e-filing usage could include asking
them direct questions rather than testing the extent of their tax knowledge.
Therefore, future studies could follow up on this suggestion to find further evidence
on the issue of the effect of tax knowledge on e-filing usage. The present study is
important because the study on awareness of e-filing usage should be disclosed to
the public to create better awareness among Malaysian.
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Chapter 27
Capital Structure: Focusing
on Communication and Technology
Industry
Zuraidah Ahmad, Zuraidah Sipon, Nur Liyana Mohamed Yousop,

Nur ’Asyiqin Ramdhan, Ruziah A. Latif, Norhasniza Mohd Hasan
Abdullah, Nurulashikin Romli, Shashazrina Roslan,
Muhammad Almu’izz Abdul Rahim and Suhana Mohamed
Abstract Capital structure decision is about mixing debt and equity financing of a
firm. This decision is vital to the firms’ overall operations and growth due to the
need to maximize return that ultimately affect firm’s value. In the mean time, other
factors and risks must also be considered when deciding a debt or equity financing.
The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship of liquidity,
profitability, size of firm, interest coverage ratio and growth towards capital
structure in communication and technology industry which focuses on the period of
2010–2015 on a quarterly basis. Ten companies are selected as a sample that
contributes to the total samples of 240 observations. The dependent variable is
capital structure (debt to equity ratio) while the independent variables are liquidity
(current ratio), profitability (net profit margin), size of firm (total asset), interest
coverage ratio and growth (sales). The multiple regression is applied towards the
data in order to determine the relationship of capital structure in the industry. Thus,
the findings stated that liquidity, interest coverage ratio and growth were found to
have statistically significant negative relationships on debt to equity ratio, while size
of firm and profitability were statistically significant and positive relationships.
Z. Ahmad (&) Z. Sipon N. L. Mohamed Yousop N. ’A. Ramdhan R. A. Latif

N. Mohd Hasan Abdullah N. Romli S. Roslan M. A. Abdul Rahim
Cawangan Johor, Kampus Segamat, 85009 Segamat, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: zurai692@johor.uitm.edu.my
Z. Sipon
e-mail: zurai972@johor.uitm.edu.my
N. L. Mohamed Yousop
e-mail: nurliyana@johor.uitm.edu.my
S. Mohamed
Cawangan Johor, Kampus Pasir Gudang, 81750 Masai, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: suhan291@johor.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_27
292 Z. Ahmad et al.
Keywords Agency theory Capital structure Trade-off theory

Pecking order
1 Introduction
Capital structure decision is about mixing of firms’ debt and equity that provide an
important decision to the firms. This decision is vital because the firm needs to
maximize return that gives an effect to the firms’ growth. The chances of default
and bankruptcy increase in times of low business earnings and other factors and
risks must be considered while deciding on capital equity and debt ratio (Agha
2015). According to Modigliani and Miller (1958), in a world without friction, there
is no difference between debt and equity financing as regards the value of the firms.
Thus, financing decisions add no value and are, therefore, of no concern to the
managers. Today, however, capital structure provides a great financial decision to
maximize return for various organizations which ultimately affect value of the
firms. Moreover, an appropriate capital structure which is an ideal mix of debt and
equity may enhance the firms’ operations and help the firms to deal with the
competitive environment.
Debt refers to borrowings made by the firms from outsiders. Hence, the bor-
rowers should make payment of the periodic interest on the money tendered.
However, lenders do not have any participants rights but are given priority as to the
repayment of interest and principal. Their money is secured by the firms’ assets
where it is deemed as collateral to the loan. In the event of default, debt providers
can sell the firms’ asset to recover their dues. This will reduce the risk where it
creates an extra burden on the firms to generate sufficient profits to be able to meet
the debt obligations. Besides that, the interest payment on debt is treated as a tax
deduction on business expenses. However, the debt can create advantages for the
firms that do not have any financial problems due to tax-deductible expenses. Thus,
capital structure is a part of investment decision which represents a vital financing
for the firm’s growth. Investment which involve a huge amount of money has
long-term implications on the firms.
Furthermore, Gleason et al. (2000) state that the utilization of different levels of
debt and equity in the firm’s capital structure is one such firm-specific strategy used
by managers in the search for improved performance. Later, most firms have strived
to attain an optimal capital structure in order to minimize the cost of capital or to
maximize the firms’ value, thereby improving their competitive advantage in the
marketplace through an ideal mixture of debt and equity financing. Thus, selecting
the right type of debt is an equally important issue as opting for an appropriate debt
to equity ratio.
There are some theories that explain the capital structure of the firms that
includes the pecking order theory, static trade-off theory and the agency cost theory.
Pecking order theory proposed that firms would initially rely on internally gener-
ated funds. Then, internally funds will turn into debt if additional funds are needed
27 Capital Structure: Focusing on Communication … 293
and finally they will issue equity to cover any remaining. Therefore, under pecking
order hypothesis, profitable firms that generate high earnings are expected to use
less debt capital than those who do not generate high earnings. Hence, internal
funds are used first, and when the funds deplete, debt is issued and when it is not
sensible to issue any more debt, equity is issued (Myers and Majluf 1984).
Agency costs are the costs that arise from the principal-stakeholder relationship,
such as between shareholders or managers of the firm and debt-holders. Moreover,
the given incentives to the firm will benefit shareholders at the expense of
debt-holders. Thus, debt-holders need to restrict and monitor the firm’s behaviour.
Consequently, costly monitoring devices of contractual covenants are incorporated
into debt agreements to protect the debt-holders. Hence, it should increase the cost
of capital offered to the firms. Therefore, firms with relatively higher agency costs
due to inherent conflicts between the firm and the debt-holders should have lower
levels of outside debt financing and leverage.
Static trade-off theory, based on research on taxes (Modigliani and Miller 1963)
has emphasized the presence of bankruptcy costs. Bankruptcy costs are the
increased cost of financing due to higher debt, hence, causing a higher probability
of bankruptcy. The costs are incurred when the perceived probability that the firm
will default on financing is greater than zero. Examples of direct bankruptcy costs
are legal and administrative cost in the bankruptcy process and indirect bankruptcy
costs are losses in the profit incurred by the firm as a result of unwillingness of
stakeholders to do business with them (Titman 1984). Due to that if a firm is
perceived to be close to bankruptcy, customers will be less willing to buy goods and
services due to the risk of the firm not being able to meet its warranty obligations.
However, Myers (2001) stated that each of the theory works under its own
assumptions and propositions, thus, none of the theories can provide a better
framework of the best decision for capital structure. According to Zuraidah et al.
(2012), debt has a significant relationship effect on the firms’ performance and is
long-term in nature. Furthermore, the authors suggested that short-term debt tends
to be less expensive and relatively low-interest rate will lead to an increase in profit
level. There is a need to implement the optimal level of capital structure since the
lack of it can shift the control of company to the debt-holders. In relation to this,
misuse of capital structure will lead to bad performance of the company. Endless
evolution of technologies determines the sustainability of customers’ demand that
reflected customers’ satisfaction. Therefore, the changes of decisions on capital
structure should be parallel with the changes in technology in a country.
Due to the lack of consensus about what would meet the requirement of an
optimal capital structure, it is pertinent to determine the relationship between liq-
uidity, profitability, size company, interest coverage and growth towards capital
structure of communication and technology industry in Malaysia.
294 Z. Ahmad et al.
2 Literature Review
Liquidity can be defined as degree to which an asset can be easily sold or bought to
convert it into cash and meet their financial obligations with the liquid assets
available. As suggested by pecking order theory, firms prefer internal financing to
external financing. It is also can be defined as ability to transform assets into cash
quickly without affecting the asset’s price (Md-Yusuf et al. 2013). Therefore, firms
are likely to create liquid reserves from retained earnings (Babalola 2014). In the
case of liquidity and leverage, the trade-off theory believes that a positive signifi-
cant exist between leverage and liquidity because the higher liquidity ratio can
support relatively higher debt to equity ratio due to greater ability of a firm to satisfy
short-term contractual obligations on time, but pecking order theory has a contrary
view (Olayinka 2011). A study by Morellec (2001) shows a positive relation
between asset liquidity and leverage when assets are pledged as collateral, and a
negative relation between asset liquidity and leverage when assets are not tied as
collateral. Hence, the study is consistent with Myers and Majluf (1984), where
greater asset liquidity makes it less costly for managers to transform firm assets and
expropriate. Besides, Siti Salimah et al. (2015) also found negative
relationship. The pecking order theory predicts a negative relationship between
liquidity and leverage because firm with greater liquidity prefers to use internal
funds in financing new investments.
Profitability refers to the ability of the firm to earn a profit from the revenue such
as revenue is generated after deducting all expenses directly related to the gener-
ation of the revenue. According to Babalola (2014), trade-off models argued that
profitable companies have greater needs to shield income from corporate tax and
should borrow more than less profitable firm. Siti Salimah et al. (2015) stated that
static trade-off theory stated that profitable companies would go for more debt
finance to avoid wastage of cash-free flows gained from profits. According to
Asmawi and Faridah (2013), profitability is statistically significant only in the case
of short-term debt. In fact, it indicates that more lucrative firms resort to less usage
of debt by relying more on internal funds. Thus, it shows the level of cash adequacy
and less reliance on debt. Therefore, they predict a negative relationship between
profitability and financial leverage. Furthermore, Md-Yusuf et al. (2013) stated that
a firm prefers to use internal funds when available and choose debt over equity
when external funds are required.
For size of company, as a study by Rajan and Zingales (1995) found that size of
company may inversely related to the probability of bankruptcy and argued that
agency conflicts between shareholders and debt-holders are more serious when the
firm faces more growth opportunities. Many previous studies argued that larger
firms tend to be more diversified and hence are less likely to go bankrupt. The
firm’s size can serve as an inverse proxy for unobservable credit risk. This study is
consistent with Marsh (1982) and Bennet and Donnelly (1993) who found that
larger firms are likely to use more debt. Jensen (1976) argued that larger firms tend
to provide more information to lenders than smaller firms. In addition, a study by
Ferri and Jones (1979) suggested that large firms have easier access to the markets
and able to borrow at better circumstances compared to small firms. According to
Utami (2012), based on the trade-off theory, company growth opportunity is
measured by looking into intangible assets that company that the company holds.
Md-Yusuf et al. (2013) suggested that company holding future growth opportuni-
ties, which are a form of intangible assets, tend to borrow less than company that
holding more tangible assets. It is because it tends to devaluate when financial
distress occurs.
Interest coverage ratio can be defined as debt ratio and profitability ratio used to
determine how easily a company can pay interest on outstanding debt. Thus,
interest coverage ratio can be calculated by dividing a company’s earnings before
interest and taxes during a given period by the amount a company needs to pay in
interest on its debts during the same period. Eriotis et al. (2007) stated that interest
coverage ratio which is expressed as net income before taxes divided by interest
payments while Harris and Raviv (1991) proposed that leverage is negatively
correlated with the interest coverage ratio. They argued that increase in debt results
in a higher default probability. Eriotis et al. (2007) assumed that interest coverage
ratio measurement of default probability, this implies that higher interest coverage
ratio indicates a lower debt ratio.
Future growth is very important to the firms’ performance. A study by Myers
(1977) stated that firms with high future growth opportunities are expected to rely
more on equity financing because highly leveraged company may forgo profitable
investment opportunities when it assumes by undertaking new project the value
goes to firm’s existing debt holder and consistent study with Siti Salimah et al.
(2015) showed negative relationship between leverage and growth. Besides, based
on trade-off theory, it found a negative relationship between growth and leverage.
Agency theory also predicts a negative relation because of the firm with better
growth opportunities has more elasticity to invest suboptimal behaviour. Eriotis
et al. (2007) investigated that if there is a relation between the growth of the firm
and its capital structure and proxy their growth measurement as the annual change
on earnings. Study found the result of the negative relationship between interest
coverage ratio of the firms and their capital structure and supported by Asmawi and
Faridah (2013), where they found negative relationship and statistically significant
with the total debt ratio. However, Hassan et al. (2015) found contradicting results
when the growth opportunity is having an insignificant positive relationship with
total debt ratio.
3 Methodology
A methodology had been adopted to analyze the relationship of capital structure and
firms’ performance in communication and technology industry where independent
variables consist of liquidity, profitability, size of company, interest coverage ratio
and growth while dependent variable is capital structure. The quarterly data for the
296 Z. Ahmad et al.
study are limited to the selected figures from financial statements of the ten listed
firms on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia. Besides that, this study also had
limited the sample whereby it focuses on the communication and technology
industry only, with 240 observations. Multiple regressions have been applied to
reveal the findings ranging from the year 2010 to 2015.
3.1 The Dependent Variable
Capital Structure refers to the proportion of firm’s equity and debt in financing its
assets, project or growth. Thus, it is appropriate to use debt to equity as a proxy for
capital structure for Malaysia’s listed companies in communication and technology
industry. The debt to equity ratio is measured as total debt divided by total equities.
3.2 Independent Variables
3.2.1 Liquidity
Liquidity refers to the ability to convert assets or security without affecting the
asset’s price. Thus, it shows that ability of a firm to pay its short-term obligation.
Liquidity is measured by current ratio where current assets are divided by current
liabilities.
H1: Liquidity has a relationship with debt to equity ratio of the companies
3.2.2 Profitability
Profitability refers to the proportion of profit after deduction of all cost, tax and
interest. Thus, the profitability ratio is measured by net profit margin where net
profit is divided by sales.
H2: Profitability has a relationship with debt to equity ratio of the companies
3.2.3 Size of Company
Size of company can be defined as categorizing companies, businesses or firms

according to their size which is total assets. The higher the total asset, the larger the
size of the firms. Divisions are typically microbusiness, small business,
medium-sized business and large-sized business.
H3: Size company has a relationship with debt to equity ratio of the companies
3.2.4 Interest Coverage
Interest coverage ratio refers to how easily a firm can pay interest due to out-
standing debt. It is also known as ‘Times Interest Earned’. Interest coverage ratio is
measured by earning before interest and tax divided by interest expense.
H4: Interest coverage ratio has a relationship with debt to equity ratio of the
companies
3.2.5 Growth
Sales refers to the revenue of a firm aftermarket and selling their products to the
customers. Growth is when the amount that a firm derives from latest sales as
compared to the previous, corresponding period of time in which the former
exceeds the latter.
H5: Growth has a relationship with debt to equity ratio of the companies
3.2.6 Equation
Equation formulated for the data analysis as shown in Eq. (1):
Y ¼ b0 þ b1 LIQ þ b2 PROF þ b3 SIZE þ b4 INT:COV þ þ b5 GROW þ eð1Þ;

ð1Þ
where
Y Dependent variable (Debt to Equity Ratio)
a Intercept
b Coefficient beta value
v1 Independent variable (liquidity)
v2 Independent variable (profitability)
v3 Independent variable (size of firm)
v4 Independent variable (interest coverage)
v5 Independent variable (growth)
e Error term (Fig. 1).
The study investigates the relationship between explanatory variables and capital
structure in communication and technology industry in Malaysia. The theoretical
framework provides an understanding of whether the independent variables have
298 Z. Ahmad et al.
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES DEPENDENT VARIABLE
Liquidity
(Current RaƟo)
Profitability
(Net Profit Margin)
Size Company
Capital Structure
(Total Asset)
(Debt to Equity RaƟo)
Interest Coverage
RaƟo
Growth
(Sales)
Fig. 1 Theoretical framework
any relationship with the level of firms’ capital structure. The independent variables
in this research framework are liquidity, profitability, size of company, interest
coverage ratio and growth. Meanwhile, the dependent variable is debt to equity
ratio.
Table 1 shows all variables descriptive statistics. The result of dependent variable
which is debt to equity ratio mean is equal to 48.71586 with the standard deviation
27.71205. The distribution of debt to equity ratio shows negatively skewed with
value of −0.001932. The independent variable is denoted by liquidity, profitability,
size of company, interest coverage and growth have 1.680084, 7.584100, 9369.935,
38.11142 and 7681.117 means value, respectively.
Table 1 Descriptive analysis

Y X1 X2 X3 X4 X5
Mean 48.71586 1.680084 7.584100 9369.935 38.11142 7681.117
Median 50.26000 1.150000 7.190000 18.06000 6.840000 −11.17295
Maximum 115.3000 6.870000 29.04000 96244.05 5709.000 60601.87
Minimum 0.920000 0.350000 −30.78000 −99.98316 −23.55000 −99.99058
Std. Dev. 27.71205 1.494717 8.602765 22972.88 368.8313 15370.64
Skewness −0.001932 1.771368 −0.265333 2.652413 15.30332 1.887162
Kurtosis 1.702954 5.856336 4.099359 8.557700 235.7966 5.227776
Jarque–Bera 16.75333 206.2335 14.83986 587.8324 549013.0 191.2846
Probability 0.000230 0.000000 0.000599 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Sum 11643.09 401.5400 1812.600 2239414. 9108.630 1835787.
Sum Sq. Dev. 182774.0 531.7348 17613.80 1.26E+11 32376694 5.62E+10
Observations 239 239 239 239 239 239
4.1 Regression Analysis
A series of regression analyses was executed and the results are summarized in
Table 2. The use of stationary test, correlation analysis and certain test of
assumption such as normality test, autocorrelation test, heteroscedasticity, multi-
collinearity and RAMSEY test is to evaluate the possible degree of the data.
As a result, the findings show that firms’ liquidity and capital structure having a
significant 5% level and negative relationship. This result supported by pecking
order theory that is the manager prefers safety financing by utilizing their liquid
assets when funds are needed. The outcome is also consistent with Siti Salimah
et al. (2015) that found a negative relationship when firms’ assets are not tied as
Table 2 Regression analysis results

Variable Coefficient Std. error t-statistic Prob.
C 61.26142 2.449363 25.01117 *0.0000
X1 −10.95706 0.813242 −13.47330 *0.0000
X2 0.934906 0.147075 6.356661 *0.0000
X3 0.000271 7.92E−05 3.422355 *0.0007
X4 −0.005541 0.003125 −1.773120 **0.0775
X5 −0.000463 0.000118 −3.914845 *0.0001
R-squared 0.602639
Adjusted R-squared 0.594112
DW stat 2.081102
F-statistic 70.67373
(0.000000)
Note Denote level of significant *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01
300 Z. Ahmad et al.
collateral. This finding is also supported by Myers and Majluf (1984). These mean
that whenever firms are at their high liquidity position, they will opt liquid assets as
their main source of financing.
On the other hand, a significant 5% level and positive relationship between
profitability and capital structure was revealed from the study. This is consistent
with studies on trade-off theory by Babalola (2014) and Siti Salimah et al. (2015).
However, this result is contradictory to Bradley et al. (1984) and Kouki (2012) who
found a negative relationship between profitability and capital structure and
according to them, this still affects the book measure of debt. The contrarian
concluded that the more the profit, the less the firms need funding due to the reason
that the firms’ profit is available to cover their financing.
Same as profitability, the firms’ size also have a significant 5% level and positive
relationship with capital structure, which is the bigger the firms’ size, the more fund
they need to finance their operations and to support their new target growth. The
finding is consistent with Ferri and Jones (1979) and Utami (2012). These suggest
larger firms have easier access to the markets and can borrow at a better
circumstance.
On the other hand, interest coverage shows a significant 10% level and negative
relationship with capital structure. This result suggests that the firms that maintain a
high-interest coverage ratio tend to be less relying on debt. The finding is consistent
with previous study by Harris and Raviv (1991) and Eriotis et al. (2007) where it is
assumed that higher coverage ratio indicates a lower debt ratio. Finally, the result
for growth shows a significant 5% level and negative relationship with capital
structure and it is supported by Asmawi and Faridah (2013) and Siti Salimah et al.
(2015). Thus, this study has consistent results with trade-off theory and agency
theory. Hence, the firm with better growth opportunities has more elasticity to
invest to make an investment and gain more profit.
5 Conclusion
As a conclusion, the finding shows liquidity, profitability, size of company, interest

coverage ratio and growth play important roles in determining capital structure of
the communication and technology industry. This industry is having a huge
potential for maximum growth supported by the nature of the business that end-
lessly evolved. Thus, it is important for the financial managers of the industry to
have an idea and consider about the variables that influence the optimal capital
structure when making decision relating to the matters. Brilliant decisions in capital
structure will open the door to attract the new and maintain the existing share-
holders to invest further, and therefore increase the holding of equities.
Most of the results in this study are consistent with main theories in finance to
explain capital structure within the companies, i.e. The pecking order theory and
trade-off theory. Thus, from the finding of this study, the future direction might
consider investigating further on other variables which play an important role in
determining capital structure towards this industry. Since this industry has growth
day by day with new development technology through research and development.
This main contribution of the research is contributing new knowledge about
communication and technology industry in capital structure determinants factors.
The research findings show that liquidity, profitability, size of company, interest
coverage ratio and growth are significant with debt to equity ratio. Malaysia’s listed
communication and technology companies are funding their activities using aver-
age 48.72% of debt finance. This shows most of Malaysia’s communication and
technology companies are utilizing less debt and other averages of 51.28% are
employing internal and equity financing.
Thus, the recommendation for future researcher can also investigate
country-specific factor that determines the capital structure in this industry. Other
countries may need different funded on research and development area such as
developed countries, developing country and third world country which has dif-
ferent level of funding. Therefore, future researchers can explore and create new
knowledge by conducting research on the impact of country-specific factors under
communication and technology industry in capital structure.
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Chapter 28
User Acceptance and Adaptation
Towards M-Commerce
Kasthuri Subaramaniam and Raenu Kolandaisamy
Abstract M-commerce is becoming larger and more popular among nations.

Shopping experience has never been the same anymore because shopping has been
made easy with the existence of the Internet. Shopping in a mall is a thing of the
past now. Products purchased from overseas is just a few clicks away and these
products are sent to your doorstep within a few days. A study was carried out in this
chapter on user acceptance and adaption towards m-commerce. In the study, the
researchers discovered that there are people who are still reserved doing shopping
using their mobile devices. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to the
household members for data collection on their perceptions towards mobile com-
merce. Results show that wide acceptance and high potential of adaptation towards
m-commerce is due to the frequent contact with technology. Meanwhile, in this
study, the authors have noticed too that, there are still people who are skeptical
towards mobile shopping. This study addresses the acceptance rate of mobile
commerce among the older (parents of the age of 40–55 years) and the younger
generations (young adults of the age of 18–34 years) too. A solution is devised on
how more people will be inclined shopping using their mobile devices.
Keywords Adaptation M-commerce User acceptance
1 Introduction
M-Commerce or mobile commerce, also known as mobile-business, refers to the

transaction of goods and services through electronic communications (Atzmueller
2014). Also known as electronic commerce conducted on cellular phones. Before
K. Subaramaniam R. Kolandaisamy (&)

Faculty of Business and Information Science, UCSI University,
Jalan Menara Garding, UCSI Heights, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
e-mail: raenu@ucsiuniversity.edu.my
K. Subaramaniam
e-mail: kasthurisuba@ucsiuniversity.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_28
304 K. Subaramaniam and R. Kolandaisamy
m-commerce came into place, e-commerce had become popular in the last decade
for general public. There are various types of e-commerce such as
business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-business
(C2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and m-commerce. In B2B, companies han-
dling business with each other such as wholesaler selling to retailer as well as
manufacturers selling to distributors. Pricing is based on the number of orders and it
is usually negotiable. Meanwhile, businesses in B2C sell products to the general
public through catalogue and utilizes shopping cart software. C2B allow consumers
to post their project with a set budget and within hours, companies review the
consumers’ requirements and bid on the project. The consumer reviews the bids and
selects the company that will complete the project. C2C has many sites providing
free classifieds, auctions, and forums where individuals are able to buy and sell the
products as well as make online payment using Google wallet where it eases
consumer to send and receive money online but these transactions are only avail-
able in the U.S. For instance, Amazon’s auction service is a great example for
person-to-person transactions which takes place every day. Last but the least,
M-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless
technology such as cellular telephone and personal digital assistant (PDAs) (Tian
and Stewart 2008). The concept of m-commerce is similar to notions of the Internet
economy and digital economy, whereby it is related to the use of new information
and communication technologies for economic activities. Internet economy also
known as.com economy or dot-com economy refers to business conducted through
markets, whereby the infrastructure is based on the Internet and World Wide Web
(Tian and Stewart 2008).
Digital economy is based on digital technologies such as computer, software and
digital networks (European Commission 2016). In most cases, digital economy is
the same as m-commerce. Nevertheless, not all activities in the digital economy are
m-commerce activities. For instance, purchasing mobile and digital accessories
from a shop retailer is not activities of e-commerce, although it is certainly an
important part of the digital economy. Thus, there are different concepts in
e-commerce, m-commerce, internet economy and digital economy but it is closely
similar. The word ‘M-commerce’ has been perhaps one of the most popular
vocabularies in the digital era. Even though m-commerce was the way that looked
upon simply and easy to earn revenue, it has actually changed the way people
execute business. Historical analysis of m-commerce will provide insights into the
evolution of the application of information and communication technology in
business. Therefore, the analysis of the evolution of the mobile commerce in the
past and the present situation of it will lead us to project future trends in
m-commerce.
The first part of the chapter presents an introduction of mobile commerce. It is
closely followed by reviews of mobile commerce which includes the trends of
mobile devices and online shopping. Next, the research methodology is discussed
with the analysis and results presented. Finally, conclusion is given in the final part
of the chapter.
28 User Acceptance and Adaptation Towards M-Commerce 305
2 Literature Review
It is known that in many areas of the world, the Internet and mobile device users
have grown tremendously in the last several years. The Internet is fast becoming a
natural, background part of everyday life. In 2005, 1024 million people worldwide
had access to the Internet. Until 2015, the number of internet users has increased till
3174 million people around the world (Criteo 2016). The Internet gradually infil-
trates people of different ages, people usually use their handheld devices to pass
time, searching for information or using social media to chat with people. This can
be done with mobile devices that are connected to the Internet or with their data
plans. Mobile sales vary by device. Retail sales through iPhones have been steadily
increasing and sales via Android devices also have increased in recent years.
However, purchases from Android tablets and Apple iPads have dipped, although
sales from both types of tablets saw a slight uptick in February 2016 as shown in
Fig. 1.
Apart from that, there are various types of search engines such as the Google,
Yahoo Search, MSN Search and others. These are great steps forward, but they can
also make people lazy and less intelligent. People depend on technology to give
answers, spell, notify them of things to do and even wake them up (Gazette 2010).
The Internet is a priceless tool for researchers and reading the latest news. It also
has its drawbacks. For example, instead of citing academic journals, some students
print free essays off the web. Technology causes students to be lazy with foreign
language homework when they can use translators, finishing in half the time, with
half the effort and none of the knowledge. Technology has also provided people
with a larger vocabulary at the click of a button. Online thesaurus applications
Fig. 1 Mobile sales by devices. Source Bizrate Insights (2016)

permit people to sound highly intellectual without the tedious task of remembering
proper spelling (Gazette 2010).
Similarly, as the number of the Internet users increase, more and more people
rely on the Internet. They become lazier because they know the Internet can do
everything once they place an order in a reliable website or a cellular phone which
has offered the services. For example, there are websites and mobile apps that
provide services which allow consumers to place their order such as at Pizza Hut,
11 Street, Hermo and others. Everything that consumers can think about, there are
business opportunities.
Statistics show that mobile retail sales have increased 25% year over year and
mobile accounts for 70% of time consumers spent on a retailer’s site and 20% of
sales as shown in Table 1 (Criteo 2016).
Meanwhile, smartphone users rank research and checking prices as the most
common shopping activities they conduct on their smartphones as shown in Table 2
(Criteo 2016). It can be concluded that most people would not be able to run their
errands without a smartphone.
At the pace of the technological advancements, businessman has changed the
way of doing business or added a new way to conduct business due to people using
the Internet as a daily routine. Thus, m-commerce has become business vitality for
now. Moreover, the apps have definitely changed the way consumer carry out their
purchases, with online shopping now common practice around the world. Adult
population in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom spend
more than 70% of their income on m-commerce as shown in Fig. 2 (Santiago
2015).
The data above indicates that western countries have the highest spending habit
on online shopping around the world. Hence, it created a global business which
allows people to find another way to conduct their businesses. Therefore, this study
is undertaken to gauge the user acceptance and adaptation of m-commerce.
Table 1 Time spent on a retail website
Source: comScore Inc.

Table 2 Percentage of shoppers doing activity on smartphones
Source: The Nielsen Company
Fig. 2 Online shopping spending around the world

3 Methodology
The study uses semi-structured interviews for data collection. It is a suitable

methodology for gathering self-reported qualitative data (Lethbridge et al. 2005). In
this section, the authors describe the data collection, the approach taken for the
selection of participants, the interview procedures and the data analysis.
3.1 Data Collection
As the goal of the research is to explore the opinions of user experience and
adaptation of mobile commerce, it can be considered primarily as being qualitative
in nature. Semi-structured interviews are particularly suitable for collecting quali-
tative data because, unlike self-administered questionnaires, they provide the
opportunity for discussion or exploration of new topics that arise during data col-
lection. Semi-structured interviews allow for considerable freedom in the
sequencing of questions and in the amount of time and attention given to each topic.
Questions asked can be open-ended, allowing for a variety of responses. This
approach to data collection helps to reduce the risk of bias relating to the authors’
preconceptions and it allows for the use of elaboration probes to encourage the
participants to keep talking about a particular subject (Patton 1990).
3.2 Questions
Questions driving the interviews were grouped for the participants. Questions such
as internet usage, shopping experience, as well as computer literacy were asked.
3.3 Pilot Interview
The interview instruments and procedures were piloted with undergraduate students
of a private university. The pilot interview confirmed the authors’ expectation that
interviews would take approximately 25 min and it also led to some changes in the
delivery and sequencing of questions.
3.4 Selection of Participants
Participants were housewives, students and working adults based in Cheras, Kuala
Lumpur Malaysia. A total of 35 interviewees were randomly selected from the age
groups of 18–55 years.
3.5 Interview Procedures
Interviews were carried out between June 2016 and August 2016. Prior to the
interview, each participant was given an Interview Preparation Sheet. This docu-
ment outlined the main themes to be covered during the interview, the expected
duration, and measures which would be taken to ensure privacy and confidentiality.
All interviews were carried out face-to-face by two interviewers and recorded using
a digital audio recorder. The author took notes throughout each interview. On
average, each interview lasted 25 min.
3.6 Data Analysis Strategy
The raw data (i.e. recordings, field notes) was processed prior to analysis. Analysis
took place concurrently with data collection, as recommended by Miles et al.
(2014).
3.7 Analysis
In the interview session, interviewees were asked questions pertaining to the per-
ception of m-commerce and the usage of it. The answers gathered are summarized
as per Table 3.
The question–answer section above provides a quick look on consumers’ per-
ception towards m-commerce or online shopping. The findings are discussed below.
The findings from the interviews conducted show two different results, each by
different group of respondents. Results were separated into two groups of people,
namely group A (people that are frequently interacting with technology and com-
puter, usually younger generation with the age group of 18–34 years) and group B
Table 3 Interview questions with the feedback

No. Questions Feedback
1. Do you use the Internet in your daily Yes. All the respondents use the Internet daily
life? to browse for desired content, connect to social
media, and for working purposes, etc.
Students, too, use the Internet often for study
purposes
2. Are you good at using computer? Most respondents such as students and
working adults are certainly good at using
computers as they may associate with
computers more often. As for housewives,
their answers are no. However, they are good
at using their smartphones since the evolution
of mobile device and everyone carries a
smartphone from a basic handphone
3. How often do you go to shop in a mall? Housewives do not often shop; working adults
would shop on off days and most students
responded that they often go to mall with no
intention to shop but sometimes they ended up
shopping some items back home
4. Do you purchase things when needed The trend of buying things according to mood
or according to your mood change? change mostly occurs amongst students, then
working adults. There is very little probability
that housewife purchasing things when mood
change, they normally buy what is needed and
do not buy unnecessary items
5. Do you have experience on mobile Majority of the respondents have experiences
purchase? on mobile shopping while those who do not
have the experience were the housewives.
Some respondents had few experiences on
mobile shopping even before the interview
took place
6. Is mobile shopping convenient? Almost every respondent said the same answer
which is yes, it is convenient. The reason is
that they do not need to get themselves dressed
up and go out, go through hassles to purchase
items, sometimes they may even end up with
disappointment because items may run out in
particular store. Working adults also claim that
they do not have much time to shop and they
love to spend their off time with themselves,
therefore, m-commerce apps and mobile
website did bring huge convenience to them
7. What are the aspects you would always Ease of use and ease of purchase were the top
look for when purchasing items online? choices of respondents. From this, we can
assume that user always wants the easiest way
to do anything. However, housewives
preferred the site graphics to be as simple as
possible so that they are not too overwhelmed
by too many graphical items on it
(continued)
Table 3 (continued)
No. Questions Feedback
8. Are you willing to purchase items There are two types of answers, as expected.
online? Why? Younger respondents responded with no
hesitation that they definitely purchase items
online because it saves so much time as they
do not have to travel. Furthermore, the
purchased items will be sent to their doorstep
by just clicking on desired items on the
m-commerce site. However, housewives seem
to be more reserved. Their reasons are the lack
of knowledge on computer literacy and they
doubt the security on transaction involving
money over the Internet
9. Do you find it difficult using an There are also two answers for this question.
m-commerce app or website? Younger generation finds it very easy to use as
they are familiar with websites as they use
computers and smartphones more often
whereas older generation is not confident due
to the lack of computer knowledge. In other
words, they are willing to give it a try as their
knowledge in computer increases
10. Does m-commerce bring benefit to M-commerce brings benefits to people because
you? it is very convenient, time-saving, and cost
saving. Furthermore, m-commerce sites allow
consumer to purchase items that are not sold in
locals so that people do not have to travel to
overseas just to purchase a particular item.
M-commerce is a saviour for lazy persons;
with the availability of the Internet, they can
shop at anytime, anywhere and goods will
arrive at their doorstep within a few days. It is
not known yet the benefit for those who are yet
to try out m-commerce site. It is said that it
might bring benefit to them once they feel the
need to purchase things online
(people that have low computer literacy, often indicate older generation such as
parents with the age group of 40–55 years).
Group A shows higher level of acceptance towards m-commerce and is more
likely to adopt m-commerce into their daily life. It is not by chance that users
acquire such positive results, there are factors leading to such results. People in
group A are younger generation; it includes students as well as working adults.
Students and working adults have similarities whereby they have higher computer
literacy and attitude towards technology. With that, or the previous experiences on
online shopping they can easily adapt to m-commerce which requires positive
attitude on technology and the knowledge on how m-commerce works. It is also
mentioned by Hernandez (2009) that the positive attitude of a person towards
computer or simply on any other matters, may lower the anxiety of executing such
process; in this case, it may be translated to a positive attitude towards computer,
lowers the anxiety to using an m-commerce site.
The results concluded from group B show that there is an acceptance towards
m-commerce but they are unlikely to adapt it as quick as group A. Group B consists
of older generation such as parents. Group B has concerns about security problem
of monetary transaction over the Internet. Questions such as these have caused a
sense of insecurity (i) Is it safe?, (ii) What if the money did not go into the
merchant’s account? and (iii) What if my items are lost during the delivery process?
Group B respondents tend to worry about the realistic matters. However, it is
because of their lack of knowledge in computers and m-commerce that makes them
anxious about it. They also admitted that by increasing their computer literacy, they
may give m-commerce a try when they have to purchase something, only if the item
is not sold locally but is only available to purchase through online.
Finally, consumers need to be properly educated on the understanding of
m-commerce, its benefits and the conveniences it brings to the community, as
eventually, consumers will likely frequently interact with technology to adopt
m-commerce.
5 Conclusion
Semi-structured interviews rely heavily on the communication skills of the inter-

viewer (Clough and Nutbrown 2012). It is possible, therefore, that the quality of the
data collected may be limited by the interviewer’s lack of experience. However, this
problem was at least partially addressed by performing a pilot interview.
Furthermore, research suggests that people respond differently depending on how
they perceive the interviewer (‘the interviewer effect’) as mentioned by Denscombe
(2010). Factors such as gender, age and the ethnic origins of the interviewer have a
bearing on the amount of information people are willing to contribute. In addition,
participant’s responses can be influenced by what they think the situation requires
(Gomm 2004). To try to address this, every effort was made to put participants at
ease and to explain the purpose and the topics to be covered.
Human behaviour influences the whole lifecycle of IT, starting from its design
and ending with its acceptance, adaptation and use. There are essential factors in
influencing the way users perceive and accept technology and systems. In this
research, reviewed theories and studies of m-commerce technology influence user’s
behaviour to accept or reject the use of such technology or systems.
The results in this chapter show that group A that comprises of younger gen-
eration are more likely to accept and adopt the m-commerce as they are easily in
touch with electronic devices. Similarly, group B that comprises of older generation
like parents are more likely to be concerned about the security problems as men-
tioned before. Thus, consumers need to be educated more on computer literacy,
often be in touch with computer and understand how m-commerce works. It does
not only add knowledge but also makes shopping experience different and bring
conveniences to daily life.
Therefore, mobile commerce apps and websites will continue to be the most
efficient channel, especially for engaging new users, until mobile web technology
advances to meet the expectations of shoppers. Globally, smartphones will become
the device of choice for commerce, especially as network latency and capacity
improve, device capabilities advance and more retailers design for mobile-friendly
experiences.
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IGI Global, USA
Part VIII
General Papers
Chapter 29
The Efficiency Evaluation
of the Community Allocation
to Healthcare Facilities in Malaysia
Fandi Zulrofli and S. Sarifah Radiah Shariff
Abstract Malaysia is a developing country with an increase in population year by

year. At the same time, the demand for public healthcare facilities also increases.
Many complaints from people about inefficient services arise based on congestion
and long waiting time when they are using public health facilities in Malaysia,
however, it may result from the inefficiency in resource or demand allocation to a
facility. In this chapter, a Capacitated Maximal Covering Location Problem
(CMCLP) is used to study the current community allocation to the healthcare
facilities in Mukim Batu, Selangor. This chapter also aims at evaluating the effi-
ciency of allocating the community to the public healthcare based on a geo-
graphically defined region by applying ICER method. Importantly, we use ICER to
evaluate the efficiency using the percentage assigned demand and the average travel
distances as variable factors. Findings reveal that there is a need to plan for
upgrading the existing facility rather than developing a new healthcare facility. The
computational results also indicate that some of the health facilities are inefficient
based on the percentage coverage demand while most of the health facilities are
efficient based on the average travelled distances.
Keywords Community allocation Efficiency evaluation Monte Carlo
1 Introduction
Malaysia is one of the developing countries that has very good public healthcare
facilities. In the country, the government has the greatest concern to provide
efficient public healthcare services to the citizens in both rural and urban areas.
F. Zulrofli S. S. R. Shariff (&)

Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: radiah@tmsk.uitm.edu.my
F. Zulrofli
e-mail: fandizulrofli@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_29
318 F. Zulrofli and S. S. R. Shariff
The objectives in providing the best healthcare delivery service can be translated
into the problem to determine public healthcare facilities allocation by considering
several aspects such as the rate of population growth, geographically defined
regions, type of standard of living, life holds per capita and cost consideration in
optimizing the budget Ministry of Health (MOH).
In addition, previously reported on The Star Online, Surach (2014), the
American publication International Living has rated Malaysia’s healthcare system
as the third best out of 24 countries in its 2014 Global Retirement Index, beating
Spain, Italy, Ireland and New Zealand, among other countries. The index, which
was recently released by the Baltimore-based magazine, praised Malaysia’s
healthcare, which scored 95 out of possible 100 points, as the medical expertise of
Malaysian healthcare practitioners is ‘equal to or better than what it is in most
Western countries’. However, there are still some reports or complaints saying that
congestion and long waiting time at the government healthcare facilities. Based on
report by Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI), YB Datuk Seri Dr.
S. Subramaniam said apart from the problem of congestion and long waiting times,
the demand is also driven by the high expectations of the people and their higher
purchasing power. The above problem might have resulted from inefficiency in
patients’ allocation to the facilities. This study proposes community allocation to
the facilities and its efficiency is measured based on it.
2 Literature Review
There are several ways that can be used to measure the efficiency of community
allocation to their healthcare facilities. Guo et al. (2013) set up chronic and
non-communicable disease (NCD) unit of the urban district. In the study, they
focused on the objective of maximizing the coverage of people with NCD unit
within the limited healthcare resource over a geographically defined region. The
study also evaluates the efficiency of different healthcare resource allocation poli-
cies in term of relative cost and outcome. The coverage here means
community-based NCD services should be provided within a maximum distance
from the residences of people with NCDs. They apply an efficiency measure to
construct a two-objective location–allocation model for allocating community-
based health services for NCDs. The goal is to evaluate the efficiency (i.e. the
relative cost and service) of the solutions of our model using the ‘population-based’
allocation policy as standard. According to Syam and Côté (2012), in their study in
the United States, healthcare service issues remains as an area of crucial concern for
millions.
Healthcare providers are pressured by two conflicting dimensions:
ever-increasing healthcare costs and the public demand for access to cutting-edge
treatment. As a result, healthcare providers have virtually no choice but to con-
stantly seek to become as efficient as possible in all aspects of their operations. They
focus on the development, solution and application of a location–allocation model
29 The Efficiency Evaluation of the Community Allocation … 319
for specialized health care services such as the treatment and rehabilitation neces-
sary for strokes or traumatic brain injuries. In the study, the model is based on the
experience with the Department of Veterans Affairs’ integrated service networks
which minimizes the total cost borne by the health system and its patients and
incorporates admission acuity levels, service proportion requirements and admis-
sion retention rates. Asandului et al. (2014) used Data Envelopment Analysis
(DEA) in assessing the efficiency. DEA is a non-parametric method which identifies
an efficient frontier on which only the efficient Decision-Making Units (DMUs) are
placed, using linear programming techniques. They evaluate the efficiency of public
healthcare systems in Europe. For this purpose, statistical data for 30 European
states for 2010 have been used. They have selected three output variables: life
expectancy at birth, health-adjusted life expectancy and infant mortality rate and
three input variables number of doctors, number of hospital beds and public health
expenditures as percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Gholami et al.
(2014) also study on the influence of IT investment on hospital efficiency and
quality is of great interest to healthcare executives as well as insurers. Few studies
have examined how IT investments influence both efficiency and quality or whether
there is an optimal IT investment level that influences both in the desired direction.
Decision makers in healthcare wonder if there are tradeoffs between their pursuit of
hospital operational efficiency and quality. The study involving a two-stage double
bootstrap DEA analysis of 187 US hospitals over 2 years found direct effects of IT
investment upon service quality and a moderating effect of quality upon operational
efficiency. Schlander (2010) in their study argued that comparative economic
evaluations are concerned with the relative efficiency of alternative uses of scarce
resources. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is grounded in economic welfare theory and
attempts to identify alternatives with a net social benefit, measuring the created
value in terms of individual willingness to pay (WTP). In applied health economics,
cost-effectiveness evaluation (CEA) is more widely used than CBA, adopting a
modified efficiency criterion, minimization of incremental costs per quality-adjusted
life year (QALY) gained (“cost-utility analysis,” CUA). CBA has been greeted with
skepticism in the health policy field, primarily owing to resistance to a monetary
measure of benefit and owing to concerns that WTP may be unduly influenced by
the ability to pay.
3 Methods
This study is divided into two phases: the allocation process (where the community/
patients are allocated to their health facilities based on mathematical models) and
the efficiency measure.
3.1 Mathematical Model
In this study, the allocation of community in need or demand to their healthcare

facilities is done using the capacitated Maximal Covering Location Problem
(CMCLP).
This is done based on coverage as there is a need to ensure that all communities
in need are assigned to a facility. At the same time, there are also some capacity
constraints that need to be considered. The following CMCLP formulation is
adapted from Sharif et al. (2010) and used for the allocation process.
Maximize
XX
cij ai xij
i21 j2J
X
yj p
j2J
X
xij ¼ 1; i ¼ 1; . . .; n
i2I
X
ai xij yj Kj ; j ¼ 1; . . .; n
i2I
xij ; yj ¼ f0; 1g; i ¼ 1; . . .; n; j ¼ 1; . . .; n
where I is the index set of all demand nodes, J is the index set of all facility sites, ai
is the demand volume at node i, Kij is the workload capacity for a facility at site j,
p is the number of facilities to be sited, S is the maximum service distance, dij is the
travel distance from demand node i facility j
(
1; if dij S
cij ¼
0; otherwise

1; if community node i is served by facility j
xij ¼
0; otherwise

1; if facility is sited at j
yj ¼
0; otherwise
The objective function maximizes the demand volume assigned to a facility

within the coverage distance S, such that cij is equal to 1 if dij S. Constraint
(1) limits the total number of facilities to no more than p, while constraint (2)
ensures that all demand nodes are assigned to an opened facility. Constraint
(3) enforces the capacities of the opened facilities, and constraint (4) imposes the
integrality restriction on the decision variables. Note that the value of p is the total
number of facilities, including both existing and new facilities that are to be located.
In this model, we assume that the demand volume at each node does not exceed
capacity of the facilities and the demand is assumed to be allocated to at most one
facility only.
Another model, the capacitated p-median problem (CPMP) (Shariff et al. 2013)
is also used to compare the efficiency of demand allocation. This model determines
p facilities in a predefined set with n(n > p) each health facility in order to satisfy a
set of demand volume, so that the total sum of distances between each demand node
and its nearest available facility is minimized.
Minimize
XX
ai dij xij
i2I j2J
X
n X
n
ai dij xij
i¼1 j¼1
subject to
X
xij ¼ 1; i ¼ 1; 2; . . .; n
j2J
xij yj ; i; j ¼ 1; 2; . . .; n
X
yj ¼ p
j2J
X
ai xij Kj yj ; j ¼ 1; 2; . . .; n
i2I
xij yj 2 f0; 1g; i; j ¼ 1; 2; . . .; n ð2:5Þ
where
n total number of demand nodes
aj number of demand volume at nodes j
dij distance from node i to node j
p number of open facilities.
3.2 Data Preparation
A study area is selected in order to apply the allocation process. Mukim Batu in
Kuala Langat district is selected due to its growing number of population. It covers an
area of 12,147.551 ha with a total population of 30,723 (Department of Statistics
Malaysia 2010). Mukim Batu has five (5) villages which are Kg Batu Laut, Kg
Kundang, Kg Tanjung Sepat, Kg Tanjung Sepat Indah and Kg Tumbuk Darat as the
catchment areas. Nowadays, most of the villagers are self-employed, farmers and
some fishermen, especially those who live on the beach. Mukim Batu’s majority
populations are Malays, followed by Chinese and Indians as well as a small number
of indigenous people. Each year the number of residents in Mukim Batu is increasing
due to several factors, among them is the migration of people from the other regions
and other states to the Kuala Langat district. The geographical form of Mukim Batu is
47.80% (5858.989 hectares) agricultural land, 35.95% (4406.74 ha) is forest area and
the rest are new development areas (Rancangan Tempatan Kuala Langat 2020).
Figure 1 shows that currently, there is one (1) Health Clinic (HC) which is
Klinik Kesihatan Tanjung Sepat (KKTS) and three (3) Rural Clinics (RC) with are
KD Batu Laut, KD Kundang and KD Tumbuk Darat. An RC can accommodate a
maximum of 4000 populations while an HC is assumed to serve a maximum of
15,000 populations (Shariff et al. 2012). HC provides services for both outpatient
Fig. 1 Mukim Batu map

Table 1 Distribution of demand nodes in Mukim Batu

Percentages (%) No. of population/ No. of Population/ Total
of population demand volume nodes node population
nodes
Forest 0 0 None None None
Agricultural 30 9217 113 82 9266
land
New 70 21,506 19 1132 21,508
development
area
Total 100 30,723 132 1214 30,774
(OPD) and mother and child (MOH), but RCs provide services for mother and child
(MOH) only. So, in term of services provided, the community in need will go to
Klinik Kesihatan Tanjung Sepat (KKTS), the only HC for the outpatient
(OPD) treatment. There are times, however, RC also received easy outpatient
(OPD) cases such as blood pressure, blood sugar, fever and so on since the location
of HC is very far away from their places.
As depicted in Table 1, 30% of the population community stays in the agri-
cultural area while 70% of total population in Mukim Batu resides in the newly
developed areas. Forest area has 0% population and we assumed that the distri-
bution of population only focus on agricultural lands and newly developed areas. In
order to allocate the patients into the area, we apply grid technique method, from
which total of 132 nodes are considered. For agricultural land, there are 113 nodes
with 82 populations per node while in newly developed areas, there are 19 nodes
with 1132 population per node. The distribution of population and nodes in study
area is summarized in Table 1.
3.3 Efficiency Measurement
To measure efficiency of the two demand allocation solutions, we use the incre-
mental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). ICER is used to measure the relative costs
and outcomes of two or more actions. In this study, ‘action’ means the demand
allocation solution, and the ‘cost’ and ‘outcome’ of an action refers to the total costs
of the solution [i.e. the value of the cost objective function (1)] and the percentage
of covered demand volume (i.e. the value of the service objective function (2) di-
vided by total demand volume), respectively. The following formula is used to
calculate ICER:
ICER ¼ ðCi C1 Þ=ðSi S1 Þ

where C1 ðC2 Þ and S1 ðS2 Þ are the total costs and the percentage of covered demand
volume of solution 1 (solution 2), respectively. For example, if the ICER of solution
2 is larger than solution 1, it means solution 2 is less efficient than solution 1
because it uses more resources to achieve the same service improvement.
4.1 Results of Community Allocation Based on CMCLP:

Considering Services Provided
Table 2 summarizes the detail of the simulation allocation result using CMCLP:
(1) without considering service type and (2) considering service types provided
(MCH or OPD) for each facility in Mukim Batu. Without considering the service
type provided, CMCLP considers assigning 47.4% of the population to KD Batu
Laut. However, when the service type is considered, for MCH service, the result
shows that KD Batu Laut has the highest assigned demand with 51.7% (9964
populations) followed by KK Tanjung Sepat and KD Kundang with 25.5% (4920
populations) and 17.0% (3278 populations), respectively. On the other hand, KD
Tumbuk Darat showed the lowest assigned demand with 5.8% (1116 populations).
Note that, many populations are allocated to KD Batu Laut for getting MCH
services compared to other health facilities. In addition, in term of OPD service, the
result showed the KK Tanjung Sepat with the highest assigned demand of 100%
(11,496 populations) as it is the only HC at Mukim Batu. Even though KK Tanjung
Sepat shows the highest assigned demand for both services with 53.3% (16,416
populations), this facility is not located at a convenient distance to the population at
Mukim Batu with 28.7% (8826 populations) only.
Figure 2 indicates the comparison between the percentages assigned demand
(MCH and OPD) and actual arrival in the year 2015 for each facility at Mukim
Batu. KK Tanjung Sepat shows the highest percentages assigned demand (MCH
and OPD) with 53.3% (16,416 demand volumes) compared to actual arrival in the
year 2015 with 86.6% (32,795 cases). On the other hand, KD Tumbuk Darat shows
the lowest percentages assigned demand (MCH and OPD) with 3.6% (1116
demand volumes) compared to actual arrival in the year 2015 with 1.9% (705
cases). Note that, the allocation of populations to the facilities are different from the
actual. For KD Batu Laut, KD Kundang and KD Tumbuk Darat, about 25.1, 6.4
and 1.7%, respectively are different from the actual. In the results, 11496 popula-
tions are allocated to KK Tanjung Sepat to get more specific treatment and
equipment for OPD cases.
29
Table 2 Summarized allocation based on service provided

Total allocation at each health facility based on CMCLP
Clinics Total Without considering Considering service types
nodes service types
assigned Total Percentages Total Percentages Total Percentages Total Percentages (%)
assigned (%) assigned (%) assigned assigned (%) assigned assigned assigned demand
demand assigned demand demand demand demand demand MCH and OPD
demand MCH MCH OPD OPD MCH and
OPD
KK 18 8826 28.7 4920 25.5 11496 100.0 16416 53.3
Tanjung
Sepat
KD Batu 37 14584 47.4 9964 51.7 0 0.0 9964 32.4
Laut
KD 55 5560 18.1 3278 17.0 0 0.0 3278 10.7
The Efficiency Evaluation of the Community Allocation …
Kundang
KD 22 1804 5.9 1116 5.8 0 0.0 1116 3.6
Tumbuk
Darat
Total 132 30774 100 19278 100 11496 100 30774 100
325
100.0%
90.0%
Percentage (%) 80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0% Percentages (%) Assigned
40.0% Demand MCH & OPD
30.0% Percentage (%)Actual Arrival
20.0% Year 2015
10.0%
0.0%
KK Tanjung KD Batu KD KD Tumbuk
Sepat Laut Kundang Darat
Clinics
Fig. 2 Percentages assigned demand MCH and OPD versus actual arrival 2015
4.2 Results of Efficiency Evaluation on Community in Need

Allocation to Respective Health Facilities
We set two (2) target conditions to measure efficiency in each open facility where
the percentage coverage demand volume and average travelled distances are the
variable factors. For target condition 1 based on the coverage demand, the demand
covering percentage expected from a number of open facilities using CMCLP is
calculated. In this condition, the number of open facilities varies from one (1) to
three (3). So, when one (1) facility is open, target percentage demand volume is
13%. If the number of open one (1) facility achieves 13% (more or equal 13%)
then it is efficient. When two (2) facilities are open, target percentage demand
volume is 26%. If the number of open two (2) facilities achieve 26% (more or
equal 26%) then it is efficient. Similarly, when three (3) facilities are open, target
percentage demand volumes are 39%. If the number of open three (3) facilities
achieve 39% (more or equal 39%) then it is efficient. The result is summarized in
Table 3.
For target condition 2, the allocation is done using CPMP based on the average
travelled distances where the target travelled distance is within 3 km. Similar to
target condition 1, the number of open facilities varies from one (1) to three (3). If
the average travelled distance achieved is 3 km (less than or equal to 3 km), then
it is efficient. The allocation result from CPMP is summarized in Table 4.
The results in Tables 3 and 4 can further be verified by calculating the ICER
value. The higher the ICER value shows the better the efficiency. From Table 5, it
shows that the allocation of population to the facilities using CMCLP are equally
efficient if the number of facilities open are 1, 2 and 3 facilities. However, using the
CPMP, the allocation of two facilities are showing different performances and one
combination shows better efficiency compared to the allocation of three facilities.
Table 3 Efficiency measures for allocation result using CMCLP

Option Facility open Assigned Target max Covered Efficient
demand capacity (%) demand (yes/no)
(%)
Open one KD Batu Laut 3986 13 13 Yes
(1) facility KD Kundang 3986 13 13 Yes
KD Tumbuk Darat 3986 13 13 Yes
Open two KD Batu Laut and 7956 26 26 Yes
(2) facility Kundang
KD Batu Laut and 7972 26 26 Yes
Tumbuk Darat
KD Kundang and 7972 26 26 Yes
Tumbuk Darat
Open three KD Batu Laut, Kundang 11368 39 37 No
(3) facility and Tumbuk Darat
Percentages 86%
of efficiency
Table 4 Efficiency measures for allocation result using CPMP

Option Facility open Assigned Target Average Efficient
demand maximum travel (yes/no)
travel
KD Batu Laut 3986 3.0 1.6 Yes
Open one KD Kundang 3986 3.0 1.6 Yes
(1) facility KD Tumbuk Darat 3986 3.0 2.9 Yes
KD Batu Laut and Kundang 7956 3.0 1.5 Yes
Open two KD Batu Laut and Tumbuk 7972 3.0 2.2 Yes
(2) facility Darat
KD Kundang and Tumbuk 7972 3.0 2.2 Yes
Darat
Open three KD Batu Laut, KD Kundang 11,368 3.0 1.9 Yes
(3) facility and KD Tumbuk Darat
Percentage 100%
of efficiency
Table 5 Efficiency measures using ICER

Option Assigned Percentage ICER Average ICER
population covered travelled
Open one 3986 13 – 1.6 –
(1) facility
Open two 7956 26 305.38 1.5 39,700.00
(2) facility 7972 26 306.62 2.2 6643.33
Open three 11,368 37 307.58 1.9 24,606.67
(3) facility
5 Conclusion
This chapter considers how to assign the population over a geographically defined
region in an efficient way, compared with the current demands in year 2015.
Computational results from this study show that services provided either outpatient
(OPD) and mother and child (MCH) are the main factors influencing the allocation
process. From the result, we found that it may be valuable to plan or upgrade Klinik
Desa Batu Laut (KDBL) become the Health Clinic (HC) because the location is
more convenient for the entire community of Mukim Batu.
In order to measure the efficiency of the allocation process, two variable factors,
coverage percentage and average travelled distance are used. The incremental
cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) results showed inefficient when we open three
(3) facilities because its healthcare facilities do not meet percentage coverage
demand population. While in terms of average travelled distance, all possible
combinations of open facilities and its assignments show efficient process. We can
conclude that all facilities in Mukim Batu are located within efficient accessible
locations.
It is hoped that this study can provide some insight to the Ministry of Health
(MOH) in the future planning of new healthcare facility by considering the variable
factors used in this study. Besides healthcare facilities, the process could be readily
applied to other non-profit or public service facilities, such as fire stations.
Similarly, there are many other formulas and methods to measure efficiency of
facility location. Other than (ICER) formula, the researcher can use Data Enveloped
Analysis (DEA), Bayesian Belief Network (BBN), iHAUTISIS and the others to
measure efficiency for further study. In further research, the researchers can also
investigate other variable factors that might influence efficiency in term of indoor
perspective such as operation schedule treatment per day, overtime work, number
of staff and so on to overcome congestion and long waiting time problem arise at
public healthcare facility in Malaysia.
Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia for

funding this research through the Research Management Institute (RMI) of Universiti
Teknologi MARA, Malaysia, Grant No: 600-RMI/FRGS 5/3(9/2013).
References
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planning in Malaysia. Comput Ind Eng 62:1000–1010
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Syam S, Côté M (2012) A comprehensive location-allocation method for specialized healthcare
services. Oper Res Health Care 1:73–83
Chapter 30
Challenges of Single, Middle-Aged
Mothers
Anura Ibrahim, Ruhani Mat Min and Zakaria Mohamad
Abstract A single mother who is living without a husband has confronted many
challenges. This study is aimed to recognize the self-challenges and the environ-
mental challenges faced by a single mother. This study uses Grounded Theory
method. A total of 5 participants from Setiu, Terengganu, Malaysia who have lost
their husbands to death, aged 36–45 years were selected. These participants have
children who are still in school. The study found that the emotional aspect is a
major challenge for participants. The finding of the environmental challenges is the
category of children. The study also found that the majority of items in each
category are negative except the spiritual category whereas the majority of items in
each category environment is positive item.
Keywords Challenges Single mother Grounded theory
1 Introduction
According to Rohaty and Muhammad Rais (1999), a woman is interpreted as a

single parent due to the death of her husband and has to continue the task of raising
the children, or a woman who has been divorced by her husband and was granted
custody of the children, or a woman who was left by her husband and was not given
alimony, or a woman who is in divorce proceedings (which may take a long time)
and her children remain under her care at this time.
A. Ibrahim (&)
Faculty of Social Sciences, University College Bestari, Setiu, Malaysia
e-mail: anura@ucbestari.edu.my
R. Mat Min Z. Mohamad
School of Social and Economic Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu,
Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
e-mail: ruhani@umt.edu.my
Z. Mohamad
e-mail: zek@umt.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_30
332 A. Ibrahim et al.
Many challenges are faced by these women in their lives after their husbands
died or divorced. The first challenge is within themselves as feeling lonely, feeling
the physical and psychological setbacks (Santrock 1999). According to Klapper
et al. (1994), losing someone at a young age is more depressing.
At the same time, these women play the role of the bread winner for the family.
It is difficult to them both as a working woman and as a housewife. The majority of
these women who have lost their husband described to have a small income which
is insufficient for their expenditure (Wan Ibrahim 2004), limited income (Strobe
et al. 1993), and feel pressured to find jobs (Wolf 1996).
Their problems are seemed connected to other problems. Not only do they need
to work, but at the same time, they have to take care of their children. For these
women who have small children still in schooling age, there are a lot of things that
need to be considered. According to Diyana et al. (2009), more attention needed to
be given to the women who need to feed their little children and have problematic
children.
According to Siti Fatimah (2009), besides children and financial issues, single
mothers also have to face society stigma; labelling them as seducers, wild or leaving
children unmonitored just because they have to go for work. Therefore, the present
study sets out with the objective to identify the self-challenges and
environment-challenges among single mothers.
1.1 Research Objective
This research aims to identify self-challenges and environment-challenges among

single mothers.
2 Methodology
The study used Grounded Theory method of qualitative research, which is founded
by Glaser and Strauss (1967). A total of 5 participants were involved in the study
and were categorized as middle-aged, aged 36–45 years, having 3–5 children. Their
husbands have passed away between 3 and 8 years ago. The study was conducted
in the district of Setiu, Terengganu. Two data collection tools were used, that are,
interview and observation. The process of analysing the data involves three types of
coding:
1. Open coding—where the researcher begins to segment or divide the data into
similar groupings and forms preliminary categories of information about the
phenomenon being examined
2. Axial coding—following intensive open coding, the researcher begins to bring
together the categories he or she has identified into groupings. These groupings
30 Challenges of Single, Middle-Aged Mothers 333
resemble themes and are generally new ways of seeing and understanding the
phenomenon under study
3. Selective coding—the researcher organizes and integrates the categories and
themes in a way that articulates a coherent understanding or theory of the
phenomenon of study.
3 Findings
The data were analyzed using the open code of D1–D51 (refer Fig. 1) for the
self–challenges category among single mothers and S1–S59 for the environment-
challenges category before the concept was created. The concept of children and
emotion have the most items. There are a total of 5 self-categories and 3 categories
of environmental produced 2 themes of theme challenges themselves (D) and the
theme of environmental challenges (S).
The results are presented in the table below. Tables 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 showed
self-challenges for the single mothers. Tables 6, 7 and 8 are environmental chal-
lenges. Table 1 indicates the emotional categories. A total of 12 items are marked *
negative items. This suggests that although they are pleased with the events that
happened to them, but a lot of things have distressed them.
Table 2 of behavioral categories, shows 6 items marked * as negative. This
suggests that the participants also underwent behavioral disorders.
Fig. 1 Single mothers challenges

Table 1 Emotions category

Items/participants P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Total
DE1 feel better if her late husband is around* / 1
DE2 fighting feelings* / 1
DE3 unstable emotions* / 1
DE4 determine / / / 3
DE5 placate* / 1
DE6 feeling guilty* / 1
DE7 feels like it just happened* / 1
DE8 capitulation / / / / 4
DE9 sad* / / 2
DE10 pressure* / / 2
DE11feels like late husband is still around* / / / 4
DE12 feeling lonely* / 1
DE13 feeling not going out* / 1
DE14 not feeling guilty / 1
DE15 not expected* / 1
DE16 a test / 1
Total 3 9 6 2 5
Table 2 Behavioral category

DT1 (hospital anxiety)* / 1
DT2 (to become both father and mother to / / / / / 5
children)*
DT3 (tired)* / 1
DT4 (often visiting late husband’s grave) / / / / 4
DT5 (independent) / / 2
DT6 (moving)* / / / / 4
DT7 (limited movement)* / / / 3
DT8 (paying late husband’s debt)* / 1
Total 3 6 5 3 4
Table 3 Cognitive category

DK1 (remembering the late husband)* / / / / / 5
DK2 (thinking of many things)* / / 2
DK3 (remembering the date of husband’s death) / / / / / 5
DK4 (not thinking of remarried) / / / / 4
DK5 (sleepless)* / / / / 4
Total 3 5 4 4 4
Table 4 Physiology category

DF1 (exercise for own health) / 1
DF2 (ill)* / / 2
DF3 (mystically ill)* / 1
Total 0 3 0 0 1
Table 5 Spiritual category

DS1 (prays) / / / / / 5
DS2 (feeling closer to god) / 1
Total 1 2 1 1 1
Table 6 Children category

SA1 (children is priority) / / / / / 5
SA2 (children help) / / / 3
SA3 (children working) / / / 3
SA4 (children excel in study) / 1
SA5 (problematic children)* / / / 3
SA6 (children want a new father)* / 1
SA7 (lack of time at home with children)* / / / / 4
SA8 (not willing to give away children) / 1
SA9 (no transport to going out with children)* / / 2
SA10 (children are good) / 1
SA11 (children remembering their late father) / / / 3
SA12 (children need to stay close) / 1
SA13 (children are understanding) / / 2
SA14 (children are close to late husband) / / / 3
Total 8 4 6 7 8
Table 3 indicates cognitive categories. A total of 3 items marked * are negative.

These findings also show that the participants experienced cognitive disorders.
Table 4 shows physiological category of study participants. A total of 2 items
were also a negative item (marked *). The results show that participants in the study
also experienced a physiological disorder.
Table 5 indicates result of spiritual category. A total of 2 items were produced,
and the two items are positive. This indicates that survey participants take positive
action in this spiritual category.
Table 7 Income category

SW1 (doing business) / 1
SW2 (income was good with late husband) / 1
SW3 (pension money) / 1
SW4 (JKM aid) / / / / 4
SW5 (Employees Provident Fund [KWSP]) / / 2
SW6 (Insufficient financial) / 1
SW7 (obligatory payment [zakat]) / / 2
SW8 (income from other sources) / 1
SW9 (the estate left by the late husband) / 1
SW10 (uncertain revenue) / 1
SW11 (salaried workers) / / / / 4
Total 5 4 4 4 3
Table 8 Social category

SS1 (government helps) / / / / 4
SS2 (society helps) / / / 3
SS3 (family helps) / / / / 4
SS4 (family not helping)* / / / 3
SS5 (employer concerns) / 1
SS6 (meeting people to share problems) / / / 3
Total 4 2 4 5 3
Table 6 represents the category of children participating in the study environ-

mental challenges. A total of 10 items were positive items. The majority of survey
participants do positive items.
Table 7 is the result of the income category of participants. The results also show
that the majority of participants take positive actions for this category. As many as 8
out of 11 items were positive items.
Table 8 is the result of social categories. A total of 5 of the 6 items are positive
items. This suggests that the participants received strong support from the social or
the surrounding communities.
4 Discussion
The results clearly show that widows are going through many challenges which are
testing their capabilities and perseverance in terms of self—challenge and envi-
ronmental challenge. The biggest challenge faced by them is self-challenge with 5
categories while environment challenges with 3 categories. Emotional challenge is

sub-categorized under self—challenge while the children is under environmental
category. The results of this study do not align with the study by Sharifah Sofía
Atiqah and Azmi (2002) in terms of the main challenges of these women. The result
of their research is that the main challenges faced by the women, aside from raising
the children, are the financial burden. Similarly, Wan Ibrahim (2004) found the
major daily problem is inadequate spending problem. This study have little in
common in terms of the problems of children as well as the study by Dian (2007)
where she faced many challenges with her second child who was very close to her
late husband until the child kept telling what her father had done with her. This
challenge has to be faced by them to survive the future.
5 Conclusion
Life must go on even though single mothers have to face various challenges after
becoming single parents. The challenges are greater within themselves compared to
the challenges from the surroundings. Everyone including the government, social
and family have to play their own roles to help enlighten the burden of single
mothers thereby they will become more persistent to shoulder the responsibility of
taking care of their families after the loss of their beloved husbands.
References
Dian RS (2007) Menjalani hidup sepeninggal suami: kenangan, perjuangan, dan harapan. www.
eprints.undip.ac.id/8588/1/Menjalani_Hidup_Sepeninggal_Suami.pdf
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perubahan persekitaran global dalam memancu pembangunan ekonomi dalam ketidaktentuan
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Yussof, Ahmad Mohd Zain, Zainal Abidin Hashim, Nor Aini Idris, Mohd Shukri Noor (eds),
pp 334–336. Bangi: Penerbit UKM
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terbitkan)
Siti Fatimah AR (2009) Ibu tunggal, semua pihak perlu lebih bertanggungjawab. IKIM.
Diperolehi. http://www.ikim.gov.my. 8 Januari 2010
Strobe MS, Strobe W, Hansson RO (1993) Handbook of bereavement: theory, research, and
intervention. Cambridge University Press, New York
Wan Ibrahim WA (2004) Ibu tunggal muslim desa di Malaysia: Masalah dan strategi adaptasi. In:
International seminar on islamic thoughts proceedings. 7–9 December 2004. UKM, Bangi,
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Wolf R (1996) Marriage and families in a diverse society. Harper Collins College Pub, New York
Chapter 31
Malaysian Life Expectancy by Gender
and Ethnic Group: A Comparative
Study
Sharifah Norhuda Syed Wahid, Siti Noorul Ain Nor Azemi,

Saharani Abdul Rashid, Zulkifli Ab Ghani Hilmi, Mohd Rizal Razak
and Puzziawati Ab Ghani
Abstract The purpose of this study is to describe the Malaysian life expectancy at
birth from year 1991 to 2015 by different sex and ethnic groups. Malaysia’s pop-
ulation shows that the life expectancy for male increased from 69.2 to 72.5 years
and female also increased from 73.4 to 77.4 years within the time duration. In
addition, the study found that the female life expectancy is longer than male by
almost 5 years in 2015. The trend of the life expectancy for three major ethnic
group in Malaysia, Malay, Chinese and Indian shows that the Chinese ethnic have
longer life expectancy compared to the other two ethnics whereby Chinese females
were estimated to have longer life expectancy. This comparative study may help
other researcher to find out the factors that influenced Chinese females to have
longer life expectancy.
Keywords Ethnic group Life expectancy Malaysia’s population

Sex
S. N. S. Wahid (&) S. N. A. N. Azemi S. A. Rashid Z. A. G. Hilmi M. R. Razak

MARA Pahang, Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: sha_norhuda@pahang.uitm.edu.my
S. N. A. N. Azemi
e-mail: noorulain@pahang.uitm.edu.my
S. A. Rashid
e-mail: saharani@pahang.uitm.edu.my
Z. A. G. Hilmi
e-mail: zulghani@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. R. Razak
e-mail: dragon_admire007@pahang.uitm.edu.my
P. A. Ghani
MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: puzzi@tmsk.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_31
340 S. N. S. Wahid et al.
1 Introduction
Malaysia is categorized as developed country with multi-ethnical whereby it was

dominant by three ethnic groups; Malay, Chinese and Indian. The 2015 Population
and Housing Census of Malaysia conducted by Department of Statistics Malaysia
(DOSM) reported that the distribution of ethnics comprised that Bumiputera
including Malays are 68.6% of the population, Chinese 23.4%, Indian 7.0% and
others 1.0%. In addition, DOSM also reported that the ratio between genders is 107
males to 100 females in the same year. This situation gives different patterns of
demographic and social characteristics in Malaysia population.
In developed countries, the death rates decreased faster among females com-
pared to males starting early 1880 (Rachael 2015). This situation may cause to the
differences in mortality rates between males and females. Rachael (2015) also stated
that the death rates for both genders were the same before 1880, but have changed
after 1880. In addition, the life expectancy for males born after 1900 was between
50 and 70 year old and the death rate was double compared to females of the same
age caused by cardiovascular disease. The disease becomes the main cause of the
higher death rates among males born after 1900.
Table 1 presents the Malaysia’s life expectancy from 1970 to 2040, whereby the
year 2020, 2030 and 2024 are the projection life expectancy by DOSM. The life
expectancy at birth for males increased about 10.9 years, and females also increased
by 11.8 years from 1970 to 2015. By looking at the projection of life expectancy,
the trend for male and female is upward trend.
Life Expectancy
By definition from Shryok and Siegel (1973), ‘life expectancy is a statistical
measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of
their birth, their current age and other demographic factors including sex’. His
study focused on the life expectancy at birth (LEB) with different two ways. First,
he found that the LEB is the mean length of life of an actual birth cohort. This
cohort was basically referred on the length of life for individuals born on many
decades ago. Second, he stated that LEB is a hypothetical cohort which was cal-
culated based on the length of life for individuals considering the mortality rates at a
given year.
Furthermore, Arthur and Steven (2003) defined the life expectancy of human as
a mean number of years of life remaining at a given age. They also stated that the
Table 1 Malaysia’s Life Expectancy from 1970 to 2040

Year
Indicator 1970 1980 1991 2000 2010 2015 2020a 2030a 2040a
Life Male 61.6 66.4 69.2 70.4 71.9 72.5 74.2 76.2 78.2
expectancy Female 65.6 70.5 73.4 74.6 76.6 77.4 79.1 80.5 81.9
a
Projection
31 Malaysian Life Expectancy by Gender and Ethnic Group … 341
life expectancy will be increased when the person survived at the higher mortality
rates related to his childhood. World Health Organization (2004) reported based on
the research conducted that the mortality rates for females during their childhood
were higher than males at the same age. This indicated that females may have
longer life expectancy than males if the LEB is based on the hypothetical cohort.
According to Kalben (2002), her study found that male fetuses have higher
mortality rate compared to female fetuses in the womb. In addition, she also stated
that the ratio at birth for males is 105–100 females Americans. In contrast, study by
Hitti (2005) at the same region found that the American women were expected to
live to age 80.1 years in 2005. This comparison shows that the females have a
higher survival rate compared to males since born. This finding was supported by
Santrock (2007). His study found that there exists a difference of life expectancy
between sex: male and female. In addition, World Health Organization (2016)
declared that men are consumed more tobacco, alcohol and also drug compared to
women. This negative lifestyle may cause many critical diseases such as lung
cancer and tuberculosis. This organization also reported that men are more likely to
die from injuries caused of accidents or involving in war, consistent to Santrock
(2007).
Due to the differences obtained for the life expectancy at birth between the sex,
this study purposely focused on the sex and also different ethnic groups in
Malaysia. The objectives of the study were twofold: first, to ascertain the difference
of life of expectancy at birth (LEB) among male and female. Second, to identify the
Malaysian LEB for Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnics.
2 Methodology
The secondary data gathered from population census and estimation between the
year 1991 and 2015 published by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM)
were used in the study. In addition, the projection data for 2016–2040 were
obtained from Population Projection Reports which was also published by DOSM.
Microsoft Excel 2010 was used to chart the comparison of the life expectancy at
birth by different ethnic groups and sex for Malaysia population including graphical
and numerical techniques.
Currently, total population in Malaysia is 31.7 million (DOSM 2016) with 6.0% of
them aged 65 and above. Based on the population projections reported by DOSM in
2012, the data projected revealed that the total of Malaysia population can be
reached to 38.6 million. The same report also stated that elderly female will be more
than elderly male because females tend to live longer than males, consistent with
the research analysis by Saharani et al. (2016). The study found that the steady
increment of life expectancy at birth of Malaysia population may change the age
structure. Furthermore, Saharani et al. (2016) also stated that the change of the age
structure will lead towards ageing population and concluded that the ageing pop-
ulation will continue to increase over the years.
Based on the projection report and the current data obtained from DOSM (2016),
the trend of life expectancy at birth among Malaysian between genders shows the
upward trend as shown in Fig. 1. The Malaysian females life expectancy at birth
from 1991 to 2015 was higher than males by almost 5 years. Females have been
expected to live until 77.4 years compared to males, 72.5 years, supported by
Santrock (2007) and Saharani et al. (2016).
The result also shows the trend patterns for Malay, Chinese and Indian females
are same (Figs. 2, 3 and 4). In comparison, the biggest gap of life expectancy at
birth was found between males and females Indian ethnic, which is almost 8 years
in 2015 (Fig. 4). It reveals that the Indian females have longer life expectancy at
birth compared to Indian males. Some argument stated that shorter males’ life
expectancy at birth is related to their body size, which is the larger the body size
tends, on average, to have shorter lives (Kalben 2002). In Malaysia, the average of
Fig. 1 Malaysian life 80.0

expectancy by sex 78.0
76.0
Life Expectancy
74.0
72.0
70.0 Male
68.0
Female
66.0
64.0
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
2015
Year
Fig. 2 Malay life expectancy 78.0

by sex 76.0
74.0
Life Expectancy
72.0
70.0
Male
68.0
66.0 Female
64.0
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
2015
Year
Fig. 3 Chinese life 82.0

expectancy by sex 80.0
Life Expectancy
78.0
76.0
74.0
72.0 Male
70.0
68.0 Female
66.0
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
2015
Year
Fig. 4 Indian life expectancy 80.0

by sex
75.0
Life Expectancy
70.0
65.0 Male
60.0 Female
55.0
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
2015
Year
Fig. 5 Male life expectancy 76.0

by ethnic group 74.0
72.0
Life Expectancy
70.0
68.0
66.0 Malay
64.0 Chinese
62.0
Indian
60.0
58.0
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
2015
Year
the males’ size is larger than females so that the finding is consistent with the
individual’s size.
Further analysis was conducted to describe the pattern of the life expectancy at
birth between males and females for three different ethnics; Malay, Chinese and
Indian. Figure 5 shows that the Chinese males have the longest life expectancy at
Fig. 6 Female life 82.0

expectancy by ethnic group 80.0
Life Expectancy
78.0
76.0
74.0
Malay
72.0
70.0 Chinese
68.0
Indian
66.0
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
2015
Year
birth trend from 1991 to 2015, followed by Malay males and Indian males. In
addition, the gap of life expectancy between Chinese males and Malay becomes
bigger after 1991. In contrast, the Malay females and Indian females show the
irregular trend, but the life expectancy at birth for Chinese females steadily
increases from year 1991 to 2015 (Fig. 6).
4 Conclusion and Recommendation
World Health Organization (2016) confirmed that the life expectancy at birth for
Malaysian population is 74.98 years old with the increment by 6.95 years com-
pared to 1991. The existence studies among researchers show that the life expec-
tancy at birth for females is longer than males. This study found that the finding is
consistent which means females have longer life expectancy compared to males
from year 1991 to 2015 for three different ethnic groups. This finding revealed that
the Chinese ethnic have the longest life of expectancy at birth compared to Malay
and Indian. As stated earlier, life expectancy at birth may influenced by mortality
rate that related to the childhood.
It is recommended that next research to be focused on the mortality rate among
Malay, Chinese and Indian which is to identify its relationship towards life
expectancy. In addition, this study may help others to find the factors that signif-
icantly affected the females Chinese to live longer than the others.
Acknowledgements Sincere thanks to the Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia for the
financial support from the Research Acculturation Grant Scheme (RAGS/2013/UiTM/STO6/2).
References
Arthur O, Steven MS (2003) Economics: principles in action. Pearson Prentice Hall,

p 473. ISBN 0-13-063085-3
Department of Statistics Malaysia (2012) Population projection, Malaysia, 2010–2040.
Department of Statistics, Malaysia, Putrajaya
Department of Statistics Malaysia (2016) https://www.statistics.gov.my/dosm. Accessed 1 Oct
2016
Hitti M (2005) U.S. life expectancy best ever, says CDC. eMedicine. WebMD. Accessed 1 Oct
2016
Kalben BB (2002) Why men die younger: causes of mortality differences by sex. Society of
Actuaries. http://www.soa.org/news-and-publications/publications/other-publications/
monographs/m-li01-1-toc.aspx. Accessed 1 Oct 2016
Rachael R (2015) When did women start to outlive men? http://www.livescience.com/51455-
women-outlive-men.html. Accessed 1 Oct 2016
Saharani AR, Puzziawati AG, Noorizam D, Zulkifli AGH, Siti Noorul Ain NA, Sharifah
Norhuda SW, Mohd Rizal R (2016) Malaysia’s ageing population trends. In: Regional
conference on science, technology and social sciences (RCSTSS 2014), business and social
sciences. Springer Science+Business Media, Singapore
Santrock J (2007) Life expectancy: a topical approach to life-span development. The McGraw-Hill
Companies Inc. New York
Shryok S, Siegel JS (1973) The methods and materials of demography. US Bureau of the Census,
Washington, DC
World Health Organization (2016) http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat2006DefinitionsAnd
Metadata.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct 2016
Part IX
Human Resource
Chapter 32
Utilizing Crowdsourcing in Education:
Academic Retiree and Professional
Continuity
Mohd. Ikhsan Md. Raus, Suzaini Harmiruslin Supian,

Mohd Khairul Ikhwan Bin Zolkefley
and Muhd Eizan Shafiq Abd Aziz
Abstract The socioeconomic challenges caused by aging populations have

encouraged many countries to reevaluate the place of the elderly in society as well
as to adopt measures in encouraging them to be participative. In recent decades,
crowdsourcing has been identified as a rapid growth of innovative Internet-based
information and communication technologies in giving the opportunities to edu-
cational organizations to reach their goals. With their accumulated skills and
knowledge, academic retirees can be resourceful to society. However, their
knowledge and experiences seem to be undervalued and underutilized. Retired
academics have better opportunity to extend their contribution in the society as their
valuable knowledge is more appreciated than people from other background.
Retired academics tend to be able to fulfill their desire for professional continuity
following retirement more markedly than people from other backgrounds. This
paper analyzes the use of crowdsourcing in educational activities, especially for the
academic retirees. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to take an exploratory
look on how educational organizations use crowdsourcing as part of their activities
at the present time, and to suggest how the practice of crowdsourcing may expand
to other educational activities in future.
Mohd. I. Md. Raus (&)

MARA Pahang, Bandar Tun Abdul Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: mohdikhsan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
S. H. Supian
e-mail: harmiruslin@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. K. I. B. Zolkefley M. E. S. A. Aziz
MARA Pahang, Raub, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: khairulIkhwan@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. E. S. A. Aziz
e-mail: eizan@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_32
350 Mohd. I. Md. Raus et al.

Keywords Academic retiree Crowdsourcing Educational activities

Social innovation Social technologies
1 Introduction
Higher learning institution faces dilemma when these institutions are expected to
simultaneously reduce expenditures and improve learning outcomes through faster
graduation rates. The roles and functions of academics include teaching, doing
research and administrative work, and this is crucial because many universities
worldwide are required not only to produce quality graduates but also to be centers
for wealth creation through research (Arokiasamy et al. 2011). Therefore, the top
management of these institutions needs to plan several strategies to ensure that these
expectations can be met through the existing teaching and learning process, and
fully utilizing the academician in order to burst up the research and academics
perspectives which have been addressed. The assurance of successful institutions
can be determined by how the top management generates their self-income,
develops, maintains, and grows the potential profit and research project, exploits the
possibility of the products to be marketed, and protects its knowledge base, skill,
and competencies (McQuade et al. 2007).
The emergence of web technologies 2.0 offered in social online interactivity and
the collaboration of expertise around the world have made the teaching and learning
process in higher learning institutions to be not limited within the campus or
classrooms anymore. In this cyber world, people have the preference in seeking for
online help to solve complex cognition and manipulation tasks and these problems
can be solved by the assistance of a mass volunteer which is acknowledged as a
crowd (Bernstein et al. 2010). Therefore, crowdsourcing has been identified as a
rapid growth of innovative Internet-based information and communication tech-
nologies (Weld et al. 2012) in giving the opportunities to educational organizations
to reach their goals. Crowdsourcing is the mostly used web-based social system in
performing the tasks (Afridi 2012; Aris et al. 2013). The rise of associated tech-
niques in crowdsourcing has further significantly influenced the education on the
web (Corneli 2012) to facilitate the online social environments.
Thus, the objectives of this paper are to take an exploratory look on how edu-
cational organizations use crowdsourcing as part of their activities at the present
time, especially for the academic retiree and to suggest how the practice of
crowdsourcing may be expanded to other educational activities by time.
Crowdsourcing
This research focuses on the knowledge sharing and the willingness of future
academic retiree in UiTM Cawangan Pahang to contribute their knowledge and
expertise to help others in related job through crowdsourcing. There are many
crowdsourcing platforms available nowadays such as Mechanical Turk, Topcoder,
32 Utilizing Crowdsourcing in Education: Academic Retiree … 351
CloudCrowd, YourPartTime, MyKerja, Edusource and CloudFlower. This platform

is used widely towards capturing the ideas of users and participants in contributing
their knowledge, completing task, and providing feedbacks for a project, platform,
or services.
In recent years, crowdsourcing has emerged as an online problem solving and
production model (Brabham 2008). Crowdsourcing is a new web-based model that
can integrate all the expertise (crowds) into a creative solution of an individual
distributed network through solving several problems which are raised up by any
individual or organization (the crowd) and is called as open call (Howe 2006).
Hosseini et al. (2014) stated that the crowdsourcing is categorized into four pillars:
the crowd, the crowdsourcer, the crowdsourcing task, and the crowdsourcing
platform. The crowd’s participation in crowdsourcing plays a vital part in deter-
mining the successfulness of a platform. It relies on their skills, experiences, and
knowledge in the domain (Hosseini et al. 2014).
In other words, the individual or an organization will post their problems online,
a mass of individuals will offer a solution to the respective problem and the winning
ideas will receive a reward. To simplify, crowdsourcing happens when (Brabham
2013; Hosseini et al. 2014):
• An organization has task or project that needs to be completed
• An online community voluntarily performs the task
• The result is a mutual benefit for the organization and the online community
• The crowd will be rewarded in completing the task.
The crowd will be awarded with money (Brabham 2013; Zaidan and
Callison-Burch 2011), tangible benefits, and pleasure (Afridi 2012), besides the
credibility earned (Yuen et al. 2011) in completing the tasks given and solving the
problem given. Through crowdsourcing, workers have the flexibility of doing work
24/7 as well as choosing locations and duration of their own preference. It also
provides an additional income to complement existing income (Arshad et al. 2014).
But somehow, these crowds assist the individual or organization without expecting
any reward besides benevolence (Bretschneider et al. 2014).
Retirement in Academic Context
Retirement is considered to be a major life transition, marking the boundary
between work and rest. This is also argued by Rowson (2013) who stated that if the
older people, especially the academic retiree retain their health and live in an
environment which promotes their active participation, they can act as a valuable
resource contributing to society with their experience, skills, and wisdom. Time of
academic retirement is one of the main consideration to recruit new worker due to
the reason that age of retirement varies considerably. This was fixed between more
than a year and less than 6 years in retirement. Therefore, the experience of
retirement is still fairly recent, opportunities for continuity are still present and
major age-related concerns not yet playing a central role in life (Rowson 2013).
Therefore, in this scenario, institution of higher learning will continuously form

networks which interactively collaborate the researchers and stakeholders
(Arokiasamy et al. 2011) in knowledge development and sharing in order to pro-
duce quality graduated students. The organization might lose their skills and
experiences worker (Tizard and Owen 2001; Rowson 2013) if the organization does
not have proper planning to retain these vital knowledge. It may be difficult,
expensive, and impossible to recover the knowledge (McQuade et al. 2007) from
the academicians who have knowledge in their heads but no longer work for the
institutions. Most academic staff continue to use their academic skill in different
areas and environments such as industry and private practice. Some of them work
through a series of jobs and retired several times (Tizard and Owen 2001).
Although there are a lot of advantages of retirement, higher learning institutions
also need to address the disvalued among the academic retiree (Tizard and Owen
2001) once they leave the university.
Problem Statement
Previous study has reported by Davies and Jenkins (2013) that at one time, aca-
demics’ careers might have been considered to be “boundary-less”. Perhaps, the
boundaries between work and nonwork can be blurred and the nature of the aca-
demic role is often open ended. Survey conducted by Rowson (2013) has shown
that the academicians continue to use their specialized skills and knowledge in
different activities in retirement. Other factors found to be influencing early aca-
demic retiree have been explored in several studies. Huisman et al. (2016) argues
that intention to leave the academic profession is high in higher learning institutions
due to some reasons such as joining other professions, unwillingness to pursue a
similar line of work, or finding other sources of income.
More recently, literature has emerged that some studies offer contradictory
findings about reasons of these academicians continue to work later in life, such as
financial pressures on pension schemes from an aging population, labor shortfalls,
and skills shortages (Brown et al. 2011), dissatisfaction with changes in the uni-
versities and financial inducements (Tizard and Owen 2001). The issue has grown
of importance in light of recent shortage of qualified workers (Wang et al. 2014)
and has been offered a better job abroad (Tizard and Owen 2001). This scenario in
Malaysia is no different.
It has been conclusively shown by McQuade et al. (2007) that whenever these
academicians retired, the institution of higher learning will experience three top
loss: (1) loss of an expert employee with knowledge of the products and processes
of the company, (2) loss of customer and supplier contacts, relationships and
established trust, and (3) loss of understanding of the informal personnel networks.
It is clear from the previous studies above that the major concern about the aca-
demic retiree loss is not about the technical and professional knowledge, but also
loss of the undocumented and underlying knowledge gained from the experience
and profitable engagement.
To date, there has been little agreement on the uses of crowdsourcing for aca-
demic retiree. How many academic retirees such as professor, teachers, educators,
and other professionals, would still like to contribute? How many people love
education have valuable skills and expertise, but work in fields outside of educa-
tion? How can they contribute and share the knowledge, expertise and skill gained
from the previous engagement with public? How can the continuation of the
involvement of older academics in the universities be best facilitated? As the
concerns raised, it is significant to study the retirement of academicians where the
nature of their work allows for flexibility and provides the scope for alternative
work arrangements in late career and retirement. Specifically, the findings of this
study would clarify the significance of individual and organizational factors in
determining academics’ career advancement.
Objectives of This Study
This research focuses on the knowledge sharing and the willingness of future
academic retiree in UiTM Cawangan Pahang to contribute their knowledge and
expertise to help others in related job through crowdsourcing. The reason on
choosing UiTM Cawangan Pahang is universities is an organization that promotes
knowledge creation through research and delivered it to society by publication
(Mansor et al. 2015). It is also an organization that transfers knowledge through
communicating with the business players in order to upkeep the modernization and
transformation of nation, as well as support learning process through research,
teaching, and training. Thus, this research takes this opportunity to choose UiTM
Pahang as the chosen university to fill the gap in the research problem. This
research also aims to examine the issue of motivation that inspires the future
academic retiree to share.
2 Methodology
A methodological approach using both quantitative and qualitative data collection

was adapted and analysis was done using ATLAS.ti and IBM SPSS Statistic for this
research. This research was conducted using an in-depth interview with selected
respondents from UiTM Cawangan Pahang. Respondents were selected from few
different faculties who have the retirement plan within 5 years, including
Professors, Associate Professor, Senior Lecturers, and Lecturer. Time of retirement
is one of the main considerations to recruit new worker due to the reason that age of
retirement varies considerably. This was fixed between more than a year and less
than 6 years in retirement. Therefore, the experience of retirement is still fairly
recent, opportunities for continuity are still present and major age-related concerns
not yet playing a central role in life (Rowson 2013). All respondents were inter-
viewed face to face, voice recorded and then transcribed for the purpose of coding
and analysis, and later being used in the discussion of findings.
This research aims to examine the transition from work to retirement, paying
particular attention to how retirement leads to the continuity and the lifestyle of
future retiree academics in UiTM Cawangan Pahang. The research question was
adapted from Mansor et al. (2015) and Rowson (2013) with regard focusing in three
main topics; (1) reason to retire, (2) motivation to share knowledge and expertise,
(3) involvement and knowledge contribution through crowdsourcing, and (4) top
management encouragement and culture. The adapted question has been chosen
due to the similarities of research scope and to reveal the willingness of future
academic retiree on participating in crowdsourcing. The finding will be reported
and hopefully due to the depth of information from the respondents, this research
can suggest additional or new element to this area of research.
Profile of Respondents
Respondents were selected from different faculties, based on the retirement plan
within 5 years, including Professors, Associate Professor, Senior Lecturers, and
Lecturer. See Table 1.
For the question on “How do you see retirement?”, it was discovered that most
respondents defined “retirement” as part of paying attention and take the
Table 1 Profile of respondents

Respondent Status Position Faculty Year of
code grade pension
R1 Associate DM54 Faculty of applied science 2017
professor (science)
R2 Senior DM52 Faculty of applied science 2017
lecturer (science)
R3 Senior DM52 Faculty of civil engineering 2018
lecturer
R4 Associate DM54 Faculty of applied science 2019
professor (science)
R5 Senior DM52 Faculty of business and 2020
lecturer management
R6 Lecturer DM45 Faculty of law 2020
R7 Senior DM52 Faculty of computer and 2017
lecturer mathematical sciences
R8 Lecturer DM45 Faculty of business and 2021
management
R9 Lecturer DM45 Academy of language studies 2020
R10 Senior DM52 Academy of language studies 2022
lecturer
opportunities to spend more time and effort on the things that they love, and to
pursue other interests in their life, sit back and enjoy the high time on relaxing (R1,
R2, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, and R10).
I am looking forward! This is a time where I am going to spend on reading all my classic
Islamic kitab. Encyclopedia from my Islamic library and my opportunity to set involve in
charity work and Islamic activities (R3).
Reasons to Retire
Various responses were given by respondents for leaving employment as they were
allowed to provide with more than one reason. Table 2 summarizes the reasons
given by them in proposing the retirement.
As illustrated above, the main reason to retire is due to age, which is reaching the
minimum and compulsory retirement age of Malaysian government; 55–60 years
old. From the survey, 90% (n = 9) confirmed that reaching the retirement age was
among their reasons to retire. They expressed that reaching the retirement age
allowed them to have the more freedom in pursuing other passions while they are
still motivated and energetic, such as releasing stress, involving in religious
activities, having more time to read, spending time with family and socializing with
friends. Apparently, 90% (n = 9) of the respondents agree that they need more time
for academic writing and doing desired research to disseminate the knowledge they
owned.
I would love to write and share my expert and findings through publication, unless it is not
within my working hours (R8)
It has been convincingly shown by Thuan et al. (2013) that top management
needs to identify the future academic retiree and group them into a skillful cluster
according to their expertise and help the university to contribute the valuable
knowledge internally or externally to the society. Research found that the working
hours with overloaded work were the barriers for academician and future academic
retiree in UiTM Cawangan Pahang to contribute and participate in knowledge
sharing via web platform or formal event.
Table 2 Reasons to retire

Reason Frequency of responses (%)
Reached “retirement age” 100 (n = 10)
Stress or illness of self or a family member 50 (n = 5)
Dissatisfaction with aspects of work situation 20 (n = 2)
Wanted more time for academic writing and research 90 (n = 9)
Favorable financial settlement Pressure 10 (n = 1)
Pressure from department/university 0 (n = 0)
We are the teaching university. Top management has decided for us to teach and doing
writing at the same time. But if they know that writing requires a lot of time, they should
reduce our P and P (teaching and learning) and make us decide which path of work we want
to go (R4)
With the recommendation above, the future academic retiree is still motivated to
contribute and share knowledge after retiring to the young worker, society, stake-
holders, and business players in any platform which is suitable for them
Motivation to Share
A question “What motivates you to participate in knowledge sharing?” was asked.
Based on the findings, respondents will share their knowledge if they are approa-
ched or invited to share (R4, R5, R6, R8, R9 and R10), share more when they have
closer relationship such as close friend and peer group (R1 and R3), and share more
when they have confident or know better knowledge than others (R2 and R7). The
respondents also expressed their thought which has been identified as barriers to
share knowledge among colleagues.
I think that everyone want to share their knowledge. But somehow, the overloaded work
that we have carried out previously, makes you don’t have enough time. Publication,
research, sixteen (16) hours of teaching, supervising, all those secretariat and position
which you need to hold. Do you think we have much time to share? (R2)
The level of perceiving and implementing knowledge sharing behavior among

academician in the university exists but is not openly or strongly practiced due to
encouragement of the university’s top management and current workload to ful-
filled. As been suggested by Weld et al. (2012), education is an exciting approach
for crowdsourcing research; (1) crowd techniques will be required in order to
deliver quality education in some areas, (2) existing techniques are ready for
application to this new area, and (3) online education represents a new unexplored
way of creating crowds. Therefore, academician should take this opportunity and
implement into their teaching and learning process in the class or outside the class
in order to produce a quality graduates with independent skills to endure in future
work environment.
A question “What reward will you get for participating in knowledge sharing?”
was asked. Most of the respondents prefer to have a satisfaction after contributing
the knowledge and experiences with other in order to solve problem (R2, R3, R4,
R5, R8, R9 and R10). Other than that, one respondent prefers monetary reward
(R11) and one respondent prefers to have a certification (R7) after completing the
sharing session.
Knowledge Contribution Through Crowdsourcing
As being emphasized in the previous section, crowdsourcing is a type of partici-
pative online activity involving an individual, an institution, a nonprofit organiza-
tion (NGO), or a company proposing their ideas and problems to be solved, and
require the crowd, online people who are willing to help, assist, support, and
participate in contributing their ideas, works, knowledge, money, experience, and
expertise (Brabham 2013). At the end of the completed tasks, the crowd will gain
satisfaction, social recognition, self-esteem, development of individual skills,
monetary or small gift as a token of appreciation. To cater the awareness of these
future academic retiree towards crowdsourcing, the researcher asked “Have you
ever contributed your knowledge or helping others in solving problem via online
social media or online platform?”. 30% (n = 3) of the respondents have used online
social media or online platform to help the crowd and share their knowledge with
others who might need it.
I used online social network such as Facebook to contribute my knowledge among close
friends only (R3)
Through the current online social media network, Facebook, email, WhatsApp, by pro-
viding and sharing my niche of expertise and knowledge (R8)
Helping young or new lecturer to better performed their lecturing (R5)
Unfortunately, 80% (n = 8) of the respondent did not prefer to share their

knowledge using online, due to age factor, resistance to change, and lack of
competency in communicating via social media, they prefer to have a face-to-face
communication in order to disseminate the knowledge.
I do not like to go online (R9)
I am not active on social media (R10)
As been highlighted by Raus et al. (2016), crowdsourcing in teaching and

learning process can also been conducted by using any media tools such as blog,
website, and social network such as Facebook. The barriers faced by the future
academic retiree are to learn the new ICT tools to facilitate teaching, sharing
knowledge and the students learning should be undertaken by the universities top
management. Conducting tutorial and training classes would somehow reduce the
resistance to change among senior lecturers or aging academician whose comfort is
to remain with the old-fashioned of teaching and learning.
Top Management Encouragement and Culture
In order to seek for the top management encouragement towards universities and
academicians, a question of “Do you think the culture that we have in the faculty is
one of the reasons why people share their knowledge?” was asked. 60% (n = 6) of
the respondents agreed that their faculties had held an informal session and a
platform for academicians to share their knowledge and expertise through a col-
loquium or sharing session. By having these events, academicians were indirectly
acknowledged about the significant of knowledge sharing in society. The finding
found that only 40% (n = 4) of the respondents agree that their top management
encourage them to share and contribute their knowledge internally and externally
such as using social media and web platform. It shows that the top management has
to put a lot of effort in giving awareness, encouragement, and support to the future
academic retiree in order to share their knowledge, as emphasized by McQuade
et al. (2007) previously. It is also responsible for the top management to keep this
undocumented and underlying knowledge and experience from the future academic
retiree in a form of database which can be easily retrieved by the future worker once
the academicians is retired or quit. As an additional, the researcher has asked a
question “If you decided to completely retire and not to go back, will you still do
anything for the university?”. 40% (n = 4) of the respondents did not want to
continue their profession once retired and they prefer to find a nearby organization
or university with their home, if and only they want to pursue their profession.
4 Conclusion
The involvement of the academic retiree in prolonging their contribution academ-

ically in the society is necessary especially in letting them promoting the concept of
crowdsourcing deliberately. Respondents confirmed that reaching the retirement
age was among their reasons to retire and allowed them to have the more freedom in
pursuing other passions. Unfortunately, they did not prefer to share their knowledge
using online, due to age factor, resistance to change, and lack of competency in
communicating via social media and they prefer to have a face-to-face communi-
cation in order to disseminate the knowledge. Academic retiree should be given
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demic retiree, it is hoped that the quality of education and learning system will
achieve higher standard, thus benefit the society in the knowledge sharing.
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Chapter 33
Sustainable Global Human Resource:
The Impact of Power Distance
on Work–Family Balance
Hooi Ching Khor and Azura Abdullah Effendi
Abstract The aim of this conceptual paper is to draw the attention of researchers,
employers, and human resource policy makers to one of Hofstede’s cultural
dimensions, power distance, from a communication perspective. Power distance is
believed to facilitate the ability of employees in balancing their work and family
life. It is possible to view this factor as either a barrier or a catalyst for the
accessibility and utilization of an organization’s human resource family-supportive
policies to achieve the desired and satisfied work and family life integration. The
level of power distance may either facilitates ones’ resource gain to experience
positive work–family spillover or resource depletion which leads to negative
work–family spillover. Power distance is proposed to have a buffering effect on the
relationship between family-supportive policy and work–family balance (WFB) to
unveil the possible reasons behind inconsistent findings in prior research. Besides
this, the level of power distance is also proposed to have a predictive effect on
WFB. The theoretical and practical importance and implications of power distance
are addressed.

Keywords Family-supportive policy Human resource Power distance

Retention initiative Work–family balance
1 Introduction
Human resource employment and retention initiatives have been undertaken by

multinational corporations (MNCs) for their business competency and sustainability
with least expenses on the hiring and training cost. There is growing attention on
H. C. Khor (&)
Faculty of Business and Finance, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: khorhc@utar.edu.my
A. Abdullah Effendi
School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
e-mail: azura_e@usm.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_33
362 H. C. Khor and A. Abdullah Effendi
employees’ work–family balance (WFB) to maintain employees’ organization

commitment and minimizing their turnover (Chen et al. 2015). Family-supportive
policies have been designed and family-supportive culture is cultivated for meeting
the aforementioned goals to make the organization as an attractive workplace to
work with.
The success of the organization initiatives seems not always promising. Despite
family-supportive policy appearing to help employees to balance their work and
family life, the benefit of such policy may not be realized by all employees. In fact,
individuals have differential value, needs, and preference on work and family lives,
and thus, they experience distinctive WFB (Odle-Dusseau et al. 2012) which may
result in discrepancy between the actual and the desired work–family policy
accessibility that have impact on individuals WFB experience (McNamara et al.
2013; Odle-Dusseau et al. 2012). The incongruence may be attributed by other
important cultural dimensions such as power distance, a cultural dimension that was
articulated by Hofstede (1983) which researchers seem to have overlooked. High
power distance culture in which people have strong acceptance of unequal power
distribution (Hofstede 1983) tends to inhibit supervisor–subordinate communica-
tion (Chudnovskaya and O’Hara 2016) in which subordinates’ work and family
life’ needs and their preference of family- supportive policy may not be commu-
nicated with superior.
International relocations and assignments across countries occur among
employees in MNCs (Fischlmayr and Kollinger 2010; Schütter and Boerner 2013).
They face challenges in managing their work and family lives to adapt the global
cultural environment (Fischlmayr and Kollinger 2010; Schütter and Boerner 2013)
which may result in international assignment withdrawal (Shaffer et al. 2001). Prior
researches rather focus on global careers’ and their family’s cultural adjustment
(Pinto et al. 2012). Lack of attention is given on global career talents’ retention and
withdrawal intention reduction in work–family interface literature. In fact, their
cultural adjustment ability related to their work and family life interaction
(Fischlmayr and Kollinger 2010). Failure to cope with work–family conflict
(WFC) could lead to withdrawal intention (Shaffer et al. 2001).
This conceptual paper aims to draw researchers’ attention on power distance
culture in work–family research. Furthermore, this research paper provides avenue
for explaining in depth pertaining communication and negotiation process to
examine the effectiveness of the family-supportive policy implementation in MNCs
to enable employees with global careers to effectively mitigate WFC and better
achievement of WFB to minimize their employees’ international assignment
withdrawal intention. Besides, this paper also aims to propose the role of power
distance as a potential moderator and WFC as mediator for the aforementioned
research.
33 Sustainable Global Human Resource: The Impact of Power Distance … 363
2 Literature Review
Culture and Work–Family Conflict (WFC)

Culture is “acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and
generate social behavior in which the knowledge forms values, creates attitudes, and
influence behavior” (Hodgetts et al. 2006). It is an external and more stable resource
over time. Family-supportive culture generally refers to the shared assumptions,
beliefs, and values in which an organization is supportive to employees’ work and
family life integration (Thompson et al. 1999). The culture enables employees to
integrate their work and family lives and experience less WFC or interference
(McNamara et al. 2013; Thompson et al. 1999). WFC has been defined as “a form of
inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are
mutually incompatible” (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985).
WFC involves both directions of work-to-family conflict (W-to-F) and
family-to-work conflict (F-to-W) (Greenhaus and Beutell 1985; Netemeyer et al.
1996). W-to-F refers to “a form of interrole conflict in which the general demands
of, time devoted to, and strain created by the job interfere with performing
family-related responsibilities” while F-to-W refers to have “… created by the
family interfere with performing work-related responsibilities respectively”
(Netemeyer et al. 1996). Prior meta-analysis and comparison study revealed that
F-to-W is higher in countries with more collectivistic culture in which those
countries are also found to be high level of power distance cultural value in
comparison with those in more individualistic culture with low level of power
distance (Hassan et al. 2010). W-to-F is reported significantly lower in Malaysian
sample (high power distance) than do westerners (low power distance) (Hassan
et al. 2010). Aryee et al. (1999) study reveals the differential effect of WFC between
employees in high and low power distance in which W-to-F and F-to-W was found
to influence the well-being of Hong Kong (high power distance) employees and U.
S. (low power distance) employees, respectively. Those eastern countries with high
power distance national culture orientation have weaker effect of F-to-W on W-to-F
and have stronger effect of W-to-F on F-to-W than the western countries with low
power distance cultural orientation in Hill et al. (2004) study. The impact of job
workload on W-to-F is also indicated much stronger for westerners than do east-
erners. Korean mothers (high power distance) experience lowest levels of positive
work–family spillover and experience highest depression compared to Israeli and
American mothers (low power distance) (O’Brien et al. 2014).
Power Distance and Supervisor–Subordinate Communication
Employee voice behaviors seem to be affected by the level of power distance in
prior studies (Botero and Van Dyne 2009; Brockner et al. 2001; Ji et al. 2015).
Communication between supervisors and subordinates is more encouraging with
low power distance cultural orientation than high power distance cultural orienta-
tion. Communication breakdown between supervisor and subordinates exists in
countries that have strong belief of high power distance orientation as the com-
munication style tends to be top-down rather than horizontal communication
(Chudnovskaya and O’Hara 2016). Under high power distance culture, supervisors
have unlimited power and control. Thus, subordinates have such unquestioning
attitude, accept what have been told, and hardly voice their views which lead to
poor quality decision due to lack information sharing from subordinates.
Low power distance cultural value and belief is more favorable in supervisor–
subordinate communication than high power distance (Botero and Van Dyne 2009;
Chudnovskaya and O’Hara 2016; Ji et al. 2015). Higher willingness to commu-
nicate with supervisors the information, opinions and ideas for changes, and high
leader-member exchange (LMX) only motivate subordinates’ communication with
supervisors in low rather than high power distance (Botero and Van Dyne 2009). Ji
et al. (2015) indicate such communication fosters good relationship, cognitive and
affective-based trust building on supervisor’s ability as well as trust in supervisor
support that assist employees to achieve WFB. It is believed to reduce employees’
fear of life difficulties disclosure upon work and family life arrangements as well as
reduce the risk of incompetent perception by superior and career advancement.
Thus, Ji et al. (2015) reported that low power distance is valuable resource as it
encourages instrumental and emotional assistance sought by employees from their
superiors. Conversely, communication between supervisor and subordinates in high
power distance culture are apparently more on task orientation than human orien-
tation which their communication is more on daily work matters than outside the
job matters, and subordinates often use avoidance messages as they are fear or
passive in communicating with their supervisors (Ji et al. 2015) for work and
nonwork matters such as family life conditions which restrict the relationship
building and trust development with their superiors.
Proposition 1: Power distance has influence on the supervisor–subordinate
communication.
Family-Supportive Policy, Supervisor–Subordinate Communication, Power
Distance, and Work–Family Balance
Family-supportive policy is initiated to attract and retain talented workforce which
resolve employees’ problem of fulfilling their work and family role responsibilities.
The policy includes leave arrangements, dependent care services, and flexible work
scheduling or arrangements such as flextime (flexible in work time alteration),
flexplace (flexibility regarding where work is completed), compressed work week,
part-time, contract, and shift work (Raghuram et al. 2001; Shockley and Allen
2010). Family-supportive policies act as resources that enable employees to gain
other resources (e.g., time and energy) like flextime allows employees to allocate
time for family activities and better manage both work and family lives (Shockley
and Allen 2010), and reduce withdrawal intention and WFC (Thompson et al.
1999).
Despite favorable effect generated by family-supportive policy, its influence on
WFC remains inconclusive (Allen et al. 2013; Shockley and Allen 2010). Shaffer
et al. (2001) have reported that expatriates quit from their international assignments
due to their personal life difficulties such as family responsibility, their spouse
adjustment, and satisfaction as well as living conditions which caused the failure of
international assignments. The use of flextime is more prevalent among those who
have high family responsibilities and need for occupational achievement than those
who have similar need but low family responsibilities (Shockley and Allen 2010).
Employees experience WFC when the actual family hours and work hours spent in
family and work life, respectively, do not match with their desired hours spent in
family and work life, respectively (Odle-Dusseau et al. 2012). The discrepancy may
be attributed by employees’ differential role value held (e.g., highly valued work
roles, highly valued family roles or highly valued work and family roles) that make
a difference on employees' WFB experiences and lack of fit between the
family-supportive policy and the individuals’ role value (Odle-Dusseau et al. 2012)
owing to lack of supervisor’s understanding their subordinates’ role value held and
their role investment. The flexible work options that fit employees’ need will
mitigate the negative effect of long work hours on employees’ WFB satisfaction
(McNamara et al. 2013). Furthermore, the remedy of flexible options has been
found different to WFC experiences (Shockley and Allen 2007). Family-supportive
policy is a valuable resource to employees when it is truly helpful to overcome life
difficulties based on their differential desires and needs and they are still able to
work as well as perform international assignment.
Flexible arrangement becomes resource depletion when they are expected by
family members to take charge of more family-related tasks which increase their
family responsibilities that contribute to the intensity of WFC (Allen et al. 2013).
Inconsistent perception was found on flextime as segmentation policy among
employees who have strong desire of work–family segmentation in prior research
(Rothbard et al. 2005; Shockley and Allen 2010). Flextime was reported as seg-
menting policy in Rothbard et al. (2005). However, the policy was instead per-
ceived to be as integrating policy in Shockley and Allen’s (2010) study. In addition,
the effect of flextime was much stronger than flexplace in reducing W-to-F within
flexible work arrangements options (Shockley and Allen 2007).
Despite family-supportive policy is available, the use of the policy is still within
the supervisor discretion. Flexi policy may not be helpful when it is granted by
supervisor without employees’ selection (Tausig and Fenwick 2001). The access of
the desired policy options appears to be restricted by high power distance barrier as
employees have imbalanced negotiation power with supervisors (Chudnovskaya
and O’Hara 2016). Shift work arrangement and part-time work were found more
salient in those European countries with high power distance and low power dis-
tance culture respectively (Raghuram et al. 2001).
The supervisor–subordinate communication that involves construction and
maintenance in communication process is crucial for the successful negotiation on
accessing the family-supportive policy to maintain the desired work–family
boundary and WFB (Kreiner et al. 2009). Lack of policy practice or fit between the
benefit granted to employees and their preferences and needs due to their voices have
not been communicated to their superior in high power distance oriented organi-
zation. Employees accept what the superior said and assigned, and lack of honest
discussion with superiors (Chudnovskaya and O’Hara 2016). In fact, change could
be made if subordinates are willing to be honest in communication with superiors
when they are assured by their superior that no risk is exposed to them. Employees in
low power distance culture react more unfavorably such as less committed to
organization than those in high power distance do when their voice is restricted in
decision-making process (Brockner et al. 2001). In addition, the employees’ voice
and power distance culture interaction has impact on the employees’ work attitude
and job performance (Brockner et al. 2001). Low level of power distance is expected
to foster the employees’ willingness to disclose their personal life experiences and
difficulties to their superiors and give suggestion for the change of MNCs’ current
family-supportive policy and bring in new policy which is more effective for dealing
with their family life. In addition, such level of power distance is expected to be more
conducive to the supervisor–subordinate communication, negotiation power per-
ception, relationship, and trust building than those in higher level of power distance
(Botero and Van Dyne 2009; Brockner et al. 2001; Ji et al. 2015). Thus, employees
in low level of power distance are expected to easily access the desired flexible
arrangements and to alleviate their WFC and achieve better WFB.
Prior studies which have the positive findings in regard to family-supportive
policy that successfully mitigate WFC were conducted in U.K. and U.S. with low
power distance cultural orientation (Kinman and Jones 2008). Such significant
effect was not found in high power distance oriented country such as Hong Kong
(Luk and Shaffer 2005). Another study on low power distance oriented national
culture like New Zealand has reported significant effect for the usage of the policy
(O’Driscoll et al. 2003). Owing to the frequent and encouraging communication
between supervisor and subordinate which more likely exists in low power distance
cultural orientation compared to high power distance orientation, supervisor tends
to accommodate subordinates’ desire and needs to enable their subordinates to have
a better arrangement between their work and family life. Thus, subordinates tend to
benefit from their desired family-supportive policy and consequently experience
less WFC and international assignment withdrawal intention in low power distance
cultural orientation.
Proposition 2: Low power distance culture has negative relationship with
international assignment withdrawal intention.
Proposition 3: Low power distance culture strengthens the negative relationship
between family-supportive policy and WFC.
Family-Supportive Policy, Work–Family Conflict, and International
Assignment Withdrawal Intention
International assignment involves physical relocation of expatriates and their entire
family if they are accompanied by their family members. It requires expatriates and
their spouse and children to be able for the cross-cultural adjustment, a state of
psychological comfort and familiarity that individual possesses to ease of new
environment adaption (Schütter and Boerner 2013). Both types of WFC are exerted
among expatriates when holding international assignments due to work demand
such as new work roles, high pressure on their work performance with lack of
knowledge of norms and rules, and high performance standards and expectations in
host country which interfere their family life (Fischlmayr and Kollinger 2010).
Besides, disruption of traditional gender role ideology held which women expa-
triates are expected to take up more family role responsibilities than men expatriates
do, and lack of social support due to failure of social adaption in host country which
increase expatriates’ work and family role responsibilities, and the pressures which
are derived from spouse employment problem and schooling for children in host
countries interfere their work and family lives (Schütter and Boerner 2013).
Expatriates’ successful work and family lives management reduces their interna-
tional assignment withdrawal intention (Shaffer et al. 2001).
WFC is expected to be a mechanism of the relationship between
family-supportive policy and international assignment withdrawal intention based
on Baron and Kenny (1986) criteria of mediating effect examination. The rela-
tionship between family-supportive policy and withdrawal intention exists
(Thompson et al. 1999). Besides, family-supportive policy also has relationship
with WFC (Thompson et al. 1999) while WFC is related to international assignment
withdrawal intention (Parakandi and Behery 2016; Shaffer et al. 2001). In other
words, employees who work in MNCs which family-supportive policy available to
be accessed are expected to experience less WFC, in turn, less international
assignment withdrawal intention. In addition, prior research provides some support
that WFC has mediating effect on the relationship of resource (e.g., work–family
culture) and employees’ cognition (e.g., perceived stress) (Voydanoff 2005). As
family-supportive policy is a resource while withdrawal intention is cognition, thus,
the following proposition is formed.
Proposition 4: There is a mediating effect of WFC on the relationship between
family-supportive policy and international assignment withdrawal intention.
3 Discussion and Conclusion
Hofstede’s (1983) low power distance culture favors the communication between
superior and subordinate which could better reinforce the reduction of WFC than
high power distance culture. Family-supportive policy fosters WFB and, in turn,
helps MNCs create sustainable workforce to retain human capital and save turnover
cost (Watanabe and Falci 2016). MNCs and researchers are suggested to look into
the home’s superordinate culture and host countries’ subcultures of subsidiaries to
tackle the gap and the inconsistency of the effects of supervisor support and
family-supportive policy on WFB for necessarily procedural adjustment to grant the
benefits. The knowledge is useful for the decision on universal policy design for all
subsidiaries or sub-policy with some modification to suit the local conditions.
Besides, the knowledge of power distance culture is important to nurture organi-
zational culture that motivates supervisor–subordinate communication to assure
employees the usage of their favored work–family policy without the fear of
negative consequences.
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Chapter 34
Cultural Adjustment and Work
Productivity Among Migrant Academics
in Higher Educational Institutions
A. M. Sultana
Abstract The purpose of this study is to discuss cultural adjustment and work
productivity among the migrant academics in higher educational institutions in
Malaysia. Migrant academics in the higher education institution are unrepresented.
Therefore, they have been remained undocumented in the analysis in the university
space in Malaysian aspect. The article draws on the narratives of 46 migrant
academics from 9 different countries who teach several universities in Malaysia.
First, the article seeks to determine the cultural adjustment and academic freedom
facing migrant academic in their institutions. Second, the article examines migrant
academics’ expressions of their work productivity and development efforts to in the
host country. The findings suggest that there are several programs could be designed
to assist the migrant academics to adapt to their new cultural setting.
Keywords Academic performance Cultural adjustment Language barriers

Academic Higher educational
1 Introduction
The aim of the discussion is cultural adjustment and work productivity efforts
among migrant academics in the higher educational institutions. In recent decades,
migration has become an increasingly important phenomenon across the developed
as well as in the developing world. Research is cultural adjustment and work
productivity among migrant academics is an important aspect in the higher edu-
cation institutions settings in Malaysia. Although migrant academics tend to have
the positive impacts on the academic world, studies showed that they are confronted
cultural barrier in their institutions (Omolade 2012).
A. M. Sultana (&)
Faculty of Arts Social Science, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti,
Bandar Barat, 31900 Perak, Kampar, Malaysia
e-mail: sultana@utar.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_34
372 A. M. Sultana
Migrant academician face a range of challenges such as promotion, tenure,

academic advancement, and the adjustment of the new culture and environment
(Jyothi and Neelakantan 2014; Mohr and Klein 2004; Copeland and Norell 2002)
showed that adjustment involves reduction of uncertainty associated with evolving
in a new environment, and the ability to negotiate interactive aspects of the host
culture. According to Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al. (2005), cultural adjustment is
influenced by several factors such as previous international experience and training.
In a recent study, Takeuchi et al. (2010) identified partner and family adjustment in
abroad as a critical factor related to expatriate adjustment. However, number of
recent studies supported that the female expatriates may not be able to adjust to the
host country culture and would thus be less successful abroad than their male
counterparts (Kollinger and Linehan 2008).
A critical issue facing by many migrant academician is the language barrier.
Murray et al. (2001) stated that despite the increasing use of English in various
spheres of social life, and especially in the professional context, the ability to speak
the language of the region in which the expatriate evolves is still crucial to opti-
mally interact with local people. Pellico and Stroh (1997) also supported that
migrant expatriate face job related obstacles such as cultural and language barriers.
According to Konanahalli et al. (2012) an expatriate needs to adjust his/her
behavior to the norms and rules of the host nation. The author further added that
failure to adjust will result in early return prior to assignment completion, poor job
performance, and low levels of satisfaction. On the other hand, successful adjust-
ment will result in integration of some elements of expatriate original culture with
that of the host country (Konanahalli et al. 2012). As a result, well-adjusted
expatriates are able to perform effectively. In line with, the present study attempts to
investigate the cultural adjustment among the migrant academics in the higher
educational institutions and how they balance their work productivity in their
working institutions.
2 Literature Review
The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between cultural

adjustment and work productivity efforts among migrant academics in the higher
educational institutions. The cultural adjustment refers to experience of groups of
migratory people who are able to work effectively and live comfortably in a place
that is new and unfamiliar to them. The immigrant cultural adjustment cannot be
understood without an in-depth look at cultural shock. Cultural shock can be
defined as the anxiety that results when people lose those familiar signs and
symbols of social intercourse that they are not actually conscious of (Oberg 1960).
However, several previous studies proved a progressive relationship between
cultural shock and adjustment (Searle and Ward 1990). Cultural shock experienced
by migrant academics is common feature in the academic institutions. Common
problems reported in the literature include academic problems, cultural identity
34 Cultural Adjustment and Work Productivity Among Migrant … 373
conflict, social withdrawal, depression, anxiety, and interpersonal relationship (Zapf

1991). Thus, cultural adjustment is one of the factors influence migrant academics
and migrant skilled workers in the host country.
Studies showed that cultural differences can lead to problems in adjusting to the
host culture and in a low performance in their international assignment (Waxin
2004). The present study focuses on migrant academic expatriates who are expe-
rienced with cultural adjustment and language barrier in Malaysian Higher edu-
cational institutions. Previous studies showed that expatriates suffer from changes
such as food, language, working/living environment, manners to deal with people,
and things both work and nonwork related (Lueke and Svyantek 2000).
However, lack of adjustment to local culture may influence migrant academics
work productivity and quality of life. Lueke and Svyantek (2000) identified lack of
adjustment to local culture is a main reason causing expatriates to be unfulfilled with
their work and life abroad. The authors further elaborated that most unsuccessful
expatriates tend to be reluctant to interact with host nationals and to participate in
local social life, which reduces their commitments to the host countries’ culture.
Young (1996) identified lack of motivation to work abroad among American and
Japanese expatriates overseas which might be affected by one’s adaptation to the host
culture and other family related problems. Moreover, cross-cultural adjustment may
lead among the migrant academics that may influence on their achievement.
Holopainen and Bjorkman (2005) argued that when expatriates suffer from psy-
chological feelings and struggling with cross-cultural adjustment, they may fail to
fulfill their tasks and, depending of individual personality factors, become depressed.
Holopainen and Bjorkman (2005) further found positive relationships between
expatriates’ ability to tolerate stress and their achievement overseas. In line with this
circumstances, the present study attempts to investigate migrant academics’ cultural
adjustment and work productivity at higher educational institutions which is little
known in Malaysia.
A total of 46 academicians from six higher educational institutions in Malaysia

were selected as the respondents for this study. The study was based on primary
data collection and it was a mixed method approach. Both qualitative and quanti-
tative methods employed in this study. Qualitative data was collected through the
in-depth interview using structured questionnaires while questionnaires were used
to collect the quantitative information. A Likert scale has been adopted from other
studies (Levinson and Huffman 1995; Linder et al. 1995). A total of six items were
developed to measure the cultural adjustment and challenges while a total of ten
items were developed for measuring the work productivity and development among
the migrant academics. A five-point Likert format were carried out in term of agree,
strongly agree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, and strongly disagree are
presented the values of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. Cronbach’s alpha reliability
374 A. M. Sultana
test was run to determine the internal consistency of the instrument. According to
Babbie (1995), reliability is a particular technique and the instruments are able to
yield stable results when they are used in different circumstances such as different
populations and time. Similarly, according to Ary et al. (1990), an instrument is
reliable to the extent that the scores made by the respondents remain approximately
the same in repeated measurements.
Sequential mixed methods data collection strategies involved in data collection

whereby the data collected in one phase contribute to the data collected in the next.
This approach to research was used as this integration provides a better under-
standing of the research problem in this study. With respect to the cultural
adjustment and challenges, we interviewed the academics at the six higher edu-
cational institutions. During the in-depth interview most of respondents stated “We
are always afraid for contract renewal” one of the biggest obstacles that currently
they are facing. One of the participants mentioned as in below
We always keep ourselves in stress because of our tenure ship since my university is the
leading university with high KPI especially in research and publication.
Although the majority of respondents shared the similar challenges towards the
tenure and academic freedom, one of the respondents who shared the different
opinion related to academic freedom, tenure, and promotion:
Basically, I am married a Malay woman. Many years working here in the same university
do not have any problem related to career advancement. In fact, I am quite happy working
here.
However, the majority of the respondents shared the similar experiences with the
language barriers that may influence to their academic and career advancement.
Although in Malaysia, English is a widely spoken language in academic staff, and
many higher learning institutions in their teaching and learning process, still the
Malay language is dominant which may be one of the obstacles among the migrant
academics. Therefore, the biggest obstacles would be faced by the migrant aca-
demics when they need to deal with local language. In line with this circumference,
one academic shared her experience how she faced the difficulty in securing a
leadership position; “Due to language difficulty, it is hard to get and manage
leadership position”.
In order to determine cultural adjustment and challenges accurately, a total of six
statements were used in this study. The results (Table 1) indicate that the highest
numbers of respondents (97.8%) are facing challenges related to managing tenure
easily due to the different cultural background. The findings reveled that the biggest
Table 1 Cultural adjustment

Item 1 2 TD 3 4 5 TA T M SD
Life is challenging F 1 1 2 5 25 14 44 46 4.09 0.84
here managing both % 2.2 2.2 4.4 10.9 54.3 30.4 95.6 100
academic and
culture
I have difficulty to F 3 18 21 2 12 11 25 46 3.22 1.37
manage friendship % 6.5 39.1 45.6 4.3 26.1 23.9 54.3 100
with local staff and
colleagues because
of language barrier
I have been treated F 3 18 21 1 13 11 25 46 3.24 1.37
differently because % 6.5 39.1 45.6 2.2 28.3 23.9 54.4 100
of my culture
I have difficulty to F 0 1 1 0 16 29 45 46 4.59 0.62
manage tenure % 0 2.2 2.2 0 34.8 63.0 97.8 100
easily due to cultural
background
I have lack of F 4 14 18 5 9 14 28 46 3.33 1.42
institutional support % 8.7 30.4 39.1 10.9 19.6 30.4 60.9 100
I have been treated F 7 14 21 6 7 12 25 46
3.07 1.47
differently as being % 15.2 30.4 45.6 13.0 15.2 26.1 54.3 100
the contract staff
Indication: 1 Absolutely Disagree; 2 Disagree; 3 Undecided; 4 Agree; 5 Completely Agree
T Overall Total; TD Total Disagree; TA Total Agree; M Mean; SD Standard Deviation
obstacle is encountered with respect to “Life is challenging here managing both

academic and culture” (95.6%). In the other aspects such as managing friendship
with local staff and colleagues due to language barrier, lack of institutional support
and treated by colleagues differently are considered as the moderate level of
challenges since only more than half of the respondents agreed.
Despite the cultural adjustment challenges, the migrant academics are con-
tributing effectively to their institutions. During the face-to-face interview, most of
the respondents stated that they are contributing to the development of their insti-
tutions. A female respondent feels that her work performance is improving day by
day. When the respondent was asked to provide the reason behind her better work
performance, she provided the reasons as follows:
We have to work hard to secure our tenure that increases our work performance.
Similar reason has been shared by another respondent. Her opinion is stated as
below:
I have intention for continuous improvement and competitive attitudes that steps me to
work harder and better.
376 A. M. Sultana
Table 2 Work productivity

Item 1 2 3 4 5 T M SD
I am devoted to the development of F 0 0 2 9 35 46 4.72 0.54
my institution % 0 0 4.3 19.6 76.1 100
I have better career advancement F 0 1 3 8 34 46 4.63 0.71
% 0 2.2 6.5 17.4 73.9 100
I am involved in publishing books F 0 1 2 8 35 46 4.67 0.67
and journal % 0 2.2 4.3 17.4 76.1 100
I am involved in teaching, research F 0 3 0 8 35 46 4.63 0.80
and supervision % 0 6.5 0 17.4 76.1 100
My students understand and learn F 0 6 4 8 28 46 4.26 1.08
most the teaching % 0 13.0 8.7 17.4 60.9 100
My students respect me most F 0 6 5 8 27 46 4.22 1.09
% 0 13.0 10.9 17.4 58.7 100
I work hard for the overall F 0 1 2 11 32 46 4.61 0.68
development of the institution % 0 2.2 4.3 23.9 69.6 100
I can contribute to my family F 0 0 0 6 40 46 4.87 0.34
income % 0 0 0 13.0 87.0 100
I can contribute to my self-esteem F 0 0 0 7 39 46 4.85 0.36
and self-efficacy % 0 0 0 15.2 84.8 100
I have been respected by my F 0 0 0 6 40 46 4.87 0.34
community % 0 0 0 13.0 87.0 100
Indication: 1 Absolutely Disagree; 2 Disagree; 3 Undecided; 4 Agree; 5 Completely Agree
T Overall Total; TD Total Disagree; TA Total Agree; M Mean; SD Standard Deviation
With respect to examine work productivity and development, the study also used
a five-point Likert format pointing whether they (1) strongly disagree (2) disagree
(3) neither agree nor disagree (4) agree, and (5) strongly agree. The results
(Table 2) indicate that the highest number of migrant academics believed (19.6%
and strongly agree 76.1% respectively) that they are devoted to the development of
their institutions. Similarly, the number of respondents agree (17.4%) and strongly
agree (76.1%) with respect to “I am involved in publishing books and journal”,
respectively. The majority of migrant dual career academic couples are actively
involved in teaching, research and supervision (17.4 agree and 76.1 strongly agree,
respectively) that would contribute to the institutional development. Moreover, the
number of respondents believed that the students understand and learn most from
their teaching (17.4 agree and 60.9 strongly agree, respectively). The findings also
revealed that the migrant academics couples are benefited with respect of higher
income (13.0% agree and 87.0 strongly agree) and self-esteem and self-efficacy
(15.2% agree and 84.8% strongly agree), respectively.
5 Conclusion
The study examined cultural adjustment and work productivity efforts among
migrant academics in the higher educational institutions. The results showed that
the migrant academics are facing difficulties with respect to the cultural adjustment
and language difficulty. Most of the respondents are not familiar with the local
language especially those who work in the local environment. On the other hand,
migrant academics made the significant efforts towards the development of their
higher educational institutions. To support the academic, the institutions are sug-
gested to employ training policy on local language and culture aspects for the newly
hired migrant academics. The study also suggests that seminars, forums, and dis-
cussions can be held relating to local language and culture issues that would
increase the knowledge on the issue. It is evident that such policies and programs
would support to reduce the difficulty of new hire faculty members.
Acknowledgements Research for this project was supported by University Research Grant
(RMIC). We are grateful to the Research Management Center, UPSI for financing the research
project and for their support. We gratefully acknowledge the study respondents who consented to
voluntarily participation in the study and provided valuable information.
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Part X
Humanity
Chapter 35
The Influence of Workplace Support
on Job Satisfaction Among Academic
Staff in Five Malaysian Public Research
Universities
Zarina Begum Ebrahim, Muhammad Khawari Mustapa,

Nurul Ain Mustakim, Noorzalyla Mokhtar
and Muna Kameelah Sauid
Abstract The present study aims to examine the relationship between workplace
support and job satisfaction among academic staff in five Malaysian public research
universities. The population of this study is 12,994 academic staff, and the sample
size was 325. The sample was obtained using convenience sampling technique, in
which information was gathered from elements of the population who are conve-
niently available at the point of data collection. The workplace support construct is
made up of four elements: Perceived organizational support (POS), supervisor
support, co-worker support, and mentoring. The findings of Pearson correlation
analysis indicate that workplace supports (POS, supervisor support, co-worker
support, and mentoring) have positive correlation on job satisfaction. Meanwhile,
the result of multiple regressions shows only POS and mentoring positively effect
on employee job satisfaction. Thus, the greater the extent to which employees
perceived that the organization is giving them support and support from mentor to
junior employee, the more they feel a moral obligation to keep working for that
organization. Still, efforts should be made to improve the existing workplace
Z. B. Ebrahim (&) M. K. Mustapa N. A. Mustakim N. Mokhtar M. K. Sauid

Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka,
Jalan Hang Tuah, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: zarina148@melaka.uitm.edu.my
M. K. Mustapa
e-mail: war.warriey@gmail.com
N. A. Mustakim
e-mail: ainmustakim@melaka.uitm.edu.my
N. Mokhtar
e-mail: noorzalyla@melaka.uitm.edu.my
M. K. Sauid

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_35
382 Z. B. Ebrahim et al.
support in public research universities as it can lead to higher job satisfaction and
higher productivity level among the academics staffs.
Keywords Job satisfaction Research university Workplace support
1 Introduction
Education is an important aspect and it is undeniable that education contributes to

ensuring development in any country and this includes Malaysia. The main players
in higher institutions are academic staff who may be termed as lecturers. According
to Altaf and Mubin (2011), academic staffs are responsible for not only educating
the students; their roles are broad and challenging. They added that academic staff
not only has to give lectures but they are also expected to provide professional
consultations, conduct academic researches, and publish their findings. Other than
that, the academic staff also needs to update their knowledge, pursue new tech-
nology, and new techniques in order to deliver the best to their students. Since this
study involved public research universities in Malaysia, the nature of job of aca-
demic staff in this type of universities is also slightly different compared to other
non-Research universities. Academic staff in research universities experienced
problems associated with research-related items. Schulz (2006) found that academic
staff’s job dissatisfaction may include inadequate time for research, pressure to
publish, lack of funds for research, little time spent for writing, and lack of research
facilities. In spite of this, Azalea and Lin (2015) indicated that the statistics of
turnover rates among the academics staff in Malaysia has increased from year to
year. Azalea and Lin (2015) also have found that the main factor is job dissatis-
faction among the academic staff. Job satisfaction is believed to contribute to work
performance of academic staff. The concept of job satisfaction is defined as the
degree to which a worker feels positively or negatively toward his or her job (Locke
1976). Academic staffs who is satisfied with his job would perform his duties well
and be committed to his job and his organization as well. Thus, Awang et al. (2010)
stated that it is important for the employers to know the factors that can affect their
employees’ job satisfaction level since it would affect the performance of the
institution as well. Many studies have been done to identify the factors that affect
job satisfaction. Graham and Messner (1998) listed the factors of job satisfaction
such as achievement, recognition, and opportunity for advancement. However,
Hombrados-Mendieta and Cosano-Rivas (2011) stated that workplace support has
very strong association with employee’s job satisfaction. Dawley et al. (2007)
defined workplace support as encouragement, relationship, identification, and
interpersonal exchange between both employers and employees or among col-
leagues. Adding on to Hombrados-Mendieta and Cosano-Rivas (2011), workplace
support is an interpersonal business of help from a support source to help the
receiver that involves emotions, material assistance, and information and that takes
place in a specific context. This is in line with Laireiter and Baumann (1992).
35 The Influence of Workplace Support on Job Satisfaction … 383
They elucidated that workplace support has potentially positive impact on job
satisfaction and protects against employee’s feeling of demotivation in their work.
In the work context, especially in an educational field that involves day-to-day
communication with others, interpersonal relationship can become a source of
stress, but when there is good interpersonal communication and perceived work-
place support, the negative effects of academic staff’s work problems are reduced
(Laireiter and Baumann 1992). On the other hand, if the relationships with users,
peers, or colleagues in different positions are tense, feelings of job satisfaction will
decrease. Hence, there is a strong need to understand how workplace support can
enhance the level of job satisfaction among academic staffs. Therefore, steps can be
taken by the institution to provide the necessary support.
Dawley et al. (2007) clarified that one of the types of workplace support is
perceived organizational support (POS), supervisor support, and mentoring.
Perceived organizational support can be defined as how much the organization
values employees’ contributions and cares about them (Allen et al. 2008).
According to organizational support theory, in return for a high level of support,
employees work harder to help their organization reach its goals because organi-
zational support has a significant effect on job satisfaction (Aselage and Eisenberger
2003). Besides, supervisor support can be defined as the extent to which leaders
care about their employee’s welfare and value of their contributions (Barua et al.
2014). Past studies indicate that supervisor supporting co-worker was found to have
a positive impact on job satisfaction (LaRocco and Jones 1978). Mentoring also has
been found as a dimension of workplace support. According to Russell and Adams
(1997), mentoring has been described as an interpersonal exchange between an
experienced employee, known as a mentor and a less experienced peer, known as a
protege. It is also well documented that appropriate mentoring processes have
resulted in job satisfaction, improved on the level of commitment, and better
employment performance as well as their job satisfaction (Kelly 2001). Meanwhile,
Francis and Lingard (2004) in their previous research expressed that co-worker
support is also included in the type of workplace support. Berman et al. (2002)
defined co-worker support as non-exclusive voluntary workplace relations that
involve mutual trust, commitment, shared same interests, and values. The findings
from the previous study found that social support from co-workers significantly
contribute to the overall job satisfaction of employees and reinforces how important
co-worker support is for job satisfaction (Ducharme and Martin 2000). Thus, these
four dimensions have been identified as workplace support in this study.
Past research has been conducted on the job satisfaction and workplace support
but most of the research is just focused on corporate setting and very little research
has been done in education field which involves academic staffs (Nicolescu et al.
2009). Besides that, there is no study that has included all four variables which are
perceived organizational support, supervisor support, co-worker support, and
mentoring in a single study, in an effort to investigate the relative importance of
each in predicting outcomes. Since academic staffs play a very important role in a
university and directly involved in shaping the leaders of tomorrow, this study
focused and highlighted on types of workplace support that academic staffs can get
and how it affects the levels of their job satisfaction in public research universities
in Malaysia. Thus, this study combined the four dimensions of workplace supports
as mentioned above in a single research framework to determine the relationship
between the workplace support and job satisfaction among the academic staffs in an
education field.
2 Method
The population in this study covered the academic staffs among five different public
research universities in Malaysia. The researcher focused on academic staffs
because they are the backbone of an educational institution. The total populations of
this study were 12,994. The researcher used convenience sampling technique for
this study. The researcher distributed 65 sets of questionnaires to each of the five
different research universities in Malaysia. Overall, the total sample size was 325.
Out of 325 questionnaires distributed, 307 respondents returned the questionnaires.
The questions were adopted from Teck-Hong and Waheed (2011) for job satis-
faction. For perceived organizational support, the questions were adopted from
Eisenberger et al. (1997). Meanwhile, for supervisor support and co-workers sup-
port, the questions were adopted from Kopp (2013) and lastly, for mentoring, the
questions were adopted from Rohatinsky (2008).
3 Results
Among 325 sets of questionnaire distributed, only 307 questionnaires were returned
and usable. Approximately, 55% of the respondents were female. 33.6% of the
respondents were aged between 46 and 55 years and had spent an average of more
than 21 years working in education line.
What is the association between perceived organizational support, supervisor support,
co-worker support and mentoring on job satisfaction amongst academic staff?
The correlation matrix in Table 1 displays correlation coefficients between the

independent and dependent variables. The results of the correlation matrix show
that the dimensions of the independent variable and dependent variables were
positively correlated to each other (see Table 1).
Based on Table 1, it shows that there is positive association between perceived
organizational support (POS), supervisor support, co-worker support, and mentor-
ing. The four support variables were all significantly associated with job satisfac-
tion, demonstrating strong relationships on job satisfaction (r = .916, r = .833,
r = .837, and r = .819, p < .05), respectively.
Table 1 Correlation matrix

Research variable M S.D. 1 2 3 4
Perceived organizational support 4.19 .85
Supervisor support 4.15 .79 .873**
Co-worker support 4.22 .76 .877** .794**
**
Mentoring 4.28 .74 .837 .820** .834**
**
Job satisfaction 4.23 .84 .916 .833** .837** .819**
** The level of the statistical significance of a regression coefficient
Hypothesis Results
A total of four hypotheses were tested through linear regression analysis. The
results of hypothesis are as follows:
Almost 85.1% of the variance in job satisfaction is explained by variation in the
four independent variables (POS, supervisor support, co-worker support, and
mentoring), (F = 429.66, p < .05).
H1 Perceived organizational support positively affects job satisfaction
This hypothesis is accepted (p < 0.05). This means that a one unit change in
perceived organizational support would increase job satisfaction by 0.66 (on a
five-point scale).
H2 Supervisor support positively affects job satisfaction
The second hypothesis suggested that supervisor support positively affects
employees’ job satisfaction. However, contrary to our expectations, supervisor
support does not affect job satisfaction (p > .05). Hypothesis 2, therefore, is not
supported.
H3 Co-worker support positively affects job satisfaction
Hypothesis 3 suggested that co-worker support positively affects job satisfaction.
However, this hypothesis too is not supported (p > 0.05).
H4 Mentoring positively affects job satisfaction
Hypothesis 4 suggested that mentoring positively affects job satisfaction. This
hypothesis is accepted (p < 0.05). Hence, a one unit change in mentoring would
increase job satisfaction by 0.121 (on a five-point scale).
4 Discussion
The findings of this study add important information to the theoretical under-
standing of how strong the relationships are between workplace support among
academic staff and job satisfaction. This research demonstrated that all four
Table 2 Analyzing the hypothesis of research

Hypothesis Independent variable Dependent Beta T Sig. Result
variable
H1 Perceived organizational Job satisfaction .666 11.298 .000 Accepted
support
H2 Supervisor support Job satisfaction .084 1.735 .084 Rejected
H3 Co-worker support Job satisfaction .085 1.703 .090 Rejected
H4 Mentoring Job satisfaction .121 2.602 .010 Accepted
workplace support dimensions had a greater impact to improve level of academi-

cian job satisfaction on correlational analysis. This finding is consistent with pre-
vious studies where workplace support does influence employee job satisfaction.
Surprisingly, Table 2 shows only perceived organizational support and mentoring
positively effect on employee job satisfaction. Supervisor support and co-worker
support were found to be insignificant.
The research also indicates that POS had a greater positive impact on job sat-
isfaction as compared to other workplace support dimensions. Babakus et al. (1996)
and Foote and Tang (2008) found that POS is positively associated with job sat-
isfaction. Bilgin and Demirer (2012) explained that POS provided by the university
toward their academic staffs are workplace accommodations such as assistive
technology, job restructuring, and schedule modification. Moreover, academic staffs
who feel supported by their organization and care about the organization would
engage in activities that help to further the university’s goals and it helps academic
staffs to persist in their profession for long enough to develop their specialized skills
(Awang et al. 2010).
Mentoring also was found to influence employee job satisfaction. The findings
were in line with previous research by Chao et al. (2006), which indicated that
mentoring is recognized as an influential human resource development (HRD) tool
that assists in career advancement, and promotes many effective outcomes, such as
job satisfaction. Apart from the support from organization, mentoring also plays an
important role to a newly hired faculty member, in situations where junior faculty
members benefit from mentoring by experiencing job satisfaction as they get the
advices and guidance from mentor when they experience problems at work, less
satisfaction with their jobs, and high stress (Bland et al. 2005).
On the other hand, supervisor support and co-worker support do not influence
employee job satisfaction. Co-workers’ behaviors may be viewed as political or
self-enhancing, and therefore it may not always be associated with constructive
work attitudes. Accepting support from co-workers may suggest incompetence on
behalf of the person accepting the support (Bateman 2009). Moreover, co-worker
support has the ability to make a working environment a pleasure or an unpleasant
place to spend your time. Based on a relatively large number of empirical studies,
the researcher found that perceived workplace social support from supervisors and
co-workers have been found to be a working condition that improves job
satisfaction and organizational commitment that in turn reduces turnover intention

(House 1981; Karasek and Theorell 1990; Mor Barak et al. 2001; Um and Harison
1998). On the contrary, Ashraf and Joarder (2010) in the context of Bangladesh
found insignificant influence of supervisory support on the rating of attitude toward
academics’ job satisfaction and job retention in Bangladesh private universities.
Similarly, Billah (2009), in a separate study on Bangladesh commercial banks, also
did not find any significant association between job satisfaction and supervisory
support. And this finding is in line with current findings of this study. Supervisor
support and co-worker support failed to meet the selection criteria of job satis-
faction among academician in public research universities in Malaysia.
Thus, the evidence of this study suggests that workplace support can influence
job satisfaction. In the other words, the greater the extent to which employees
perceive that the organization is giving them support and support from mentor to
junior employee, the more they feel a moral obligation to keep working for that
organization.
5 Conclusion
The results indicate that workplace support is one of the important key contribu-
tions to academic staff’s job satisfaction. In this study, perceived organizational
support has a significant effect on job satisfaction. Namely, employees who feel
their organization as supportive are satisfied with their job. Considering the
importance of job satisfaction for organizations, the top management should sup-
port their employees so as to continue to work with satisfied employees. Besides,
the findings on the whole are surprising for most researches carried out in the
western countries which have clearly suggested that there are significant relation-
ships between supervisor support and co-worker support on job satisfaction. One
possible explanation for the lack of difference could be related to nature of work
and cultural background of Malaysian and also growing need of technologies in
accomplishing their job. Further, they also tend to be contented with what their
counterparts are satisfied with.
However, efforts should be made in respect of to improve and maintain as well
as to increase the existing workplace support at public research universities as it can
lead to higher job satisfaction and higher productivity level among the academics
staffs. To do so, the universities should retain it by improving on all of the elements
of workplace supports. First of all, to improve and maintain as well as to increase
the existing workplace support, it is suggested that mentor, supervisor, and aca-
demic staffs or co-workers itself should play their roles in order to create and
implement positive psychology in the workplace. According to Iaffaldano and
Muchinsky (1985), positive psychology means creating an environment, that is,
relatively pleasure, enjoyable, and productive. Support from work teams and peers
such as effective communications, working effectively as part of a team, discuss
ideas more openly and honestly to solve conflicts of work which are the examples
of positive psychology working environment. Thus, effective support from mentor,

supervisor, and co-worker will make academics staffs feel motivated and satisfied
with their work. Furthermore, organizations should invest in training (e.g., lead-
ership and communication) for their supervisors and co-workers so that it might
enhance employee job satisfaction.
As with any research, this study has several important limitations that should be
noted. First, the sample of this study was focused on the academic staffs from public
university. Meanwhile, administrative staffs are excluded in this study. Potential
limitation, therefore, concerns the generalization of these results. Gathering a much
larger employee number in a different public and private university would help in
the robustness of the findings. Second, this study only examined the relationship
between workplace support and job satisfaction, whereas other supports such as
family support, social support, and monetary support are excluded in this study. If
the researcher involves these factors, it may bring different results. Finally, in order
to conduct a more thorough and diverse analysis, future research can focus on
different industries such as hospitality, manufacturing, and entertainment.
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Chapter 36
Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction
of Nurses at a Private Healthcare Center
in Malaysia
Noorzalyla Mokhtar, Megat Fadzil Megat Khairi Azman,

Muna Kameelah Sauid, Zarina Begum Ebrahim
and Nurul Ain Mustakim
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors contributing to

nurses’ job satisfaction at a private healthcare center in Malaysia. The researcher
uses questionnaire to measure the determinants of job satisfaction (remuneration,
work environment, promotion, and fairness of treatment) and job satisfaction.
Subsequently, a conceptual framework is constructed and Pearson correlation
analysis is conducted to test the association between remuneration, work environ-
ment, promotion as well as fairness of treatment, and job satisfaction. The findings
demonstrate significant positive relationship among all variable tested. In addition,
fairness of treatment revealed to be the most significant factors in determining
nurses’ job satisfaction. The findings suggested that when employees are treated
equally in organization, it will significantly affect their level of job satisfaction. The
employees’ motivation is affected not only by their expectancies and the rewards
they receive but also by their perceptions of how fairly they are treated in relation to
others.
Keywords Fairness treatment Job satisfaction Promotion Remuneration

Work environment
N. Mokhtar (&) M. F. M. K. Azman M. K. Sauid Z. B. Ebrahim N. A. Mustakim

Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
Kampus Bandaraya Melaka, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: noorza2940@bdrmelaka.uitm.edu.my
M. F. M. K. Azman
e-mail: fadzil121210@gmail.com
M. K. Sauid
Z. B. Ebrahim
e-mail: zarina148@melaka.uitm.edu.my
N. A. Mustakim
e-mail: ainmustakim@melaka.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_36
392 N. Mokhtar et al.
1 Introduction
Employees are considered as vital assets of a successful organization. For the

employees to work efficiently, the leaders of the organizations need to ensure that
their subordinates are highly motivated in doing their work for the sake of orga-
nization’s success. Furnham and Eracleous (2009) stated that the extent to which an
individual is satisfied at work is dictated by the presence of factors and circum-
stances that motivated him or her. This implies the importance of encouraging or
motivating employees in increasing their job satisfaction; as confirmed by Daft
(2008), that motivated employees will contribute to the achievement of the orga-
nization’s goal through increase of productivity. Furthermore, Toker (2011) added
that employee’s satisfaction can improve productivity, creativity, and commitment,
while job dissatisfaction is reported to contribute to absenteeism and excessive
turnover. This is supported by Ahmad (2012), in a study of “Jordanian nurses’ job
satisfaction and intention to quit”, who found that job satisfaction is among the
significant determinant of nurses’ intention to remain in their job.
Problem Statement
The topic of job satisfaction has been widely discussed among researcher around
the world. These show that the employees’ job satisfaction is important because it
can have an immediate impact toward organization’s performance. Ramayah et al.
(2001) stated that the awareness of managers in Malaysia regarding the issue of job
satisfaction had increased due to two reasons. The first reason is that the managers
believe that they have the value of responsibility to provide a satisfying work
environment for the employees and believe that the workers who have a high level
of job satisfaction will be able to positively contribute to organization. This is
supported by Garcia-Bernal et al. (2005), who stated that the employee’s satis-
faction and job satisfaction appear to be an essential for spirited levels of value and
organizational achievement. Consequently, business nowadays is encountering the
challenge of determining employee’s job satisfaction because of its association with
key factors of organizational behavior such as turnover, productivity, absenteeism,
deviant workplace behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior (Cleare 2013).
However, despite the fact that job satisfaction is not an issue to ignore, very few
organization seriously considered job satisfaction (Toker 2011).
2 Literature Review
According to Cleare (2013), job satisfaction as defined by Locke (1976) is plea-

surable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job
experience. McShane and Glinow (2015) in an organizational behavior book
exemplified job satisfaction as a person’s evaluation of his or her job and work
context, such as an employee may like his or her co-workers but be less satisfied
36 Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction of Nurses at a Private … 393
with his or her workload. Phillips and Connell (2003) added that job satisfaction
can be referred as “the degrees to which workers are content with the occupation
that they perform”. High job satisfaction, therefore, means that an individual likes
his or her work in general, appreciates it, and feels positive about it. Thereby, it is
the leader’s role to channel the follower’s motivation toward the accomplishment of
the organization’s goal.
The indirect cost of job dissatisfaction results in an employee’s withdrawal from
job and company. This may range from mild to severe. According to Swarnalatha
and Sureshkrisna (2013), tardiness in showing up for work and coming back from
breaks shows a lack of interest by the employee for his or her responsibilities. This
may escalate to the employee not showing up to work entirely. Some less obvious
signs of withdrawal from the job include taking care of personal matters while at
work, playing games, engaging in nonwork-related talk, spending time on social
networks, and diminishing job performance. As asserted by Alexander et al. (1998)
as well as Jamal (1997), lack of job satisfaction is a predictor of quitting a job.
There are many elements of job satisfaction. However, this study will only be
adopting several independent variables which are promotion, the fairness of treat-
ment, remuneration, and work environment in determining its association with job
satisfaction. The first element investigated in this study is promotion which is
defined as the shifting of an employee for a line of higher significance and higher
compensation (Lazear 2000). This is supported by McCausland et al. (2005) who
stated that promotion is the reassignment of an employee to a higher rank of the job.
Many researchers give their public opinion that job satisfaction is strongly corre-
lated with promotion opportunities and there is correlation between promotional
chances and job satisfaction. Increasing the incentive either internally and exter-
nally is a part of the promotion and can be the major reason for employees to
become more motivated and positive to improve the carrying out.
Next element investigated is fairness of treatment. A study by McFarlin and
Sweeney (1992) found that distributive fairness influences job satisfaction. Fairness
is defined as equal treatment and receiving the same benefit as other people and
according to Jawahar and Stone (2010), fairness addresses the fairness of outcome
distribution such as pay, procedural justice used to decide outcome, and interac-
tional justice, which consist of two elements: informational justice and interpersonal
justice.
The third element tested in this study is remuneration. Remuneration referred to
as an individual who receives some kind of advantage, extrinsic (such as money) or
intrinsic (satisfaction coming from the work), in exchange for their performance
(Steers and Porters 1991). Employees tend to compare themselves with their col-
leagues in terms of salary and their inputs to their job and may leave an organization
if they are not satisfied and contented (Nel et al. 2004). Last variable involved in
this study is working condition. The work environment can be made out of physical
conditions, for instance, organization temperature, or hardware usage like PCs.
A worker’s working environment is a determinant of the nature of their work and
their level of profitability. Apart from that, firms should provide better working
conditions to help lessen specialist turnover (Glass and Saggi 2002).
Finally, all of the above elements are investigated in order to determine its
association with job satisfaction. Accordingly, purpose of this research work is to
1. investigate the association between promotion and job satisfaction of nurses at a
private healthcare center in Malaysia,
2. examine the association between the fairness of treatment and job satisfaction of
nurses at a private healthcare center in Malaysia,
3. identify the association between remuneration and job satisfaction of nurses at a
private healthcare center in Malaysia, and
4. identify the association between work environment and job satisfaction of
nurses at a private healthcare center in Malaysia.
Based on the literature review, the following hypotheses have been developed
for this study:
H1 There is association between promotion and job satisfaction of nurses at a
private healthcare center in Malaysia.
H2 There is association between fairness of treatment and job satisfaction of
nurses at a private healthcare center in Malaysia.
H3 There is association between remuneration and job satisfaction of nurses at a
private healthcare center in Malaysia.
H4 There is association between work environment and job satisfaction of nurses
at a private healthcare center in Malaysia.
3 Methodology
This study adapted the quantitative approach in determining the association that
exists between variables. In addition, the research used convenient sampling
method. The total population of nurses identified working in this private healthcare
center is 180. The researcher conducted a pilot survey to a number of 30 nurses to
ensure the reliability of questionnaire. The questionnaire was adapted from Neog
and Barua (2014). There are eighteen (18) items in the questionnaire that are used to
measure the variable, namely promotion, fairness of treatment remuneration, and
work environment. Respondents are required to indicate their agreement level using
the five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).
The survey questionnaire was divided into three (3) sections. Section A of the
questionnaire measures the demographic characteristics. Section B is measuring
factors affecting job satisfaction. Lastly, Section C of the questionnaire consists of
six questions measuring employees’ job satisfaction. In reference to the table of
determining sample size for known population (Krejcie and Morgan 1970), a total
of 123 nurses were randomly selected to participate in this research. The response
rate for this study is 100%.
The findings demonstrate that majority of respondents represented by 68.3% are

female and remaining with the percentage of 31.7% respondents are male. Through
the analysis, it also indicates that most of the respondents were obviously repre-
sented by two groups of age but with different frequencies and percentages. The
highest percentage goes to respondents aged between 31 and 40 years old (33.3%).
The least percentage fall into two age categories of respondents ranges between 20
and 30 and 50 and above (18.7%). In terms of length of service, working experience
among respondent was categorized into five categories which are less than 5 years,
6–10 years, 11–15 years, 16–20 years, and above 21 years. The highest percentage
of working experiences among nurses goes to 6–10 years with 38.2% and only
4.1% of the total respondents are working between 16 and 20 years (Table 1).
The table showed the mean score of nurses’ job satisfaction. It can be seen that
the mean of all items for job satisfaction falls between 3.73 and 4.01. The findings
indicate that majority of respondents believe that having right amount of recogni-
tion for work accomplishment significantly contributed to their satisfaction in job
(m = 4.01, sd = 1.218). This is followed by second highest score which is “lots of
career opportunities in my present organization if I do well in my job” (m = 3.90,
sd = 1.169) and “I am happy with the other allowances given to me apart from my
base salary” (m = 3.90, sd = 1.257) that have the same mean score but different
standard deviation values. Other than that, all the statement that used to measure the
level of nurses’ job satisfaction has the mean score range from 3 to 4. Overall, the
total mean score for measuring job satisfaction among nurses in this private
healthcare center is at agreement level (m = 3.87, sd = 1.086). The results showed
that the nurses in this private healthcare center are satisfied with their current job
(Table 2).
Table 1 Descriptive statistics for level of job satisfaction of nurses

N Maximum Mean Std.
score deviation
I have a comfortable personal workspace 123 5 3.85 1.312
Lots of career opportunities in my present 123 5 3.90 1.169
organization if I do well in my job
I am happy with the other allowances given to 123 5 3.90 1.257
me apart from my base salary
Right amount of recognition is given for work 123 5 4.01 1.218
accomplishment
I am fully satisfied with my job 123 5 3.73 1.188
I am satisfied with my superior 123 5 3.89 1.236
Job satisfaction mean 123 5 3.87 1.086
Valid N (listwise) 123
Table 2 Correlation analysis between promotion and job satisfaction

Promotion Job satisfaction
Promotion Pearson correlation 1 .855**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 123 123
Job satisfaction Pearson correlation 1
Sig. (2-tailed)
N 123
**
In order to investigate the relationship, a correlation analysis is performed to

trace the association held between variables. The Salkind’s range of correlation
table was referred to interpret the strength of association between variables. The
result of association between promotion and job satisfaction is presented in the
above table. From the analysis, it clearly shows that the correlation coefficient point
for the relationship is r = .855 and it is significant at the level 0.01 (99% confident).
Based on Salkind’s range of correlation table, the score is interpreted as very strong
relationship between the two variables. The findings of this study is in line with the
study conducted by Butt et al. (2007) in which their findings showed strong and
positive correlation between job satisfaction and promotion.
Next, Table 3 shows that the correlation coefficient point for fairness of treat-
ment and job satisfaction is r = .877, significant at the 0.01 level and 99% confident
that the relationship is true. This means that the relationship is at a very strong level.
According to Mosammod and Kabir (2011), fairness influences job satisfaction in
pharmaceuticals companies which indicates association between both variables.
From Table 4, it shows the result of correlation coefficient between remuneration
and job satisfaction. The significant level of remuneration and job satisfaction
relationship is considered very strong. As shown in the table, the significant point is
r = .833 and it is significant at the 0.01 level (99% confident). The findings is
similar to the study conducted by Neog and Barua (2014), where the result showed
that working environment has a positive and strong correlation with job satisfaction.
Table 3 Correlation analysis between fairness of treatment and job satisfaction

Fairness of treatment Job satisfaction
Fairness of treatment Pearson correlation 1 .877**
N 123 123
Sig. (2-tailed)
N 123
**
Table 4 Correlation analysis between remuneration and job satisfaction

Remuneration Job satisfaction
Remuneration Pearson correlation 1 .833**
N 123 123
Sig. (2-tailed)
N 123
**
Table 5 Correlation analysis between work environment and job satisfaction

Work environment Job satisfaction
Work environment Pearson correlation 1 .848**
N 123 123
Sig. (2-tailed)
N 123
**
Lastly, Table 5 demonstrates the correlation result between work environment

and job satisfaction. Based on the table, the correlation coefficient is r = .848 and
significant at the 0.01 level (99% confident). This correlation coefficient shows that
the relationship is at very strong level. Neog and Barua (2014) in their study
showed that there is positive strong correlation between compensation and job
satisfaction.
Overall, the findings of the present study have provided answers to the research
question. Based on the responses obtained, the first research question is answered
whereby the findings have indicated that the results showed that the nurses in this
private healthcare center are satisfied with their current job. Second research
question guided this study is to find any possible association between elements of
job satisfaction and nurses’ job satisfaction. This question is answered as the
findings show that there is a positive relationship between element of job satis-
faction such as promotion, fairness of treatment, remuneration, work environment,
and job satisfaction of nurses.
In conclusion, from all the elements tested, it is found that fairness of treatment
has gained the highest correlation point and it can be concluded that this element is
the most influential factor in determining job satisfaction of nurses in this particular
private healthcare center. From the findings, the researcher found that when
employees are treated equally in organization, it will significantly affect their level
of job satisfaction. Thereby, it is recommended that this healthcare center should
maintain to treat its employees fairly. This is as sometimes employees’ motivation
is affected not only by their expectancies and the rewards they receive but also by
their perceptions of how fairly they are treated in relation to others (Daft 2008).
Additionally, equity theory is founded on the assumption that workers expect
justice, fair play, or equity in treatment by their employers. The equity theory
suggested that people will believe they are treated fairly if they perceive their
rewards as equal to what others receive for similar contributions. This is supported
by Vigoda (2000) that when employees feel being treated as unfair, they are likely
to react by initially changing their job attitudes, followed in the long-term responses
that are more retaliatory such as quitting from job.
As for future research, it is suggested that future study should investigate other
factors that might affect employees’ job satisfaction such as training, communica-
tion, co-workers, supervision, task assignment, and so on. Future researcher could
perform similar study at different industries or different profession groups of
employees to see different findings. Furthermore, it is recommended to use other
research sampling methods, such as stratified sampling methods or simple random
sampling methods in order to obtain much reliable results.
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Part XI
Information Management
Chapter 37
The Level of University Reporting
in Malaysia
Mohd Noor Azli Ali Khan and Nurul Afiqah Rozaini
Abstract This paper is an attempt to analyze the disclosure item of Malaysian

universities’ reporting with the extent of quality disclosure index toward the uni-
versities’ reporting. The study has developed 45 items of disclosure index based on
framework of Modified Accountability Disclosure (MAD) index. The data were
collected throughout 2012 universities’ annual report. Content analysis was
undertaken using the disclosure index. The overall finding reveals that the quality of
universities’ 2012 annual report is maintained high which is consistent with the
framework. The result empirically proves that 40 items could be used for university
reporting checklist to ascertain university reporting’s level of disclosure. The
findings showed that the overall level of university reporting started from 15.56 to
68.89%. The finding also showed that majority of the overall level of university
reporting was considered good. This paper offers some insights into current
reporting practices of Malaysian universities. The implication of the research
findings and future research will also be discussed.

Keywords Index Malaysia Modified accountability disclosure

University reporting Websites
1 Introduction
Public sector institutions’ annual report is a mass medium of communication to the

users (Parker 1982). Universities play a significant role in national economic
development (Alexender 2000). This report could be as a source of information
to the public that will show the activities of universities in performing their
M. N. A. A. Khan (&) N. A. Rozaini

Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
UTM Johor Bahru, 81310 Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: m-nazli@utm.my
N. A. Rozaini
e-mail: fiqazaini91@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_37
404 M. N. A. A. Khan and N. A. Rozaini
governance activities. From the annual report, it helps the stakeholders to determine
and evaluate the current position and performance of the universities through their
operations. It is clarified that this study has been conducted in order to measure the
disclosure items of the universities’ annual report as well as the measurement of the
quality which consists of public and private universities in Malaysia.
There are numerous attempts to investigate the annual report disclosures for
universities in developing countries (Banks et al. 1997; Coy et al. 1994, 1997; Coy
and Dixon 2004). However, there is little evidence of previous researches which
examine on annual reporting practices of universities in Malaysia (Ali Khan and
Rozaini 2015). Due to the lack of the study on disclosure for university’s financial
reporting, this study comes out to examine the level indices items of disclosure for
Malaysian universities’ annual reporting. This study is very important to evaluate
the presentation of financial statement provided by universities in Malaysia. Banks
et al. (1997) stated that high quality of annual reports can give a sign of profes-
sionalism, raise the image, and assist in influencing those in power who may deal
with the entity. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the level of
disclosure universities’ reporting.
2 Literature Review
The studies on the disclosure using annual reports have been motivated by the
importance of instrument in communicating the financial performance of companies
and the reduction of information asymmetry, bringing together common interests of
the stakeholders and managers (Arrows 1984; Beretta and Bozzolan 2008). In order
to minimize the information asymmetry, the availability of information is needed to
allow the general investors to assess the company performance (Cheung et al.
2010a, b). Other than that, the most fundamental elements that contributed to the
good of corporate governance can be identified through corporate disclosure (Healy
and Palepu 2001). Disclosure indices can be defined as an applied method in
accounting research, particularly in studies of annual report, being used to provide a
single-figure summary indicator either of the entire contents of reports of compa-
rable organizations or of particular aspects of interest covered by such reports (Coy
and Dixon 2004). Coy et al. (1993) also described the disclosure indices as amounts
to a qualitative-based instrument designed to measure a series of items which, when
aggregated, give a surrogate score indicative of the level of disclosure in the specific
context for which the index was devised.
In the early 1990, there are many conducted researches especially in the
developed country on the disclosure universities’ annual report. In the United
Kingdom, Gray and Haslam (1990) examined the changes in the British universi-
ties’ reporting practices over a period of 5 years and concluded that external forces
had a marked effect on the reporting practices. Furthermore, there are many studies
that had been done in New Zealand conducted by Coy et al. (1991) which has been
investigated the disclosure level of annual reports of universities and polytechnics
37 The Level of University Reporting in Malaysia 405
in New Zealand in the period 1985–1990 and they have found that there is sig-
nificant improvement in the level of disclosure over the 6-year periods. Coy et al.
(1993) expanded their research by assessing the quality of disclosure information of
New Zealand universities’ annual report. In this study, they examined about 33
universities in New Zealand regarding the disclosure practice by using a weighted
disclosure index or in other name as Modified Accountability Disclosure
(MAD) index.
In Canada, there is a review of the financial statements of Canadian public
universities which are conducted by Nelson et al. (2003). Based on research done
by Nelson et al. (2003), a review and examination of the financial statements and
annual reports of Canadian public universities have suggested that they have long
way to go to demonstrate public accountability beyond minimum levels. Based on
the research by Fischer and Gordon (1991), it is revealed that many of the insti-
tutions not adequately consider the objectives of public reports, the target of
audience for the reports, and on how the report could meet the needs of external
users. Gordon et al. (1997) expanded their research into the level of disclosure
reporting. As a result, Gordon et al. (1997) stated that the level of disclosure for
public universities and colleges is at low level of disclosure reporting.
Khan and Rozaini (2015) investigated the items disclosure of Malaysian uni-
versities’ reporting with the extent of quality index toward the universities’
reporting. The study has developed 45 items of index disclosure based on frame-
work of Modified Accountability Disclosure (MAD) index. The data were collected
throughout 2012 universities’ annual report. The overall finding reveals that the
quality of universities’ 2012 annual report is maintained high which is consistent
with the framework. The result empirically proves that 40 items could be used for
university reporting checklist to ascertain university reporting’s level of disclosure.
Sordo et al. (2016) indicated that a social report is not a common practice in
Italian universities. The respondents to the survey highlighted that the main diffi-
culty in the development of social reports was the lack of systematic collection of
nonfinancial information within the university.
The index disclosure used in this research was constructed based on a com-
prehensive review of the literature. From the previous research which is based on
MAD index items, there are four main dimensions that have been used which are
overview, services performance/research, financial performance, and physical and
financial condition. Besides that, there is also additional dimension which is known
as community service that has been constructed by Coy and Dixon (2004). This
research actually used unweighted index where every index category is equally
important (Meek et al. 1995).
Most of the studies adopted the disclosure-based approach for each item by
using a dichotomous procedure where a mean item score is 1 with reporting and the
score is equal to zero, when there is no reporting. It is supported by Khan and Ismail
(2011) that the items in checklist will be measured by using dichotomous answers
(yes/no), whereby the score of 0 is given for no index and a score of 1 is given
when there is index. Basically, checklist was used to identify the score amount by
evaluating the dimensions that have been mentioned above (Khan and Ismail 2011).
Figure below shows the formula to find the indices disclosure items in public
university financial reporting.
X
m X
n
di= di
i¼1 i¼1
When di = 1, the item has disclosure index and in contrast, if di = 0 it means

there is no disclosure index. m = total number of exposures and n = the number of
possible exposure.
3 Methodology
The population of universities in Malaysia was 79 universities. The study has used
the sample size in a range of 40 from the population of the university which
involved 20 of public universities in Malaysia and another 20 comes from
Malaysian private universities. The total sample size shows the number of uni-
versities in the population that has been chosen. This study uses the annual report of
public university in Malaysia in order to measure the level of index of disclosure
their financial report.
The disclosure index has been developed with 45 items based on the framework
of Modified Accountability Disclosure (MAD) index that has been proposed by
Coy et al. (1993), with further references to other prior studies by Banks et al.
(1997, 2003), Coy et al. (1994, 1997), and Coy and Dixon (2004). In addition, the
study also used MGTC 4/2007 disclosure index which has been proposed by Ismail
and Bakar (2011) for Malaysian public universities. Because of this research
focusing on public and private universities in Malaysia, therefore, it has combined
together with the entire of MGTC disclosure index with MAD index. The study
adopted the disclosure-based approach for each item by using a dichotomous
procedure in which a mean item score is 1 with the reporting and the score is equal
to zero, in showing that there is no reporting. It is supported by Khan and Ismail
(2011) that the items in checklist will be measured by using dichotomous answers
(yes/no) whereby the score of 0 is given for no index and a score of 1 is given when
there is index.
The data were entered into the computer using statistical package software.
Results are presented through descriptive statistics. The data analysis has important
steps in order to measure the accuracy and validity of the data to obtain the output
or results. Mean can be simply as the average that is used by adding up of all the
numbers and then dividing by the number of numbers. It is also as the average that
can be used to measure of central tendency that offers general picture of the data
without unnecessarily inundating one with each of the observations in a dataset
(Sekaran 2003).
Level of Public and Private Universities’ Reporting

The level disclosure index of university is measured using frequency and the
percentage. The measurement of disclosure index has been explained based on each
category of dimension. It includes the overall level of frequency. Then, it is fol-
lowed by level of frequency of overview, services performance/research, financial
performance, physical and financial condition, and community services as well.
The Overall Level of Frequency for Malaysian Universities
Table 1 shows the level of frequency for universities’ reporting. The findings
showed that the real level of disclosure index ranged from 15.56 (7 items) to
68.89% (31 items). There are three universities (25% of the sample universities)
obtained the highest disclosure index at 68.89%. Only one university has the lowest
index score at 15.56%. The overall reporting level score was showed that level of
68.89 has the higher frequency with 31 numbers of items
The Level of Frequency for Overview Dimension
Table 2 shows the level of frequency for universities reporting the overview
dimension. The findings showed that the level of disclosure index ranged from
14.29 (2 items) to 85.71% (12 items). There is one university (8.3% of the sample
universities) obtained the highest disclosure index at 85.71%. Besides, only one
university has the lowest index score at 14.29%. The findings also show the highest
frequency for index disclosure which is 11 numbers of items with 78.57%.
The Level of Frequency for Services Performance/Research Dimension
Table 3 shows the level of frequency for universities reporting the services’
performance/research dimension. The findings showed that the level of disclosure
index ranged from 22.22 (2 items) to 66.67% (6 items). There are two universities
Table 1 Frequency of level of universities’ reporting

Disclosure index Number of items Frequency Percentage (%)
15.56 7 1 8.3
46.67 21 1 8.3
48.89 22 2 16.67
51.11 23 1 8.3
60.00 27 2 16.67
62.22 28 1 8.3
66.67 30 1 8.3
68.89 31 3 25
Total 12 100
Table 2 Frequency of level of universities’ reporting (dimension of overview)

14.29 2 1 8.3
50 7 1 8.3
57.14 8 1 8.3
64.29 9 1 8.3
71.43 10 3 25
78.57 11 4 33.33
85.71 12 1 8.3
Total 12 100
Table 3 Frequency of level of universities’ reporting (dimension of services performance/

research)
22.22 2 1 8.3
33.33 3 2 16.67
44.44 4 2 16.67
55.56 5 5 41.67
66.67 6 2 16.67
Total 12 100
(16.67% of the sample universities) obtained by the highest disclosure index at

66.67%. In contrast, only one university has the lowest index score at 22.22%. The
findings also show the highest frequency for index disclosure which is 5 numbers of
items (41.67%).
The Level of Frequency for Financial Performance Dimension
Table 4 shows the level of frequency for universities reporting the financial
performance dimension. The findings showed that the level of disclosure index
ranged from zero (0 items) to 58.33% (7 items). From the Table 4, there are four
universities (33.33% of the sample universities) obtained the highest disclosure
index at 58.33%. However, there are two universities which get zero index because
Table 4 Frequency of level of universities’ reporting (dimension of financial performance)

0 0 2 16.67
41.67 5 2 16.67
50 6 4 33.33
58.33 7 4 33.33
Total 12 100
Table 5 Frequency of level of universities’ reporting (dimension of physical and financial

condition)
14.29 1 1 8.3
28.57 2 1 8.3
57.14 4 3 25
71.43 5 7 58.3
Total 12 100
they did not have disclosured the information in the annual report. The findings also
show the highest frequency for index disclosure at level of 50 and 58.33% with four
frequencies.
The Level of Frequency for Physical and Financial Condition Dimension
Table 5 shows the level of frequency for universities reporting the physical and
financial condition dimension. The findings showed that the level of disclosure
index ranged from 14.29 (1 item) to 71.43% (5 items). There is one university
which obtained lowest of index at 14.29%. While there are seven universities that
get the highest score level of index at 71.43%, this level also shows the highest of
frequency compared to the other levels of index.
The Level of Frequency for Community Services Dimension
Table 6 shows the level of frequency for universities reporting the community
services dimension. The findings showed that the level of disclosure index ranged
from 0 (0 items) to 100% (3 items). There are three number of universities (33.33%
of the sample universities) obtained the highest disclosure index at 100%. But there
is zero percent and only one university not discloses their information on the
community services. Besides that, the table shows the highest frequencies which
four of universities have disclosed their information at the level of index 66.67 and
100%, respectively.
Table 6 Frequency of level of universities’ reporting (dimension of community services)

0 0 1 8.3
33.33 1 3 25
66.67 2 4 33.33
100 3 4 33.33
Total 12 100
5 Conclusion
This research has been conducted to investigate the annual reporting practices of
university in Malaysia due to lack of study on disclosure of financial reporting. This
study wants to evaluate the level of disclosure index of universities’ reporting as
well as to measure the quality of financial reporting of the universities. The data
were collected from universities’ annual reports that directly get from the univer-
sities’ website. The researcher chooses to use 2012 annual report since this is the
latest report that has published on their websites. The study has used quantitative
method in order to gain the relevant findings and results.
The result shows that although all the category or dimension of index in the
financial report did not fully complied with the disclosure requirement, they still
have disclosed information to some extent. There is a little bit difference between
the disclosure items of public and private universities which have been constructed
based on Coy et al. (1993) as major references. Therefore, it can be said that most of
the Malaysian annual reportings have their own standardized to follow in preparing
the statements. However, the researcher could not find the main standard used by
the universities in order to support the findings. But most of the universities had
disclosed their financial statement that is complied with the requirements provided
by MFRS 101.
This study also concludes that the quality of universities’ reporting is maintained
high which is consistent with the framework list that has been stated by Lazar and
Choo (2012). From the findings, the researcher has understandability to compre-
hend the meaning of information about the statements since the researcher has a
reasonable knowledge in terms of business, accounting, and economic activities as
well to analyze the information in the annual report. Besides that, based on the
finding, it can be said that the Malaysian universities have a high quality of
reporting in terms of relevance and reliability as well. This is due to that statement
in 2012 annual report can influence the users in making economic decision and it is
free from any material error and bias since it has been published to the public.
Banks et al. (1997) stated that high quality of annual reports can give a sign of
professionalism, raise the image, and assist in influencing those in power who may
deal with the entity. For the comparability quality, it is useful to identify the trends
of its financial position and performance. In general, all of the universities have
disclosed their financial statements for the years 2011 and 2012 to make a com-
parison between the years in 2012 annual report. Besides that, they also show the
group financial position as well as the universities’ position to make the differences.
Thus, the findings are consistent with previous evidence by Van Beest et al. (2009).
Based on the study conducted, there are several limitations occurred in order to
get the valid findings. First, there are limited efforts on the previous studies
regarding the analysis of the items’ checklist for the universities’ financial report-
ing. There are only a few of articles that make a research on the universities’
disclosure index. Therefore, it is very difficult for the researcher to support the idea
due to constraints of the research. Second, the number of universities that involved
in this study also limited whereby only 12 of universities had provided their annual
report in the website. Third, based on the planning, the researcher actually wants to
look at the universities’ 2013 annual report as it is the latest reporting that should be
published. However, one of the managers in University of Malaya said that he
cannot reveal the current annual report to the public since it is not yet been pre-
sented in the parliament. Therefore, the researcher has to change to the 2012 annual
report. Though most of the universities did not update their latest annual report in
the websites, the published annual report comes from the 5 years before which it is
not relevant to make the analysis.
Due to the limitations above, the researcher has come out opinions and sug-
gestions to improve the study for a better analysis. However, the recommendations
have divided into two categories which are the recommendation based on findings
and also recommendation for future research. Recommendations for the findings
suggested that the management of the universities need to update their website by
disclosing their annual report which is easy for users to find their report on the
website. Moreover, by recommendations for future research, it is hoped that further
research can be carried out involving a larger sample size. This means that the
future research can make more comparison of the level disclosure index between
public and private universities in the larger sample. In addition, the research also
can be expanded by asking the preparer or user’s perceptions regarding the uni-
versities’ financial reporting. One of the reasons is to know the validation through
the expert’s opinion on universities’ reporting.
Acknowledgements My special thanks are extended to Faculty of Management, Universiti

Teknologi Malaysia and Research Management Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for pro-
viding the grant under Research University Grant Tier 2 Q.J130000.2629.11J69. The author
gratefully acknowledges the contribution of Norhayati Salleh for advising and completing this
manuscript.
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Part XII
Language/Linguistic
Chapter 38
Using YouTube to Encourage English
Learning in ESL Classrooms
Sulaila Bakar, Rosita Aminullah, Jun Nirlawati Mohd Sahidol,

Nik Ismail Harun and Azlini Razali
Abstract In a relatively short time, YouTube—a video-sharing website head-

quartered in San Bruno, California, United States—has gained enormous popu-
larity. Created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, the site allows
users to upload, view, rate, share, and comment on its available contents which
include video clips, TV clips, movie trailers, and other contents such as video
blogging, short original videos, and educational videos. ESL educators have
enthusiastically welcomed this video-sharing social network as it provides not only
countless hours of exposure to spoken English but also a resource to develop
writing skills among the learners. This paper presents discussions and recommen-
dations that will assist ESL educators in making their teaching sessions effective
and fun.
Keywords YouTube Language learning ESL classrooms
S. Bakar (&) R. Aminullah J. N. M. Sahidol N. I. Harun A. Razali

26400 Bandar Tun Razak Jengka, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: sulaila@pahang.uitm.edu.my
R. Aminullah
e-mail: rositaaminullah@yahoo.com
J. N. M. Sahidol
e-mail: nirlawati88@yahoo.com
N. I. Harun
e-mail: nikismail@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. Razali
e-mail: azlini@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_38
416 S. Bakar et al.
1 Introduction
The employment of technology in teaching and learning, especially in language

classes, has become an important tool because not only does the technology appeal
to the students but it also facilitates a task-based approach to learning. The Internet,
one of the many applications of technology, is usually a part of the students’ world,
allowing them to “enjoy” it through its many platforms that make learning fun and
less stressful.
In a relatively short time, YouTube (YT), a video-sharing website headquartered
in San Bruno, California, United States of America, has gained tremendous pop-
ularity. It is a website where videos of all sorts from the professionals (videos on
news broadcasts, television shows, and movies) to the more amateurs (videos which
people made of themselves or others using camcorders or cell phones) can be
found. Boyd and Ellison (2007) pointed out that YT is more than just a video-based
website; it is also a social network site in which people can join efforts to be active
participants in a continuous process of collaborative meaning construction.
Godwin-Jones (2003) stated that YT has been welcomed by English as Foreign
Language (EFL) educators because of its potential to provide countless hours of
exposure to spoken English. English language learners are provided with authentic
state of affairs that could assist them in learning and understanding the language.
According to Maness (2004), learners receive positive signs when they watch
real-life recordings. In the same line, Burke et al. (2009) stated that video materials
are very useful source for language teaching and learning process because they
provide authentic examples of everyday English. Moreover, Whithaus and Neff
(2006) stated that students who used YT in learning languages recorded a higher
performance and they were able to complete their tasks relatively at a better stan-
dard than those who did not.
Learning using YT is a form of active learning. Learning should be facilitated
through students’ involvement and it should go beyond passive listening. Alimemaj
(2010) pointed out that using YT makes learning more meaningful and more
enjoyable. In addition, Adler (1982) stated that when knowledge is gained, it is
gained through this active learning process. Chickering and Gamson (1987) stated
that “learning is not a spectator sport”. They believed that learning happens when
students are able to absorb and manipulate knowledge in such a way that they are
able to use them to their advantage, in an EFL/ESL context, to successfully use the
English language. Omrod (1999) stated that learning occurs more to people when
the learning process is enjoyable. Learners will be more successful in learning
through activities that they enjoy doing.
Educators may want to use YT as an instructional tool because it can both be
used in face-to-face and online teaching and learning. Kelsen (as cited in Khalid and
Muhammad 2012) stated that YT can be used as a medium for students in studying
to master the English language inside and outside the classroom. In a survey
conducted by Kelsen on Taiwanese college students on the topic “Using YouTube
as A Supplementary Material”, he found that the students were motivated and YT
38 Using YouTube to Encourage English Learning in ESL Classrooms 417
helped them to learning English inside and outside the classrooms as the material
was not only fun but authentic (as cited in Khalid 2012). Along the same line,
Chung (2012) stated that online materials provide learners with authenticity and
motivation in the process of learning. Having an abundance of authentic videos on
everyday life situations is a precious learning and teaching tool in a language
classroom.
2 Method
All semester 1 students who are pursuing diploma courses at Universiti

Teknologi MARA (UiTM) are required to enroll in English Language Course
(ELC) 121—Integrated Language Skill 1. One of the course requirements of
ELC121 is a five-minute role-play which carries a total mark of fifteen percent
(15%). Students in pairs are given a question depicting a real-life situation. They are
given a few minutes to understand the question and then five minutes to prepare
before acting out the situation for another five minutes.
These are some of the examples of the questions:
1. You notice the price increase of food and drinks at the university cafeteria. You
and your friend discuss ways to deal with the rising costs of living. Act out the
scene that takes place in the cafeteria.
2. Malaysian customs and traditions can attract foreign tourists to the country. Two
tourist guides are discussing the ways to promote Malaysia’s unique customs
and traditions. Act out the scene that takes place at a museum.
3. Many courses offered by the university are conducted online. Two students are
discussing the advantages and disadvantages of online classes. Act out the scene
that takes place at a coffee shop.
4. Eating a healthy, balanced diet is important in maintaining good physical and
mental health. Two dieticians are discussing ways to promote healthy eating
among students. Act out the scene that takes place at a restaurant.
5. Cheating in examination and assignment among students has become more
widespread in recent years. Two lecturers are discussing the ways to overcome
this problem. Act out the scene that takes place in a university cafeteria.
6. Two best friends are planning to find a part-time job during their semester break.
They are discussing which job to apply in order to fill their free time. Act out the
scene that takes place at a bus stop.
Prior to the role-play assessment which normally takes place in Week 12,
practices are scheduled for familiarization. This is to get the students ready for the
test. Normally, routine role-play sessions will utilize questions from the previous
semesters. Questions are given, discussions are made, and role-plays are acted out.
However, to make use of YT as a motivational and educational tool, the practices
were done differently. First, students were made to explore YT for videos that were
418 S. Bakar et al.
closely related to the questions. Second, after they had viewed the videos, they
started to begin their role-play practices. The sessions were videotaped using cell
phones, and the videos were uploaded on YT to allow their classmates to comment
on their presentations. The settings to protect the students’ privacy were used to
establish a secure YT channel just for the viewing of those in the class (Note: the
videos are no longer available on YT). This task-based learning was an excellent
and fun approach to learning as it allowed students to learn the language, prepare
for the test, and create audiovisual materials that they themselves uploaded on YT.
A satisfactory survey was carried out after the assessment of role-play was
carried out. A set of questionnaires were distributed to all 36 students in the class.
This was to measure their perceptions on YT and how YT was able to help them to
prepare for their role-play assessment. Five items were asked regarding the exercise
and whether YT has helped them in their role-play assessment.
A total of 36 students were given a set of questionnaires to measure their percep-

tions on YT after their role-play was carried out. Five items were asked and using a
simple Likert scale, the percentages were formulated. Table 1 showed the per-
ceptions of the students on YT based on the five items and the percentages based on
the Likert scale.
The data collected clearly shows that the students of ELC121 have positive
attitudes toward watching available videos on YT before commencing on their
practices, and watching their own videos on YT. It was found that the majority of
them strongly agreed that comments left by their peers on YT had helped them to
prepare and improve their real assessment. A majority of them also remarked that
they enjoyed watching themselves and their friends on YT. From the data collected,
it can be concluded that these students are motivated because they enjoy the
learning experience tremendously.
Table 1 Perceptions on YouTube

No. Question Percentage (%)
SA A D SD
1 Watching YT to prepare my role-play assessment was really 83 17 0 0
beneficial
2 Watching my practice on YT helped me to prepare for my role-play 94 6 0 0
assessment tremendously
3 My friends’ comments on my practice on YT had positive effects on 97 3 0 0
my role-play assessment
4 My marks for my role-play assessment improved 91 6 3 0
5 I really enjoyed watching my friends and I on YT 89 8 3 0
SA Strongly Agree, A Agree, D Disagree, SD Strongly Disagree
38 Using YouTube to Encourage English Learning in ESL Classrooms 419
4 Conclusion
In this article, we are proposing that YT can be a helpful online technology for
helping students to learn English. The uploaded videos are authentic and contain
real-life spoken English which benefits EFL/EFL students greatly. All educators
should capitalize on using YT not only because it appeals to the younger genera-
tions but also new videos can be created and uploaded to customize to the needs of
most learners. Lastly, the available technology should be put at the service of
educators and it can be used or exploited to meet the needs of the learners.
References
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Alimemaj Z (2010) YouTube, Language Learning and Teaching Techniques. Mag Glob Engl
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https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427625tcq1504_2
Chapter 39
Using Tools in the Virtual World
to Teach New Words in the Chinese
Fantasy Novel
Bok Check Meng, Goh Ying Soon and Soo Yew Phong
Abstract Tools in the virtual world can be used to teach new words in the Chinese
fantasy novel. The purpose is to amplify quality teaching of Chinese as a foreign
language. These tools in the virtual world have the potential to be effective learning
tools to assist students in expanding their commands of new words from the
Chinese fantasy novels. In this study, a pilot test was conducted at Universiti
Teknologi MARA (Terengganu) using a group of 35 students as respondents. These
students were exposed to three tools in the virtual world to learn new words in the
Chinese fantasy novels. These tools in the virtual world are Basecamp, Google
Docs and Wiggio. Students were to learn new words, discuss the meaning of the
new words, make sentences using the new words learned and discuss if the sen-
tences made were incorrect. Each of the tools in the virtual world was used for
3 weeks. After 9 weeks of access to these learning materials, students were asked to
rank the usefulness of these tools in the virtual world in supporting their expansion
of vocabulary. The result of the study showed that there were no significant dif-
ferences in the ranking of these tools in the virtual world. The study also put on the
view that without quality supervision, these tools in the virtual world are merely
cognitive candy.
Keywords Fantasy novel New words Teaching Chinese Tools

Virtual world
B. C. Meng (&) S. Y. Phong

Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka,
77300 Merlimau, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: zeming@melaka.uitm.edu.my
S. Y. Phong
e-mail: gohyi141@tganu.uitm.edu.my
G. Y. Soon
Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Terengganu,
23000 Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia
e-mail: sooyewphong@melaka.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_39
422 B. C. Meng et al.
1 Introduction
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of virtual tools in
teaching. There are many free and open-sourced versions of virtual tools that may
be engaged in the teaching and learning of language. These virtual tools are used to
collaborate writing. Among them are Basecamp, Google Docs and Wiggio. By
having document-sharing, students gather virtually to share and learn. Hence, these
tools in the virtual world can be used to teach new words in the Chinese fantasy
novel. The purpose is to amplify quality teaching of Chinese as a foreign language.
Having knowledge of the vocabulary acquisition process is essential for the
instructors to engage any type of educational technology to enrich the teaching of
Chinese as a foreign language. For effective vocabulary acquisition, students need to
be introduced to lexical bundles (Goh 2014), competent skills on the use of online
dictionary (Goh et al. 2012, 2013) and using cognitive approach (Bok and Goh 2014).
To assist the instructors gain exposure to virtual tools, IQChinese, a member of
the IQ Group which was founded in 2006 has dedicated itself to becoming the
Intelligent Chinese Learning Solution (IQChinese 2010). They have organized free
online Chinese language seminar to assist the instructors in the use of virtual tools
to enrich their Chinese teaching classroom. Therefore, with the knowledge gained
about virtual tools, they are able to introduce these virtual tools to enrich their
classroom.
In this study, the usefulness of various virtual tools to support the learning of
Chinese new words was investigated. Among the virtual tools considered in this
study are Basecamp, Google Docs and Wiggio. Basecamp (https://basecamp.com/)
is a convenient and free virtual tool for collaborative writing. Students can use the
Basecamp to discuss how to make sentences correctly. Google Docs (http://docs.
google.com) is a free Web-based application in which documents and spreadsheets
can be created, edited and stored online. Files can be accessed from any computer
with an Internet connection and a full-featured web browser (Wikipedia 2012).
With this virtual tool, students are able to discuss their writing online. The effects of
collaborative writing activity using Google Docs were found positive on the stu-
dents’ writing abilities (Suwantarathip and Wichadee 2014; Andreasen et al. 2014).
This is due to the fact that there are some friendly features in the Google Docs that
enables it to be a viable virtual tool to support the collaborative writing process
(Oxnevad 2013). Wiggio (http://www.wiggio.com) is a virtual tool that encourages
working in group. It is a good collaboration tool for students in doing collaborative
writing (Editorial Team 2013). Peer e-feedback that is gathered give positive effects
for students’ writing performance (Ciftci and Kocoglu 2012).
By using online workspaces sites like BaseCamp and Google Docs, they offer
workspaces for collaborative editing that involve more than 2 or 3 authors (Lazar
2011; Pursel 2009). Instructors may group three students in one group, and they are
able to discuss virtually without being physically present at one venue. Students
welcome these virtual tools as they allow communication in a virtual manner (JBTC
special issue 2007).
39 Using Tools in the Virtual World to Teach … 423
In sum, the educational technological tools in the virtual world have the potential
to be effective learning tools to assist students in expanding their commands of new
words from the Chinese fantasy novels.
2 Method
In this study, a pilot test was conducted at Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan
Terengganu using a group of 35 students as respondents. These students were
exposed to three tools in the virtual world to learn new words in the Chinese fantasy
novels. These tools in the virtual world are Basecamp, Google Docs and Wiggio.
Students are grouped into three students per group. There were nine groups with
three students and two groups with four students. The sentences that the students
were to make were based on the learning materials such as liàng (to dry under the
sun), qiángmíng (famous), yúmù nǎodài (silly), etc. The research framework is
shown in Fig. 1.
Table 1 shows the use of Basecamp as virtual tool to support learning of new
words in the Chinese fantasy novel. Students used this virtual tool for weeks 1–3.
They made sentences 1–9 online.
Table 2 shows the use of Google Docs as virtual tool to support learning of new
Fig. 1 Research framework of this study

Table 1 Examples of Basecamp as virtual tool

Stage Figure
(1) Create account—
sign up for free. One
account for one group
(2) Log in their

account
(3) Conduct
collaborative work—
start new project
Table 2 Examples of Google Docs as virtual tool

Stage Figure
(1) Create
account—sign
up for free. One
account for one
group
(2) Log into their

account and
conduct
collaborative
work—start new
project
Table 3 shows the use of Wiggio as a virtual tool to support learning of new
Students were to learn new words, discuss the meaning of the new words, make
sentences using the new words learned and discuss if the sentences made were
incorrect. Each of the tools in the virtual world was used for 3 weeks. Each week,
students learned three Chinese new words, making sentences and discussed the
sentences they have made virtually using the designated virtual tools (refer
Table 4).
Table 3 Examples of Wiggio as virtual tool

Stage Figure
(1) Create account—sign up
for free. One account for one
group
(2) Log in their account and

create group
After 9 weeks of access to these learning materials, students were asked to rank
the usefulness of these tools in the virtual world in supporting their expansion of
vocabulary. They also gave short comments on the usefulness of the three virtual
tools to assist them in the learning process. The data were then analysed using SPSS
software and the descriptive and inferential statistics results are presented in the
following section.
Table 5 depicted the students’ perception on the usefulness of the three virtual tools
to support their learning of Chinese new words. It was deemed that Google Docs is
the most useful among the three (mean = 4.25) where the perception on the use-
fulness of basecamp (mean = 3.83) and the perception on the usefulness of Wiggio
are almost the same (mean = 3.74).
Friedman test was carried out to compare the difference among the ranking of
these three virtual tools. The mean rank for each of the virtual tools is shown in
Table 6.
Table 4 Collaborative sentence writing procedure

Stage Figure
(1) Learn
Chinese new
words from
i-learn
(2) Log in the

designated
virtual tool and
make
sentences, e.g.
Basecamp:
week 1–3,
sentences 1–9
Google Docs:
week 4–6,
sentences 10–
18
Wiggio: week
7–9, sentences
19–27
(continued)
Table 4 (continued)
Stage Figure
(3) The other
students gave
their
comments
Table 5 Students’ Virtual tool Mean perception Standard deviation

perception on the usefulness
of the three virtual tools 1 Google Docs 4.25 0.98
2 Basecamp 3.83 0.24
3 Wiggio 3.74 0.49
Table 6 Mean rank for each Virtual tool Mean rank

of the three virtual tools
1 Google Docs 2.25
2 Basecamp 2.17
3 Wiggio 2.14
The Friedman test showed that there were no significant differences in the
ranking of these tools in the virtual world (p-value = 0.22) at significance level
0.05. Hence, the study did not show that any of the virtual tools is ranked higher
than the other two.
Table 7 shows some selected comments from the participants of the study. The
study also put on the view that without instructor supervision, these tools in the
virtual world are merely cognitive candy.
Table 7 Selected comments from the participants

No. Positive comments Negative comments
1 I learn something from my peers I don’t know what to comment
2 The comments help me to improve my sentence Same comments are being given,
making e.g. good, ok
3 If my instructor can add in his comments along I need instructor’s comments
with the comments of my peers, it will be better rather than my peers’ comments
4 Conclusion
The findings of this study showed affirmative perceptions on the use of three virtual
tools to support the learning of Chinese new words. Google Docs is deemed to be
the most useful virtual tool among the three. This is concurrent to the view of
Oxnevad (2013) that there are some friendly features in the Google Docs that aids
students in the collaborative learning process.
Since these virtual tools are indeed assistive and supportive for collaborative
writing, they should be integrated in-the-classroom and out-of-classroom activities
(Zhou et al. 2012). Students are able to learn from one another especially for those
who have lower command of the language. They are able to get assistance from
peers with better writing skills.
Empirical research is still needed to build a pedagogic evidence base about the
different aspects of these virtual tools in the context of language education. Only
then these virtual tools can be claimed to achieve the ultimate aim of assisting
non-native learners to acquire language better.
In sum, this research has been conducted to determine the best ways to integrate
these virtual tools for the purpose of assisting non-native students in learning new
words in the Chinese fantasy novel. These virtual tools can be utilized widely in
order to play an active role of assisting students in the learning process.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by Research Acculturation Grant

Scheme (RAGS), Malaysia [no. 600-RMI/RAGS 5/3 (156/2013)].
References
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in Google Docs: presenting a research design. In: 13th European conference on e-learning
(ECEL2014), Copenhagen Denmark, pp 692–695
Bok ZM, Goh YS (2014) Vocabulary teaching in cognitive approach of Chinese fantasy novel:
Dick and Carey’s model. In: Proceedings of 3rd ILANNS-issues in language teaching and
learning amongst non-native speakers—enhancing language performance, Shah Alam
Malaysia, 18–19 Feb 2014
Ciftci H, Kocoglu Z (2012) Effects of peer e-feedback on Turkish EFL students’ writing
performance. J Educ Comput Res 46(1):61–84
Editorial Team (2013) Wiggio—online groups and collaboration tools. http://edtechreview.in/

reviews/280-wiggio-online-groups-and-collaboration-tools Accessed 21 June 2016
Goh YS (2014) Using lexical bundles for vocabulary acquisition for the teaching of Chinese as a
foreign language. J Modernization Chin Lang Educ 3(2):26–36
Goh YS, Saiful Nizam W, Hasiah M, Norlina NS (2012) Instructional technology design of smart
malay-mandarin dictionary (SMMD) to support vocabulary acquisition in teaching Chinese as
a foreign language. In: Alias N, Hashim S (eds) Instructional technology research, design and
development: lessons from the field. IGI-Global, U.S.A., pp 256–269
Goh YS, Saiful NW, Hasiah M, Norlina MS, Yee LY (2013) SMMD: effects of online dictionary
for vocabulary acquisition among non-native speakers of Chinese as a foreign language. Jurnal
E-academia UiTM (Terengganu) 2(3):84–93
IQChinese (2010) Free online chinese language seminar. http://www.iqchinese.com/Promotion/
onlineseminár010.html
JBTC Special Issue: Social Software in Professional Communication (2007). J Bus Tech
Commun 21(4):446
Lazar R (2011) Writing for publication: working on documents collaboratively. Med—Surg
Matters 20(4):7
Oxnevad S (2013) 6 powerful Google Docs features to support the collaborative writing process.
http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volumē4/ej55/ej55m1/ Accessed 2 Jan 2013
Pursel BK (2009) The role of virtual worlds as a collaborative environment for partially distributed
teams. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing
Suwantarathip O, Wichadee S (2014) The effects of collaborative writing activity using Google
Docs on students’ writing abilities. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational
Technology 13(2):148–156
Wikipedia (2012) Google Docs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Docs. Accessed May 2013
Zhou WY, Simpson E, Domizi DP (2012) Google Docs in an out-of-class collaborative writing
activity. Int J Teach Learn High Educ 24(3):359–375
Chapter 40
Linguistic Landscapes in Putrajaya:
Competing Codes and Choice
Kamisah Ariffin, Geraldine de Mello, Misyana Susanti Husin,

Aini Andria Shirin Anuardin and Nur Hidayatulshima Omar
Abstract Linguistic landscape (LL) is defined as the visibility and salience of

languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region. In
Malaysia, these signs are both a product of governmental planning and demo-
graphics. For example, the Malaysian subsidiaries of the local council by-laws
(Undang-undang Kecil Majlis Perbandaran) and the National Language Act (Akta
Bahasa Kebangsaan) stipulate that Bahasa Malaysia (BM) must be used for the
public signboards and road names. Adopting and adapting Sunwani’s (Lang India
5, 2005) framework of uni-, bi-, and multilingual store signboards and the
respective language(s) used; this study specifically examines the linguistic land-
scape in Putrajaya, the centre of government administration in Malaysia, to see
whether the language act has been adhered to. Pictorial data of the shop signs within
the commercial area of Putrajaya were collected and the analysis recorded the
frequency of language use (in the shop signs) according to the types described in
the framework. The data indicate that despite the clear language policy, shop signs
in Putrajaya may consist of unilingual and bilingual signs in BM, English, Chinese
and Tamil. The data also suggest that the language(s) used highly depends on the
K. Ariffin (&)
Bandar Tun Razak, Malaysia
G. de Mello M. S. Husin N. H. Omar
Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka,
Melaka Alor Gajah, Malaysia
e-mail: geraldine@melaka.uitm.edu.my
M. S. Husin
e-mail: misyana@melaka.uitm.edu.my
N. H. Omar
e-mail: nurhidayatulshima@melaka.uitm.edu.my
A. A. S. Anuardin
Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Selangor,
Shah Alam, Malaysia
e-mail: shirin@salam.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_40
432 K. Ariffin et al.
business products, commercial advantages that the language(s) can bring to the
business and the business status that the owners want to project. Such language use
creates an important indication of choice and juxtaposition of languages used in a
multilingual country as well as in the business domain.
Keywords Linguistic landscape Language use Language choice
1 Introduction
Linguistic landscape (LL henceforth) is defined as the visibility and salience of

languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region (Landry and
Bourhis 1997). Language use on public and commercial signs does not appear or
occur in vacuum. In fact, according to Ben Rafael et al. (2006), it is constructed
based on preferential tendencies, deliberate choices or policies. In Malaysia, these
signs are both a product of governmental planning and demographics. For example,
the Malaysian subsidiaries of the local council by-laws (Undang-undang Kecil
Majlis Perbandaran) and the National Language Act (Akta Bahasa Kebangsaan)
state that Bahasa Malaysia (BM) must be used for public signboards and road
names. English words may be used, only if they are not too prominent as compared
to BM.
However, it can be easily seen that such policy has not been adhered to in this
country. Local name places such as residential areas, streets and shops are loaded
with foreign words and phrases. The escalating preferences to other languages
besides BM indicate that languages are now moving into the domains of global
communication and personal freedom. The juxtaposition of the languages used also
indicates preferential tendencies rather than policy adherence.
This chapter examines the linguistic landscapes, in Putrajaya, the centre of
government administration in Malaysia and to see whether the language used in this
particular area adheres to the stipulated language acts of the Malaysian subsidiaries
of the local council by-laws and the National Language Act. Specifically, it looks
into the patterns of language used in shop signs in the commercial area of Putrajaya
by analyzing the texts and wordings used in the shop signs.
1.1 Linguistic Landscapes
The concept of linguistic landscapes refers to the written form of language use in
the public domain and is visible to the public in that area (Gorter 2006). It is also
‘the language of public road signs, advertising boards, street names, place names,
commercial shop signs and public signs on government building names in a certain
territory or region’ (Landry and Bourhis 1997, p. 25). Ben-Rafael et al. (2006,
p. 14) refer to LL as ‘any sign announcement located outside or inside a public
40 Linguistic Landscapes in Putrajaya: Competing … 433
institution or a private business in a given geographical location’. Other researchers

have expanded the concept by including other discourses in the public sphere such
as flyers, advertisement on moving vehicles and even tourist maps. Studies on LL
have been scanty yet growing in the recent years in multilingual communities.
Although LL is often taken for granted, it actually does not happen in a vacuum.
The language use in the public sphere is largely influenced by the communities in
that certain territory. Thus, LL is seen as significant as it ‘constitutes of the scene
(…) where society’s public life takes place’ (Ben-Rafael et al. 2006, p. 8).
Laundry and Bourhis (1997) put forward that LL can serve informational and
symbolic functions in a particular region. The informational function relates to the
original work in the language-planning field. For example, in Belgium, LL was then
used to mark the geographical boundaries inhabited by the Dutch-speaking and
French-speaking communities. Thus, by functioning as ‘a distinctive marker of the
geographical territory inhabited by a given language community’, LL can inform
the public about the ‘linguistic characteristics, territorial limits, and language
boundaries of the region they have entered’ (Landry and Bourhis 1997, p. 25).
Conversely, the presence of diverse languages in a territory can indicate the soci-
olinguistic composition in the area. Such information can provide information as to
what language can be used for communication and obtaining services within the
area.
Not only can LL index the geographical boundary, it can also serve as a symbol
of social positioning and power relationships (Gorter 2006). The presence or
absence of a certain group’s language in LL can indicate the societal attitudes
towards the language (and its speakers), and mark the ethnolinguistic vitality of the
group inhibiting the territory. Shohamy (2006), based on a study on LL in Israel,
notes that when Hebrew, Arabic and English are used, it symbolizes the recognition
of Arabs or Arab speakers inhabiting the areas. However, when only Hebrew is
used, it may imply that the Arabs are being overlooked.
Recent studies on LL has claimed that LL is now serving more of symbolic
function rather than informational, especially as the result of globalization. Scollon
and Scollon (2003) put forward that the presence of foreign languages in LL,
particularly English, may indicate ‘foreign tastes, fashions or associations between
particular products or types of businesses and English-speaking culture’ (p. 1998).
Along the same line, Ben Rafael et al. (2006) and Cenoz and Gorter (2006) also
agree that the use of English may be due to the perceptions towards the language
being more modern and prestigious compared to the local languages.
The composition of LL is dynamic and constantly evolves. Recent researchers
have also taken the ‘LL-actors’ into consideration in understanding the construction
of LL. LL-actors ‘concretely participate in the shaping of LL by ordering from
others or building by themselves LL elements according to preferential tendencies,
deliberate choices or policies’ (Ben Rafael et al. 2006, p. 27). Edelman and Gorter
(2010) suggest five categories of actors playing a role in the construction of LL. The
first category is the businesses that put up the businesses. This means that the type
of business determines the language to be used for that business. The second
category refers to business people who design, produce and sell. These people
decide as to what language to use by taking business factors into consideration. The
next category is the private people who put up signs to make announcements. These
people will also make their own personal judgment on the language use perhaps by
considering who the target audience are. Another category of actor is the authorities
whose decision to choose what language to use should depend on the rules and
regulations set within their jurisdiction. The last category of actor is the passers-by.
This may include signees of public appeals or possibly vandals.
Having considered the concept, functions and factors that give shape to LL, Ben
Rafael (2009) contends four sociological frameworks that may explain the diversity
in LL from one territory to another: (1) presentation of self, (2) good reasons,
(3) power relations and (4) collective identity.
1.2 Language Use in Shop Signs
The pragmatic of language use in LL provides a rich context for language research.
Studies on the language use in shop signs in multilingual communities have shown
both its informational and symbolic functions in a certain area (Sunwani 2005;
Selvi 2007; Saadikhova and Abadi 2000).
Sunwani (2005) carried out a survey on the use and roles of different languages in
shop signs in Bhubaneswar, India. The survey found (1) unilingual signs of English,
Hindi, Bengali and Oriya, (2) bilingual signs of English and Hindi, and English and
Oriya, and (3) trilingual signs of Oriya, Hindi and English in the business estab-
lishment in that area. Other varieties of language use found are acronyms, such as
NALCO for ‘National Aluminium Company’, old English such as ‘Ye Olde
Shoppe’, and hybrid forms, such as ‘Pratidin News’. The analysis shows that English
is used predominantly in the shop signs in Bhubaneswar as it is considered as a
trendy language and having all the positive values among the local communities.
The use of bilingual English and Hindi shop signs are also becoming popular, aiming
at the growing population of Hindi-knowing speakers in the city. The analysis also
reveals that Oriya is the preferred language in more conservative places.
Along the same line, Selvi (2007) examined the increasing popularity of English
in shop signs in Turkey. The data show the dominance of English in the shop signs
of many business entities dealing with personal care, restaurants and cafés, and
stores selling information system goods. Selvi (2007) found that the high occur-
rence of English in these types of establishments is due to the language’s ability to
give more commercial advantage to the business as it symbolizes modernity, thus,
generate commercial outcomes. In addition, English is used to attract more foreign
customers who do not understand Arabic. However, the data also reveal that shops
that offer common consumer goods like gas stations, car repairs, driving schools
and bookstores do not use English at all in the shop signs.
Saadikhova and Abadi’s (2000) study on the language use in the shop signs in
Azerbaijan reveals that the language preference depends on the community’s atti-
tude towards a language and the types of business establishment. The survey on the
shop signs on four major streets in Baku town shows evidence of language shift
from Azeri and Russian to Turkish, French, Italian and English after Azerbaijan
gained its independence. The use of multilingual signs of Turkish, French, Italian
and English with English as the dominant choice indicates the Azerbaijan citizens’
positive attitude towards the western values. The analysis also reveals that certain
types of establishment have different language preference. For example, Italian is
preferred by the clothing stores, antiquary and souvenir shops. French, on the other
hand, can be mainly found in shops selling items associated with women and
romanticism like perfume and wedding dresses.
In the same vein, Schlick (2004) compared language use in the shop signs
between larger cities and provincial towns in Europe: London and Nuneaton (UK),
Vienna and Leoben (Austria), Trieste and Pordenone (Italy) and Ljubljana and
Kranj (Slovenia). The data show that the shop signs in the provincial towns mainly
are unilingual with the local language as the main preference. Similar to empirical
studies, shop signs in larger cities tend to be bilingual or multilingual. Business
establishments that deal with fashion, jewellery, electronic, cosmetics and food
adopt foreign languages like French, Italian and German in the shop signs. Other
styles found in the signs include hybrid forms like ‘Last-Minute-Urlaub l’tur’, and
minimized forms such as ‘bonmarché’.
1.3 The Study
This study seeks to find out the patterns of language use in the shop signs within the
commercial area of Putrajaya. Thus, the research questions can be expressed as
follows:
• What is the pattern of language use in the shop signs in Putrajaya?
• What is the dominant language used in the shop signs in Putrajaya?
1.4 Research Area
Putrajaya City, officially named as Federal Territory of Putrajaya, was opened in

1995 and declared as the third Federal Territory in Malaysia in 2001. It is situated in
the middle of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and is the Federal
Administrative Centre of Malaysia. The prime areas in the city are divided into
precincts (20 precincts altogether) and consists of government offices and com-
mercial, residential and recreational areas. This is a planned city with Precinct 1 as
the location of governmental ministries. The whole city covers an area of 49 km2
with a total population of 88,300. Out of this statistic, 83,800 are Malays, 900 are
other Bumiputras (a term used for indigenous ethnic groups such as Orang Asli in
Peninsular Malaysia and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak), 900 are Indians, 500
Fig. 1 Map of Putrajaya and research area
are Chinese, 100 are other ethnics and 2100 are non-Malaysian Citizens (Population
by States and Ethnic Groups 2015). The population comprises mainly government
servants.
The research area is the commercial area of the city in Precinct 15 where the
shops are collectively located. Figure 1 shows the map of the city and the research
area.
2 Methodology
A total number of 127 shop signs in the form of pictorial data within the research
area were collected. These shops include both that sell products and render services
to the customers. This is a descriptive study, employing a textual analysis method
only on the wordings used in the shop signs. Any semiotic signs like icon, index
and symbol found in the shop signs were not analysed as it was not within the scope
of the study.
The data were categorized and analysed based on the adopted and adapted
version of model of unilingual, bilingual and multilingual shop signs and the
respective language use (Sunwani 2005). Table 1 shows the framework for
analysis.
In addition, the relative prominence of the languages on the signs was also
examined in terms of their placement and size.
Table 1 Framework for analysis

Patterns of language use Language Examples
Unilingual BM Kedai Menjual Alat Pendidikan
– only a single language is used (romanized) & Permainan
BM (Arabic Kedai Pakaian
transliteration) ‫ﻓﻜﺎﻳﺎﻥ ﮐﺪﻱ‬
English World of Babies
Vernacular 新寶島小食館
Bilingual BM and Butik Terminal Jeans
– combining two languages in the English
same sentence Bahasa Kedai Perabot Soon Lee
– writing the main sign in one Malaysia and 順利傢俬
language, followed by its translation Vernacular
in another language
Vernacular San Shu Gong Restaurant
and English 三叔公餐館
Trilingual/multilingual BM, Era Kedai Kerinting Rambut dan
– three or more languages are used Vernacular Persolekan
and English 美世紀專業美容美髮
Unisex Beauty Centre
and Cosmetic Trading
Dev’s Pet Shop
Kedai Haiwan Kesayangan
寵物店
Other varieties
Acronym HOJB Crystals for Living
Hybrid form Beau Monde Fashion
Old English D-Bag Shoppe
Net-lingo Ready 2 Suit
Phonological device Shiok Novelties
3.1 Patterns of Language Use
In general, the data indicate preferential tendencies of the individual social actors,
such as shop owners and companies, in choosing language(s) for their shop signs.
The LL in the research area demonstrates the use of BM, Chinese and Tamil in the
shop signs. Table 2 shows the analysis of the findings.
The data show a neat pattern of unilingual, bilingual and multilingual of lan-
guage use in the shop signs. 34 (26.7%) of the shop signs exhibit the use of BM
only, with three of them include the transliteration of Jawi (the Arabic script). The
unilingual use of English was found in 15 (11.8%) of the shop signs. No shop signs
Table 2 Language distribution in shop signs

Languages Number
Unilingual BM 34 (26.7%)
English 15 (11.8%)
Bilingual BM and English 71 (55.9%)
BM and Chinese 2 (1.6%)
BM and Tamil 1 (0.8%)
Multilingual BM and English and Chinese 1 (0.8%)
Other varieties Colloquial BM 1 (0.8%)
Phonological device 2 (1.6%)
were found written unilingually in any other languages although there are quite a
number of Indians and Chinese population in the city.
The analysis also reveals that BM and English are the dominant languages where
more than half of the shop signs collected, i.e. 71 (55.9%), show the use of these
two languages in the signs. The dominant use of BM indicates that the proprietors
do take into account the dominant group community, i.e. Malays in the area.
English is also found in the signs as it is the second language of the country, hence,
is used and understood by the majority of the population. Thus, while BM is used to
lure particularly the potential Malay customers, English is used to attract all the
groups in the community, even to the relatively small number of Chinese and Indian
population in Putrajaya.
In addition, the presence of English is also due to the influence of globalization,
and English is one of the major languages of trade and business. Similar pattern of
language has also been observed in other LL studies, such as those of Ben-Rafael
et al.’s (2006) study in Israel, Huebner’s (2006) study in Thailand, and Cenoz and
Gorter’s (2006) study in Spain.
On the other hand, only a small percentage of Chinese and Tamil are found in
the shop signs. They are only found in the bilingual and multilingual signs together
with BM and English. The scarcity of Chinese and Tamil and the absence of other
languages used by the in-group community in the shop signs indicate the social
positioning of the Chinese and Indians and the societal attitudes towards the lan-
guage. Landry and Bourhis (1997, p. 143) put forward that,
the absence of the in-group language from the linguistic landscape can lead to group
members devaluing the strength of their own language community, weaken their resolve to
transmit the language to the next generation, and sap their collective will to survive as a
distinct language group.
3.2 Language Use Based on Products
The analysis also indicates that language use in the business domain is also related to
the types of products and services offered and the potential customers. For example, a
restaurant serving traditional Malay food which expects and intends to attract Malay
customers will use full BM in the sign. On the other hand, a restaurant offering western
food would expect modern customers with sophisticated tastes, and, thus, use full
English or bilingual English/BM (or other languages) in the sign. Table 3 shows some
of the examples of language use based on the product categories.
Table 3 Language use in shop signs based on products

Product Examples Language use in shop signs
category
Food and Restaurant, coffee Restoran Seri Wangi:Masakan Melayu Istimewa
beverage shop, bakery & Aneka Menu Kampung
Sham Kitchen: Arab Cuisine
Kedai Kek & Roti Wonderful Cake House:
Bakeri, Kek & Kafe
Health and Spa centre, beauty Poliklinik Ikhwan
beauty product, clinic Fitness Space Gym
Pusat Kecantikan ANC Beauty Centre
Fashion Boutique, clothing, Butik LanBaharin
shoes Vendeur Shopalista Boutique
Butik RS Collections: Menjual Tudung dan
Pakaian Muslimah
Services Consultancy, travel Elhamda Consultant Architect: Rekabentuk
agency, legal firm Semua Jenis Bangunan (Termasuk Banglo)
Agensi Pelancongan Kopetra Travel & Tours
Sdn Bhd
Fairuz Ali & Co: Advocates & Solicitors/
Peguambela & Peguamcara/
Education Tuition centre, private Pusat Tuisyen Persada Pintar: Kelas Tuisyen &
schools, book store Bahasa
smobookstores
Al Baghdi Training Center Putrajaya: Pusat
Pengajian Al Quran
Convenience Laundry, car rent Kedai Dobi Layan Diri Aqua Nano
facilities Kedai Dobi Layan Diri Bubble Launderette 24
hours: The Urban Laundry Experience
Grocery Mini market, mart Pasar Raya Humaini Maju
J Speed Mart
Pasar Raya Borong Big Bazaar
Sports Sports equipment Kedai Basikal Cyclomotion
Home Furniture Kedai Perabot LSK Home Furnishing
furnishing
Others Any general To Rent
advertisements For Rent
Rent/Sale
3.3 Placement of Languages
Although the Malaysian subsidiaries of the local council by-laws allow English
words to be used in the signs, they must not be too prominent as compared to BM.
However, in most cases, this has not been adhered to. The analysis of the data also
reveals that in the bilingual shop signs of BM and English, 47 or 66.2% of the signs
demonstrate that English is more prominent than BM. This can be seen in terms of
the placement of the languages and the size of the texts in the signs. In these signs,
English comes first followed by BM in the order or placement. In some, English is
placed in the middle of the sign while BM is placed either below the English words
or at the sides of the sign. In addition, the size of the English words is mostly bigger
and bolder than the BM words. Figure 2 shows some of the examples.
The inclusion of BM in the signs is suggestive of the actors’ recognition of the
language act that decrees the use of BM. However, commercial benefits that
the signs can bring may have accounted for the prominence of English over BM in
the signs.
Fig. 2 Placement of languages in bilingual signs

4 Conclusion
The study has shown LL serves both the informational and symbolic function of
language(s) in a certain area. It indicates that language policy cannot oversimplify
the complexities of the actual language use in any domain of communication.
The LL data in this study demonstrate that businesses cannot afford to disengage
themselves from any potential commercial advantage. Thus, it is not difficult to see
that language choice and use in this domain is constructed based on preferential
tendencies and deliberate choice rather than policy. Certain languages may have
been chosen for the shop signs for certain pragmatic reasons. Such language use
and preference creates an important indication of choice and juxtaposition of lan-
guages used in a multilingual country as well as in the business domain. It is hoped
that the findings of this study will contribute toward the understanding of the
significance of language choice, use and preference in the business domain.
Acknowledgements This study is supported by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia,

under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Project No. FRGS/1/2025/SS101/UITM/02/1.
References
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2015
Chapter 41
Ambiguity in Holy Quran
Commentaries: The Use of Polysemic
Words “Imam & Ummah”
Saiful Johari Musahar, Husna Talib, Roselina Musahar, Fauzi Azmi

and Muhammad Zaidi Zakaria
Abstract This paper aims to describe the multiple meanings of the polysemic
words “Imam dan Ummah” in the Holy Quran as translated into Malay and English
languages. Based on the observation, researchers found 5 “imam” words and 47
“ummah” words mentioned in the Holy Quran. These polysemic words were
chosen and analyzed in order to observe the precision of their translated meanings
by comparing them with the various meanings mentioned by the Arabic scholars.
The data was collected from the Tafsir Pimpinan al-Rahman which is officially used
in Malaysia and the Holy Quran: English translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. The
collected data was analyzed based on Arabic polysemic knowledge and Quranic
commentaries. The results show that Tafsir Pimpinan al-Rahman mostly resorts to
using separate additional explanations to ensure that the intended meaning is suc-
cessfully conveyed to the readers, while Yusuf Ali, in most cases, chooses to
translate the words literally. The study will benefit Malay and English readers by
providing a deeper and more precise meaning of both words.
Keywords Ambiguous meaning Analysis Arabic polysemy

Imam Ummah
S. J. Musahar (&) H. Talib R. Musahar F. Azmi M. Z. Zakaria

Akademi Pengajian Bahasa, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pahang,
26400, Pahang Bandar, Tun Razak Jengka, Malaysia
e-mail: abuwajdee@pahang.uitm.edu.my
H. Talib
e-mail: husnatalib@pahang.uitm.edu.my
R. Musahar
e-mail: roselina@pahang.uitm.edu.my
F. Azmi
e-mail: fawwaz@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. Z. Zakaria
e-mail: zaidizakaria@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_41
444 S. J. Musahar et al.
1 Introduction
Issues related to polysemic words have attracted the attention of many experts in
studying the relationship between language, meaning, and cognitive. According to
Deane (1988), the development of polysemic words must be seen as a consequence
of human’s ability to think flexibly. However, in translation field, the various
meanings contained in one word may result in different translations, which may
consequently lead to the difficulties in conveying the intended meanings. In order to
translate a polysemic word, a translator must have an in-depth understanding of the
context where the word is used in, in addition to having a great familiarity of the
culture of the people who use both the source and the target language. al-Wâhid
Wâfi (1962), an Arabic scholar defines a polysemy as a word with multiple
meanings that can be used denotatively rather than connotatively, for instance, the
Arabic word al-khaal can mean uncle, a mole on the face, a cloud, and a fat camel.
Hence, it is imperative that where polysemic words are a concern, the translations of
the Holy Quran among translators be precise with the meaning intended to over-
come confusion among readers of different languages. Therefore, the research paper
examines the translation of the word “imam” and “ummah” in Holy Quran into
Malay and English languages using the Tafsir Pimpinan al-Rahman and The Holy
Quran: English translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali in order to study the various
intended meanings through the usage of both words, while observing the extent of
the precision in the translation of the words in both texts.
1.1 The Definition of Polysemy
The term polysemy was taken from Greek word “polisēma”, in which “poli” means
“many” and “sēma” means “sense”. According to Kamus Dewan fourth edition
(2007), “Polisemi” means a form of a word, expression, etc., which has more than
one meaning that closely relates to each other. This definition distinguishes between
polysemy and homonym: a word that has the same sound and spelling with other
words but with a different meaning (Keempat 2007).
1.2 Polysemy in Arabic Language
Mujahid (1985) in his writing “Ad-Dalālah Al-Lughawiyyah ʿinda Al-ʿArab”

explained that the usage of the term “al-musytarak al-lafẓi” (shared pronunciation)
among Arabic linguists is slightly different as compared to its usage among the
western linguists. This is because in the west, “shared pronounciation” is divided
into polysemy and homonym, while Arabic linguists do not distinguish between
both. al-Maʿtouq (2008) later explained that there is a slight difference in the usage
41 Ambiguity in Holy Quran … 445
of the term among Arabic scholars themselves, as the term “al-musytarak al-lafẓi”
was used by Arabic philologist (ʿulamā’ fiqh al-lughah) to refer to homonym
words, while the Arabic linguist (lughawiyyūn) used the term exclusively to refer to
polysemic words. Al-Bader (2015), however, viewed that in order to distinguish
between the term homonym and polysemy, the term “isytarāk al-lafẓi” is more
appropriate to be used in referring to homonym, while “ta’addud al-ma’na” is more
appropriate to be used in referring to polysemy.
1.3 Polysemy in the Holy Quran
Researches related to polysemic words in the Holy Quran have gained a lot of
attention from researchers, especially among Quranic commentators, jurists, and
translators. Al-Husaini (n.d) in his study “Al-Musytarak Al-Lafẓī” cited at-Tabari’s
words that polysemy is one of the ways to expand the linguistic expression.
Muharisy (2012) in his study highlighted the effects of polysemic words on the
understanding of the meanings, the sharia laws, and portraying the miracle of the
Holy Quran. He claimed that polysemy is one of the factors that lead to the
disagreements among the commentators, jurists, and others. Azizah (2011) on the
other hand, conducted a study on the translation of the word “wali” in two trans-
lated editions of the Holy Quran to Indonesian language and found that there are
marked differences in terms of the linguistic structure and the translation method in
both editions. Ali et al. (2014) in their study on the translation of some polysemic
words in the Holy Quran to English language concluded that the translation of
polysemy words is one of the main challenges faced by translators, and as a result,
most of them have decided to only translate the words literally.
2 Methodology
This paper aims to study the translation of polysemic words “Imam” dan “Ummah”
in Holy Quran to Malay and English language. The data was taken from “Tafsir
Pimpinan al-Rahman” which is used broadly in Malaysia, and “The Holy Quran:
English Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali”, a well-known English translation of
the Holy Quran used widely in English speaking countries. A content analysis
method was used to analyze translations of polysemic words “Imam” and
“Ummah” based on the Quranic commentaries and the knowledge of Arabic pol-
ysemy. Based on the findings, researchers found 5 “Imam” words and 47 “ummah”
words as mentioned in the Holy Quran. The words were selected in order to study
the precision of the translated meaning with their meaning as described by Arabic
scholars.
3 Analysis
This study only concerns four meanings of the polysemic word “Imam” and five
meanings of the polysemic words “ummah” based on the classification of the
meanings done by Arabic linguistic scholars, including Haron bin Musa al-Qari’
(1988/63–64), Abu Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–24),
al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99–101) and Quranic
commentators including at-Tabari (2000) and Ibn Kathir (1419H) in order to
describe and compare the precision of the translated meanings of both words in both
translated versions of the Holy Quran.
3.1 The Meaning of Imam
3.1.1 Leader
Quranic verse Tafsir Pimpinan al-Rahman Yusuf Ali’s

translation
{‫ﺎﺱ ﺇِ َﻣﺎ ًﻣﺎ‬ َ ُ‫}ﻗَﺎ َﻝ ﺇِﻧﱢ ْﻲ َﺟﺎ ِﻋﻠ‬
ِ ‫ﻚ ﻟِﻠﻨﱠ‬ Sesungguhnya Aku melantikmu menjadi I will make thee an
Imam (pemimpin, ikutan) bagi umat Imam to the
manusia Nations
Situational Context
According to at-Tabari (2000, 2/18) and Ibn Kathir (1419H, 1/283), this verse
mentioned the honor that Allah had given to Prophet Ibrahim after he succeeded in
the test that Allah had put him in by appointing him as the leader and example to
the nations who have faith in Allah and His messenger. The word (imam) in this
verse refers to the original meaning of the word which is the leader who became an
example to his people.
Comparison of the Translation
The translation in Tafsir Pimpinan al-Rahman has successfully conveyed the

intended meaning of the verse compared to Yusof Ali’s translation who translated
the word literally, whereby the approach is unsuitable in translating polysemic
words. It is more appropriate if the word is translated into “leader” in order to
achieve the intended meaning based on the verse’s context. However, the word
“imam” as mentioned in Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman which is later followed by the
explanation in bracket (pemimpin, ikutan) (leader, who is followed) explained the
meaning, except that it is more precise and suitable if the word “imam” itself is
directly translated into “pemimpin” (leader).
3.1.2 Book of Deeds
Quranic verse Tafsir Pimpinan al-Rahman Yusuf Ali’s translation
ٍ ‫}ﻳَﻮْ َﻡ ﻧَ ْﺪ ُﻋﻮْ ﺍ ُﻛ ﱠﻞ ﺃُﻧَﺎ‬

{‫ﺱ ِﺑﺈِ َﻣﺎ ِﻣ ِﻬ ْﻢ‬ Ingatlah hari Kami menyeru One day We shall call together all
tiap-tiap kumpulan dengan human beings with their
imamnya [respective] Imams
Situational Context
explains that in the hereafter at the Mahsyar, Allah will call every person by his
book of deeds. According to Arabic linguistic scholars, including Haron bin Musa
al-Qari’(1988/63–64), Abu Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–24),
and al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99–101), the word
(imam) in the verse is not referring to the original meaning of the word which is a
“leader”, but it refers to the polysemic meaning which is the book that contains the
details of human deeds.
Both Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman and Yusof Ali translated the word “imam” literally.
However, the former managed to include some explanation in the footnote in order
to bring a closer meaning, which says: “imam di sini maksudnya ikutannya samada
nabinya atau kitab agamanya atau kitab amalnya” (Imam here means something to
be followed, whether it is the prophet, a religion book, or the book of deeds).
However, it is more suitable if the word “imam” here is translated directly into
“their records of good and bad deeds” so as to convey the closest intended meaning
based on the context of the verse.
3.1.3 Luh Mahfuz

َ ْ‫َﻲ ٍء ﺃَﺣ‬
‫ﺼ ْﻴﻨَﺎﻩُ ﻓِ ْﻲ ﺇِ َﻣ ٍﺎﻡ‬ ْ ‫} َﻭ ُﻛ ﱠﻞ ﺷ‬ Dan tiap-tiap sesuatu Kami catit and of all things have We
akan dia satu persatu dalam ibu taken account in a clear
suratan yang jelas nyata Book [of evidence]
Situational Context
explains that everything that happened in the past and will happen in the future was
written by Allah in a book called Luh Mahfuz which contains the truth about every
occurrence. According to Arabic linguistic scholars, including Haron bin Musa
al-Qari’ (1988/63–64), Abu Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–
24), and al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99–101), the word
(imam) in the verse does not express its original meaning but refers to the poly-
semic meaning in it which is Luh Mahfuz, the place where all the explanation of all
occurrences in the past and the future is written on.
For this verse, both Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman and Yusof Ali’s translation translated
the word “imam” into “ibu suratan” (leading book) and “clear book” which,
however, is not very precise in conveying the intended meaning due to the general
sense in both of them. Hence, it is more appropriate for both authors to specifically
use the term “Luh Mahfuz” and later explain about it being the “Leading Clear
Book” in order to precisely convey the intended meaning.
3.1.4 A Clear Pathway

{‫} َﻭﺇِﻧﱠﻬُ َﻤﺎ ﻟَﺒِﺈِ َﻣ ٍﺎﻡ ُﻣﺒِﻴ ٍْﻦ‬ Dan sesungguhnya kedua-duanya itu tempat They were both on an
kaum Nabi Syuaib & kaum Nabi Lut terletak open highway, plain to
di jalan yang terang (yang masih dilalui orang) see
Situational Context
stated that the location of the people of Luth and Syuaib is in a clear path where
people regularly pass by. According to Arabic linguistic scholars, including Haron
bin Musa al-Qari’ (1988/63–64), Abu Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy
(2010/17–24), and al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99–
101), the word (imam) in the verse is not referring to the original meaning of the
word, but refers to the polysemic meaning of the word which is a clear path.
For this verse, Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman and Yusof Ali’s translation had used a
suitable method of translation and successfully conveyed the intended meaning of
the word based on its context as both translated the word as “jalan yang terang”
(clear path) and “open highway”.
3.2 The Meaning of Ummah
3.2.1 A Group

translation
َ َ‫} َﻭ ِﻣ ْﻦ ُﺫ ﱢﺭﻳﱠﺘِﻨَﺎ ﺃُ ﱠﻣﺔً ُﻣ ْﺴﻠِ َﻤﺔً ﻟ‬
{‫ﻚ‬ Dan jadikanlah daripada zuriat kami: umat and of our progeny
Islam (yang berserah diri) kepadaMu a people Muslim
Situational Context
narrates the request made by Prophet Ibrahim in his prayer to Allah to have a group
of people from his descendant who submit and obey only to Allah. According to
Arabic linguistic scholars, including Haron bin Musa al-Qari’ (1988/63–64), Abu
Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–24), and al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi
Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99-101), the word (ummah) in the verse means “a
group of people”, which is its original meaning. Other examples of the verses
containing the word used with this meaning are: al-Baqarah: 134, 141, al-‘Imran:
113, and al-A’raaf: 159.
In translating this verse, Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman and Yusof Ali’s translation had
adopted a suitable method of translation to convey its polysemic meaning, where
both authors translated the word “ummah” as “umat islam” (Muslim people) and
“people muslim”. However, the author of Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman had further
explained the Muslim people as “yang berserah diri” (those who submitted them-
selves) in order to give the readers a deeper understanding of the concept of
“muslim”, while Yusof Ali only mentioned “a people muslim” without further
explanation.
3.2.2 Religion

translation
ِ ‫} َﻛﺎﻥَ ﺍﻟﻨﱠﺎﺱُ ﺃُ ﱠﻣﺔً َﻭ‬
{ً‫ﺍﺣ َﺪﺓ‬ Pada mulanya manusia itu ialah umat yang satu Mankind was one
(menurut agama Allah yang satu) single nation
Situational Context
According to at-Tabari (2000, 4/277) and Ibn Kathir (1419H, 1/425), in this verse,
Allah had mentioned that human beings were all of a single religion who submitted
only to Allah. Later, they had disputes regarding the religion, hence Allah sent His
messengers to call people to His religion, deliver good news, and warn against bad
deeds. According to Arabic linguistic scholars, including Haron bin Musa
al-Qari’(1988/63–64), Abu Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–24),
and al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99–101), the word
(ummah) in this verse does not refer to its original meaning which is a group of
people, but refers to its polysemic meaning which is a religion based on the context
of the verse it is used in. Other examples of the verses containing the word
“ummah” with this meaning are: al-Maaidah: 48, Yunus: 19, Hud: 118, al-Nahl: 93,
al-Anbiya’: 92, al-Mukminun: 52, al-Syura: 8, and al-Zukhruf: 33.
Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman’s “umat yang satu” (one single nation) had conveyed a
more precise meaning in its translation of this verse compared to Yusuf Ali’s literal
translation “nation”, especially by adding the explanation in the bracket “menurut
agama Allah yang satu” (following the only religion of Allah). The researchers
instead feel that it is even more precise and appropriate if the word “ummah” is
translated as “the only religion of Allah” in order to convey its closest meaning as
intended in the context.
3.2.3 Period of Time

translation
َ ‫} َﻭﻟَﺌِ ْﻦ ﺃَ ﱠﺧﺮْ ﻧَﺎ َﻋ ْﻨﻬُ ُﻢ ْﺍﻟ َﻌ َﺬ‬
‫ﺍﺏ ﺇَﻟَﻰ‬ Dan demi sesungguhnya! Jika Kami If we delay the
{‫ﺃُ ﱠﻣ ٍﺔ َﻣ ْﻌ ُﺪﻭْ َﺩ ٍﺓ‬ tangguhkan azab daripada menimpa penalty for them for a
mereka hingga ke suatu waktu yang definite term
tertentu
Situational Context
Allah mentions about the ungrateful human who made fun of the threat of Allah’s
punishment which will occur at a definite time. According to Arabic linguistic
scholars, including Haron bin Musa al-Qari’ (1988/63–64), Abu Hilal al-Hasan bin
Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–24), and al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi Abdillah bin
Muhammad (2010/99–101), the word “ummah” in this verse does not refer to its
original meaning, but refers to its polysemic meaning which is “a period of time”
based on the context it is used in.
For this verse, both Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman and Yusof Ali’s translation adopted a
suitable method of translating a polysemic word when both of the authors of the
texts translated it as “suatu waktu” (one time) and “term” which is appropriate
based on the context of the verse it is used in.
3.2.4 Leader
Quranic verse Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman Yusuf Ali’s translation

Sesungguhnya Nabi Ibrahim adalah Abraham was indeed a
merupakan satu umat (walaupon dia model, devoutly
seorang diri) rujuk tafsir m/s 542 obedient to Allah
Situational Context
Allah complements His messenger Ibrahim A.S. as an exemplary leader who
always calls toward goodness and a good servant who submits and obeys to only
Allah. According to Arabic linguistic scholar, including Haron bin Musa al-Qari’
(1988/63–64), Abu Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–24), and
al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99–101), the word
(ummah) in this verse does not refer to the original meaning of the word but refers
to its polysemic meaning which is “exemplary leader” or a “role model” based on
the context.
For this verse, Yusof Ali provided a more precise translation based on the context
of the verse compared to Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman which chose to translate the
word literally, and later explain it in the footnote (Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman: 542)
“Nabi Ibrahim sebagai contoh yang baik yang sayugia dikuti” (Prophet Ibrahim as a
role model that must be followed). Researchers view that it is more appropriate to
translate the word “ummah” in this verse directly into “a leader” or “a role model”
in order to provide a more precise meaning according to the context of the verse.
3.2.5 The People of Muhammad SAW (Muslims)

ْ ‫} ُﻛ ْﻨﺘُ ْﻢ َﺧ ْﻴ َﺮ ﺃُ ﱠﻣ ٍﺔ ﺃُ ْﺧ ِﺮ َﺟ‬
‫ﺖ‬ Kamu (wahai umat Muhammad SAW) Ye are the best of
adalah sebaik-baik umat yang dilahirkan bagi peoples, evolved for
{‫ﺎﺱ‬ ِ ‫ﻟِﻠﻨﱠ‬
faedah umat manusia mankind
Situational Context
Allah explains that the people of Muhammad SAW are the best people if they
submit to Allah and practice the concept amar makruf and nahi munkar. According
to Arabic linguistic scholar, including Haron bin Musa al-Qari’ (1988/63–64), Abu
Hilal al-Hasan bin Abdillah al-‘Askariyy (2010/17–24), and al-Imam al-Syeikh Abi
Abdillah bin Muhammad (2010/99–101), the word “ummah” in this verse refers to
its original meaning which is “a group of people”, except that here it means
specifically the people of Muhammad SAW based on the context that it is used in.
Tafsir Pimpinan Rahman had successfully conveyed the intended meaning of the
word “ummah” in this verse compared to Yusof Ali’s translation which translated
the word literally. By putting the explanation in the bracket, Tafsir Pimpinan
Rahman allows the reader to have a better understanding of the meaning of the
polysemic word “ummah” in the verse.
4 Discussion
Based on the analysis, it is evident that the translation of polysemic words is not a
simple task and different method of translation may lead to different meanings
which sometimes may not be precise enough to convey the intended meaning.
Translators, however, have not displayed systematic strategies in translating the
polysemic words. The results of the study show that tafsir Pimpinan al-Rahman
mostly resorts to providing additional explanation to make sure that intended
meaning is the closest, while Yusuf Ali mostly chooses to translate the words
literally. The results of the study further signify that the use of literal translation is
unsuccessful in most cases of translating polysemic words as the intended meaning
may not be fully conveyed.
5 Conclusion
In conclusion, translating the Holy Quran, which contains a lot of polysemic words,
requires the translators to have an in-depth understanding of the context and also be
familiar with the culture of the people who speak both the source and the target
languages. In addition, the topic of polysemy especially in the Holy Quran still
requires further studies in order to explain the issues related to it and to develop a
systematic method to overcome the problem. It is advisable for the translators of the
Holy Quran to have numerous references to the Quranic commentaries and the
work of Arabic linguistic scholars when translating the polysemic words before
resorting to the literal translation.
References
Al-‘Askariyy HA (2010) Al-Wujūh wa an-Naẓā’ir fi al-Quran al-Karīm. In: Ahmad S (ed). Beirut:
Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah
Al-Bader YB (2015) Semantic innovation and change in Kuwaiti Arabic: a study of the polysemy
of verbs. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, England
Al-Husaini JSB (n.d) al-Musytarak al-Lafẓī. n.p
Al-Maʿtouq A (2008) Ẓāhirāt Lughawiyyah. Librairie du Liban Publishers, Beirut
Ali Abd. al-Wâhid Wâfi (1962) Fiqhu al-Lugah, Kairo: (Lajnah al-Bayân Al-‘Arabiyah), h 183
Ali MA, Brakhw MA, Nordin MZF (2014) Transferring polysemic words from Arabic into
english: a comparative study of some samples from the holy Quran. Aust J Basic Appl Sci 8
(23):38–43
At-Tabarī Muhammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd ibn Kathīr ibn Ghālib al-Āmalī (2000) Jāmiʿ al-Bayān fī
Ta’wīl al-Qur’ān. Ahmad Muhammad Syākir (ed) Beirut: Muassasat ar-Risalah
Azizah IN (2011) Polysemi Kata Wali dalam al-Quran: Studi Kasus Terjemahan Hamka dan
Quraish Shihab. Unpublished master dissertation, Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif
Hidayatullah, Jakarta, Indonesia
Basmeh AM (n.d) Tafsir pimpinan al-Rahman. Kuala Lumpur, Dar al-Fikir
Deane P (1988) Polysemy and cognition. Lingua 75(4):325–361

Ibn Kathīr Abū al-Fidā’ Ismaʿīl ibn ʿUmar ibn Kathīr al-Bashrī al-Dimasyqī (1419H) Tafsir
al-Qurān al-ʿAẓīm. Muhammad Husayn Syams ad-Dīn (ed) Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Ilmiyyah
Keempat KDE (2007) Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka
Muharisy ZAM (2012) Suwar al-Musytarak al-Lafẓī fī al-Qurān al-Karīm wa Athruha fī al-Maʿnā.
Majallah Jāmiʿah umm al-Qurā li ʿulūm as-Syariʿah wa al-dirāsāt al-Islāmiyyah 54:209–238
Mujahid AK (1985) Ad-Dalālah al-Lughawiyyah ʿinda al-ʿArab. Dar al-Dhiya’, Amman
Musa H (1988) Al-Wujūh wa an-Naẓā’ir fi al-Quran al-Karīm. Khātim Sālih Dāmin (ed) n.p
Chapter 42
Eliciting Elements of Higher Order
Thinking Skills in the Higher Secondary
Examination Question Structure
in Japan and Malaysia
Aznur Aisyah, Khazriyati Salehuddin, Idris Aman,

Ruhizan Mohammad Yasin and Nezu Mimiko
Abstract This study was aimed at eliciting the elements of Higher Order Thinking
Skills (HOTS) in Japan through the Senta Shiken (センター試験, henceforth, SS)
examination paper, which is a standardised summative examination at the end of
Japanese students’ schooling. The Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (Malaysian Certificate of
Education, henceforth, SPM) was also used to compare the structure of examination
questions in these two countries. This paper discusses the findings in the experi-
mental session that was carried out in order to identify the experience of students in
answering the two forms of examination questions. A total of 3 questions of the
Physics subject from the same topic in SPM and SS were selected to be answered
by the respondents that comprised of 11 students (3 females and 8 males). The
problem-solving process was performed on the computer using the mouse by the
respondents and was recorded in the JING application. An interview session was
also carried out after the respondents had completed the experimental session in
order to help the analysis of the students’ experience when answering the SPM and
A. Aisyah (&) K. Salehuddin I. Aman

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: aznuraisyah@ukm.edu.my
K. Salehuddin
e-mail: khazudin@ukm.edu.my
I. Aman
e-mail: idrisa@ukm.edu.my
R. M. Yasin
Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
e-mail: ruhizan@ukm.edu.my
N. Mimiko
Fuji International Japanese Language Centre, Petaling Jaya,
Selangor, Malaysia
e-mail: nezumimiko0426@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_42
456 A. Aisyah et al.
SS examination questions. Results of the study show that the structure of the SS
questions in Japan can encourage students to think more critically compared to the
structure of the SPM questions. It is hoped that the findings of this study can
provide guidance to the education sector in Malaysia.
Keywords Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Senta Shiken

Japan Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia Physics
1 Introduction
The Malaysia Education For All End Decade Review Report 2000–2015 describes
that the effort of implementing learning that can trigger creative and critical thinking
among students is being actively pursued in Malaysia (Ministry of Education 2015;
pp. 9). The matter is emphasised because the performance of Malaysian students as
reported by Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and
PISA in the years 2009 and 2012 is vastly worrying (Curriculum Development
Division, Ministry of Education Malaysia 2014). The implementation of a cur-
riculum system that is based on Higher Order Thinking Skills (henceforth, HOTS)
is one of the challenges highlighted in the report. HOTS is defined by the Ministry
of Education Malaysia (MOE):
…the ability to apply knowledge, skills and values in making reasoning and reflection to
solve problems, make decisions, innovate and capable of creating something.
Ministry of Education 2014, p. 1
According to Bloom (1981), summative evaluation can be used to measure the

effectiveness of a curriculum. In addition, Black et al. (2010) emphasised that
summative assessment should reflect the curriculum’s learning goals. Therefore, the
construction of the questions used to test students’ achievement should also be in
line with the objectives of the curriculum to be applied (Ariffin 2008). The way the
educators in Malaysia and Japan equip their students with HOTS in solving
problems in science subjects can be analysed through the manner in which the
questions on these science subjects are constructed. Japan’s success in producing
high-quality scientists has spurred the researchers to examine the summative
examination at the secondary school level in Japan in order to obtain a true
understanding of Japan’s education system. This is strengthened by Japan’s
excellent performance in science and mathematics education to the point that Japan
is positioned among the top countries in the PISA (Programme for International
Student Assessment) chart (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development 2012 and 2013). Japan’s education system comprised of three levels
of schooling, namely Shougakkou 小学校 (6–12 years old)—Primary School,
Chuugakkou 中学校 (13–15 years old)—Lower Secondary School and
Koutougakkou 高等学校 (16–18 years old)—Upper Secondary School. At the end
42 Eliciting Elements of Higher Order Thinking Skills … 457
of the Upper Secondary School schooling session, a summative examination, 大学

入試センター試験 (Daigaku Nyūshi Sentā Shiken) The National Center Test for
University Admissions, or better known as センター試験 (Sentā Shiken, henceforth,
SS) or センター (Sentaa), is conducted throughout Japan in January every year.
Hence, this SS examination in Japan is similar to Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia
(henceforth, SPM) because of two reasons: first, both are sat by students who have
completed their secondary school education and secondly, both examinations are
standardised throughout the respective countries. The SPM examination questions
are formulated by the Ministry of Education Malaysia, whereas the SS examination
questions are prepared by a private body, 独立行政法人 (Dokuritsu Gyouseihou)
or Independent Administrative Institution, which is monitored by the government of
Japan (National Center Test for University Admissions, May 2016).
Research on student motivation in the field of science in Malaysia and Japan has
been done as reported by Lilia (2013). The study reported that Japanese students
have low motivation in learning science subjects but their performance in science
subject examination is high compared to Malaysian students. Therefore, the style of
education implementation that is applied in Japan should be investigated further.
However, comparative studies using examination papers of developed countries
such as Japan to uncover the best education system to be applied in Malaysia are
still lacking. Malaysia can also follow in the footsteps of Korea which took Japan as
a model in developing their economy. Even though it has been more than 20 years
since Malaysia launched its Look East Policy, research on the effectiveness of
education in Japan, especially in the field of science is rarely conducted.
Cooperation between the two countries is also said to have failed to bear fruit in
making Malaysia a developed nation, in tandem with the economic growth of
Japan, as described in several past studies (Furuoka 2007).
This study was aimed at eliciting the elements of HOTS in Japan through the SS
examination paper. Hence, this paper compares the manner questions on the same
physics topics that are formulated in SS and SPM. The questions that were com-
pared were, however, not taken from the same year, but within the same 2 years.
The SS questions include the 2014 and 2015 versions as there were a smaller
number of questions in the SS, whereas the SPM questions include only the 2014
questions. It was important for this research that the 2015 SPM questions had not
been published to the public at the time this experiment was conducted so as to
ensure that the participants had not had the opportunity to work on the questions;
hence, the validity of the instruments used in this experiment is ensured. This
research is part of a STEM research project and the present paper focuses on the
analysis of a set of Physics examination questions for SPM and SS which was used
as the research instruments.
The macrostructure of the examination questions formulated in SPM and SS was

first examined to enable the selection of question topics that are frequently allotted
in both SS and SPM. Next, an experiment session involving 11 students (3 females
and 8 males) was conducted. The participants were science stream students who
had just completed their 2015 SPM examination. At the completion of the exper-
iment, an interview session was conducted to obtain information regarding the
students’ experience when answering the SS and SPM examination questions. This
research was carefully planned in terms of its timing to ensure that all respondents
who underwent the experiment had completed learning all the syllabus required to
sit for the SPM examination. The students used the computer to answer questions
from the chosen topics. The solution steps and calculations were performed on the
computer screen and were recorded using JING, an application that records all
mouse movements that are displayed on the computer screen.
Apart from answering the SPM questions, the participants also answered the SS
questions. However, since the SS questions were written in Japanese, the SS
questions were translated into the Malay language by the researcher and reviewed
by a native speaker of Japanese who is proficient in the Malay language. For the
SPM questions experiment session, students were allowed to use the calculator and
refer to a list of formula when answering the questions. However, for the SS
questions, students were not allowed to use the calculator and they were also not
provided with any formula list so as to duplicate the SS examination scenario in
Japan. There was no time limit given to answer the questions in this experiment
session because the current study was aimed at discovering the process that the
students went through in solving the problems; limiting the time might disrupt the
thought processes of the students.
3 SPM and SS Examination Structure
The 2014 Physics examination for students who wish to further their studies in the
science field is known as Butsuri I (Physics I) and in 2015, this examination is
called Butsuri (Physics) (National Centre Test for University Admissions 2014 and
2015). Sixty minutes was allocated for answering the entire 2014 SS Physics
(Butsuri) examination questions (100% score). The structure of the Physics
examination question for both years can be summarised as follows:
The macrostructure of the 2014 and 2015 SS Physics examination questions is as
presented in Table 1. The total number of questions in 2014 is 22 and is divided
into four parts. All these questions are compulsory and the total overall score is
100%. However, for 2015, only questions 1–4 are compulsory questions, whereas
questions 5 and 6 are optional questions. The total overall score is still 100%,
although students were made to answer a total of five topics in the form of 21 types
of questions in total. All the questions in the SS Physics examination are objective
(multiple-choice) questions and each of these questions has a range between four
and nine answer options. Students should darken the correct answer in the OMR
Table 1 Macrostructure of question itemisation for SS physics questions of 2014 and 2015
No Total no. of questions Breakdown of marks
2014 topics
1 General topic 6 35
2 Electric and electromagnetic 5 15
3 Wave 4 20
4 Force and energy 7 30
2015 topics
1 General topic 5 20
2 Electric and electromagnetic 4 20
3 Wave 4 20
4 Various forces 5 25
5 Kinetic force 3 15
6 Atom 3 15
answer sheet that has the answer options in the form of numbers, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8 and 9. Both the SS Physics examination questions are written fully in Japanese
and no formula is given in the examination question paper.
SPM Physics Paper 1 is an objective form of questions with four answer choices.
Meanwhile, Paper 2 and Paper 3 contain structured questions with an essay form of
answers that needs to be written in the questions booklet and essay answer sheet. The
macrostructure analysis of the SPM and SS examination questions revealed that
problem-solving questions containing the topic of ‘Force’ are the type of questions
that are most frequently included (Refer to Tables 1 and 2). Therefore, the current
study used the questions on the topic of ‘force’ to test the research participants.
A total of three questions on ‘force’ from each of the SS and SPM examination
papers were chosen to be used as the research instrument in the experiment session.
4.1 Results of the Experiment Session
This paper discusses only the experience of students answering one of the questions
in this experiment which is the 2014 SPM Physics Paper 1 examination question
(p. 5) and the 2015 SS Physics 1 examination question (p. 70). This experiment was
conducted with respondents answering the SPM examination question first fol-
lowed by the SS question. The SS question was translated into English as follows:
Figure shows three slopes of the same length connected perfectly at points B and C which
have the same distance, L. When time t = 0, one small object is placed at point A, and the
small object begins to slide. At slope BC, the object moves with constant velocity v1; at
slope CD its velocity begins to lessen, and when reaching point D, the object stops moving.
Table 2 Macrostructure of question breakdown for SPM 2014 physics

Section Questions Topics Breakdown of marks
SPM physics paper 1
1–50 General topic 50
SPM physics paper 2
A 1 Electromagnetic 4
2 Pressure 5
3 Wave 6
4 Force 7
5 Pressure 8
6 Isotope 8
7 Electric 10
8 Light 12
B 9 Heat 20
10 Heat and electric 20
C 11 Force 20
12 Wave 20
SPM physics paper 3
A 1 Electric and current 16
2 Force and spring 12
B 3 Force and spring 12
4 Force (motor) 12
The time taken by the object after passing point B is t1, and after passing point C is t2.
When reaching point D, its time is t3. Assume the object’s friction with the surface of the
three slopes has the same value.
SS Physics Examination Question (p. 70)
After the statement of the problem in the story form is completed (situational
model), a figure that shows the situation depicted in the storyline is provided to help
the examination candidate understand the condition of the object that is mentioned
in the storyline. Next, the student had to answer the following question by choosing
a graph suited to the situation stated.
Select the appropriate graph among the answer options of 1 to 6 to reflect the change v
(velocity of small object) versus t (time)
SS Physics Examination Question (p. 80)
The SPM question on the same topic, i.e. the correlation between velocity–time
graph is as follows:
Diagram 2 shows a velocity–time graph for a motion of an object. What is the displacement
of the object?
Ministry of Education (SPM Physics Paper 1), 2014; p. 5
The diagram provided in the question shows a velocity graph that has its velocity
value in unit (ms-1) and time in t(s). Four answer options are given for this question
that contains the displacement value in unit (m). This question demonstrates the
same basic knowledge to obtain the correct answer. One experiment session was
conducted in order to identify the students’ actual experience in answering both
SPM and SS questions. The writing of the solution and answer was performed on
the computer screen using the mouse.
Results revealed that a total of 10 out of the 11 respondents answered the SPM
examination question in this study correctly, that is by finding the area under the
surface of the graph and by obtaining the value of 24 m as the answer. Only one
respondent got the answer wrong.
The SS question required the students to choose a velocity–time graph that is
appropriate for the situational model provided through a diagram and story-problem
structure. Although the storyline provided in the SS question in Japan is quite long,
the keyword in the question is distance, that is, the displacement taken by the object
to travel through points AB, BC and CD is the same. Theoretically, the concept
used in this SS question is similar to the SPM question; the area under the graph
should be identified in order to obtain distance or displacement. In order to solve the
SS question, students needed to select the area under the graph which is the same at
points AB, BC and CD. The answer options provided in the SS examination
question indicated that only one graph has the characteristic, namely answer option
number 3.
However, all the respondents did not answer the SS question correctly even after
doing the SPM question first which used the same concept. Although Respondent B
obtained the correct answer, an interview conducted after the experiment revealed
that the respondent actually did not know the solution and had only guessed the
answer.
4.2 Results of the Interview Session
The experiment was followed by an interview session to get a clear picture of the
students’ experience in answering the SPM and SS Physics questions used in this
research. In the interview session conducted, all the respondents were not aware
that the solution for the SPM and SS is similar until they were told. Respondent C
mentioned that the SPM question was quite easy because they only needed to
memorise the formula involved, which is, the value of the surface area under the
velocity–time graph is displacement. However, for the SS question, they needed to
read the narration in the story-problem carefully and have better understanding of
the question. According to Respondent D, the SPM question was not long; thus, the
calculation process could be carried out once the question was read to get the
answer. Respondent F felt that even though the SS question tested was long, he
understood the question and the situation of the question. However, he still could
not give the correct answer because he did not know how to solve the problem.
Respondents C and F stated that without looking at the formula, it was quite hard
for them to solve the problem in the SS question paper.
However, after being given the list of common formula as provided in the SPM
Physics question paper, the participants were still unable to answer the SS question
during the interview session. Respondent E chose the fifth answer choice by making
the interpretation that because of the same distance, its acceleration would probably
be the same. This answer option was also selected by Respondents C and G.
Respondent F chose the first answer choice, having the same thoughts as
Respondent E except that the slope in the graph of the first answer choice was
higher than in the fifth answer choice. According to Respondent D, the distance
travelled by the object to point AB, BC and CD was the same. Therefore, to her,
only the time taken that was different and this has resulted in her choosing the
second answer choice, which showed differences in time intervals in the graph. This
same solution process was also used by Respondents A, I, J and K.
All the respondents understood the concept of finding displacement using the
velocity–time graph by finding the surface area under the graph. However, they
were not able to apply it in the SS question. According to Respondent G, he felt that
the SS examination question did not ask the student directly because students need
to understand the meaning of point t1, t2 and t3 in the graph. Respondents C and D
mentioned that the SS question had no value and since all of them were in the
unknown form, such as t1 or t2 (for time) and L (for distance), calculation cannot be
performed. They added that the SPM question was easier to think out because it had
values that enabled the calculation to be carried out. Hence, the SS question form
was quite challenging for them. Respondent E was of the view that the Physics
questions in Japan involved a lot more thinking process. SPM Papers 2 and 3
questions which are in the essay format also have several questions in descriptive
story-problem form and the solution for the answers must be shown. Nevertheless,
based on the feedback received during the interview session, the respondents felt
that the SPM structured and essay questions are more of questions in the form of
memorisation and are not as complicated in its processing as the SS questions that
are in the multiple-choice format.
5 Conclusion
The approach adopted in the SS examination question in this study is the use of
unknown that allows students to create a new formula. If a similar situation as in the
SS question occurs, the velocity–time graph found during the solution process of
the SS question can be applied. The question in the SPM examination paper, on the
other hand, managed to apply the students’ problem-solving skills using the skills
of calculation by the means of the values given and can only be used for questions
that have those values. Through the findings of the comparative analysis, the level
of thinking to be applied can be seen in both the examination questions. The SS
question teaches the students to solve problems by creating a new formula in the
form of a graph. The level of thinking highlighted in the SS examination question

can be mapped to the Creating Level in the revised Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson
et al. 2001). In contrast, the SPM examination question applied the application of
problem-solving by giving the answer in the form of values without needing the
students to transform the answer into a new formula or in other forms such as
graphs. The level of cognition achieved during the process of solving this SPM
question can be mapped to the Evaluating Level and not the highest level in
Bloom’s taxonomy. In theory, it is the Creating Level that allows HOTS to be
generated. Not all metacognition processes involve critical thinking, especially if it
does not go through deeper thought processes (Tsai 2001). Metacognition process
such as this is known as complex thinking by Lipman (1991).
Although both the SS and SPM questions are objective questions
(multiple-choice), the level of thinking to be applied is different. The dissimilar
breakdown of marks between the two questions may also result in the existence of
differences in question construction approach employed. Nevertheless, what is even
more worrying is that both the questions have the same solution but the students did
not realise it. If the participants are able to think critically, the SS question could
certainly be solved easily because its solution is similar to the SPM question.
The strengthening of the nation’s STEM field which targets the younger gen-
eration to have the HOTS elements can be done if the way the Japanese formulate
their examination questions is studied. If this is done, a learning model can be
created and later be used as a guide to those who are involved in formulating
examination questions in the future. The results of this study can give hints about
the direction of science education in Japan so as to provide ideas and inspiration not
only to physics education but also science education in Malaysia.
Acknowledgements This research was conducted using UKM-STEM-2014-003 grant.
References
Anderson LW, Krathwohl DR, Bloom BS (2001) A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and
assessing: a revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Allyn & Bacon
Ariffin SR (2008) Inovasi dalam pengukuran & penilaian pendidikan. Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia, Bangi, Fakulti Pendidikan
Black P, Harrison C, Hodgen J, Marshall B, Serret N (2010) Validity in teachers’ summative
assessments. Assess Educ: Principles, Policy Pract 17(2):215–232
Bloom BS (1981) Education to improve learning. Mc Graw-Hill, New York, pp 71–79
Curriculum Development Division, Ministry of Education Malaysia (2014) Elemen KBAT dalam
pentaksiran. Ministry of Education, Malaysia, pp 2–6
Furuoka F (2007) Malaysia-Japan relations under the Mahathir administration: case studies of the
“Look East” policy and Japanese investment in Malaysia. Asian Surv 47(3):505–519
Lilia H (2013) Pendidikan sains dan pembangunan masyarakat berliterasi sains. Penerbit Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi
Lipman M (1991) Thinking in education. Cambridge University Press, New York
Ministry of Education (2014) Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (Fizik). Ministry of Education, Malaysia
Ministry of Education (2015) Malaysia education for all: end decade review report 2000–2015.
Ministry of Education, Malaysia, pp 8–10
National Centre Test for University Admissions (2014) Daigaku Nyuushi Senta Shiken (Butsuri
1). http://www.dnc.ac.jp/. Accessed 20 May 2016
National Centre Test for University Admissions (2015) Daigaku Nyuushi Senta Shiken (Butsuri).
http://www.dnc.ac.jp/. Accessed 20 May 2016
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2013) PISA 2012
results: what students know and can do (Volume I): student performance in mathematics,
reading and science. OECD Publishing
Tsai CC (2001) A review and discussion of epistemological commitments, metacognition, and
critical thinking with suggestions on their enhancement in Internet-assisted chemistry
classrooms. J Chem Educ 78(7):970–975
Part XIII
Law
Chapter 43
Difficulties in Conforming
to the Common Law Duties
of Innkeepers and the Innkeepers Act
1952 Among Hoteliers in Melaka
Yuhanza Othman, Mimi Sofiah Ahmad Mustafa, Ida Rahayu Mahat,

Ekmil Krisnawati Erlen Joni and Najihah Hanisah Marmaya
Abstract In Malaysia, there is no specific governing law pertaining to the legal

duties of the innkeepers. Therefore, the common law is adopted to uphold the rights
of guests in hotels. The objective of this recent study is to examine the uniformity in
the application of the common law duties and those under the Innkeepers Act 1952
among hoteliers in Melaka. A doctrinal research was adopted in this study and
responses from 26 respondents were taken. The result showed that there is no
uniformity in the application of the common law duties among hoteliers in Melaka.
Moreover, the existence of lacuna in the Innkeepers Act has caused nonconformity
on the part of the hoteliers in upholding the rights of the guests. Most of the hotels
tend to deviate from the Innkeepers Act 1952. It is hoped that this study may shed
some light on the policymakers, hoteliers and the public to urge for a specific law
on duties of the innkeepers to uphold the rights of guests. The current doctrinal
research is a qualitative study since it did not involve any statistical analysis of the
Y. Othman (&)
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Kampus Bandaraya Melaka,
Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: yuhanza255@uitm.edu.my
M. S. A. Mustafa I. R. Mahat E. K. E. Joni
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Kampus Alor Gajah, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: mimisofiah@melaka.uitm.edu.my
I. R. Mahat
e-mail: idarahayu@bdrmelaka.uitm.edu.my
E. K. E. Joni
e-mail: ekmil777@bdrmelaka.uitm.edu.my
N. H. Marmaya
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Kampus Bandaraya Melaka, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: najihah@bdrmelaka.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_43
468 Y. Othman et al.
data. On the other hand, the result would have probably been different or more
investigative, if consideration was made to conduct a non-doctrinal research to
argue the findings of the study.

Keywords Common law duties Duties of innkeepers Hoteliers

Guest The innkeepers act 1952
1 Introduction
Tourism plays an important role in generating the economy and investment in

Malaysia. According to the statistics published by MyTourism Data Portal, tourists
in the year 2015 were about 25.7 million people and it managed to generate almost
69.1 billion receipts (Tourism Malaysian 2016). Due to this positive development,
Malaysian Government has allocated RM1.2 billion to the Tourism and Culture
Ministry in its 2016 budgets and it believes that tourism industries have the highest
potential to generate long-term economic planning.
Such an overwhelming development has inevitably boosted accommodation
services in Malaysia. The support from the government together with the potential
receipts has vastly contributed to the birth of hotels in Malaysia. Many hotels and
motels were built and the number has steadily increased from year to year. In 2013,
about 1650 hotels were registered and there were 1716 hotels registered in 2014
(Malaysian of Hotels Association 2014). This growth of hotel industry requires the
effort and consensus among hoteliers to maintain and upgrade their services
including safeguarding the right of their guests. According to Sharija (2009), those
involved in this accommodation industries need to understand and be aware of the
legal duties imposed on them.
In Malaysia, the legal duties of the hoteliers were adopted from English common
law but subjected to the Civil Law Act 1957. Common law divides the general
duties of innkeepers into two parts, the first one is the public duties of innkeepers
and second, private duties. This research will only concentrate on public duties of
innkeepers, such as duty to provide accommodation, duty to provide refreshment
and duty to refrain from discrimination. Notwithstanding the growth of hotel
industry in Malaysia, unfortunately to date, there is no specific written law namely,
statutes or standard rules or regulations regarding public duties of innkeepers. Any
issues arising will be resolved by adopting the unwritten law, i.e. the common law.
Due to the absence of standard rules and guideline in Malaysia, each hotel tends to
interpret and apply the public duties according to their own understanding.
Liabilities of innkeepers can be looked at two perspectives; first, is liability
towards loss and damage of a guest property and second is liability towards safety
and protection of guest property (Hemphling 1929). The Malaysian Parliament has
enacted the Innkeepers Act 1952 which came into force on 29 May 1952. This Act
has been revised in 1981 and it applies to innkeepers in Peninsular Malaysia only.
Section 4 of Innkeepers Act 1952 provides the duty and liability of innkeepers in
43 Difficulties in Conforming to the Common … 469
case of loss and damage of a guest property. However, lack of precedent has caused
non-uniformity in its application among hoteliers in Malaysia (Nuraisyah 2007).
The aim of this research is to examine the uniformity among the hoteliers
towards the application of the public duties provided by the common law and the
Innkeepers Act 1952. This study has analysed and identified the difficulties faced by
the hoteliers in conforming the common law and the Innkeepers Act 1952 which
will subsequently provide for a possible legal framework in this field. The
respondents for this research were the hoteliers in Melaka.
This paper displays first, the literature review of the common law duties of
innkeepers and the existing law of the innkeepers in Malaysia. Second, the result of
an exploratory study from 26 standard interviews carried out among hoteliers in
Melaka is revealed in this writing.
2 Methodology
This is a socio-legal research that combined legal research with an investigation of

some problems which aimed to determine the inadequacy of the existing law and
the need for a new, standard law or an amended one. According to Yaqin (2007),
legal research should not be limited to purely legal matters, it should also cover a
social study.
Hence, this socio-legal research study adopted a qualitative method in which
information or data were collected through interviews and library research. The
research interview is one of the most important qualitative data collection methods
and it has been widely used in qualitative research (Sandy and John 2011). Using
interviews as a tool in qualitative research as contended by Keith (2005) might help
a researcher to access people’s perception, understand people’s situation, explain
practicality, meaning, constructions of reality and definitions of situations.
The interviews took place in Melaka between May and August 2016, where
several structured interviews were conducted with 26 hotels in Melaka. All hotels
received the same questions which were arranged in the same manner. The ques-
tions were predetermined and the researchers attempted to play a neutral role in a
neutral manner. The respondents involved were in different classes of hotels from
one star up to four-star hotels. The selection of hotels depended on the willingness
of the respondents to be interviewed. Some hotels were reluctant to be interviewed
due to constraints of hotel policy.
The interview guideline contained three parts in which each part was concretised
with sub-questions. As for the basic information of the hotel, the first part of the
questions focused on the background of the hotels. Second part of the questions
reflected on the application of the common law duties, where it was further divided
into three sub-questions regarding the duty to provide accommodation, the duty to
provide refreshment and the duty to refrain discrimination. The final part of the
questions focused on the provisions of the Innkeepers Act 1952.
According to the common law, the term ‘inn’ refers to a public house. It is a house,
where the owner will receive travellers who are willing to pay a price which is
suitable for accommodation provided by an inn. (Sherry 1993). An innkeeper is a
person who serves the public and keeping an inn. In Malaysia, the term
‘innkeepers’ is defined in Section 2 of the Innkeepers Act 1952 as, ‘any hotel,
boarding-house or other place where any person is harboured or lodged for any
kind whatsoever for hire or reward and where any domestic service whatsoever is
rendered by the owner, lessee, principal tenant, occupier or manager to the person
so harboured or lodge, licensed under any written law for the time being in force in
West Malaysia’. In this research, the term ‘inn’ will be interchangeably used with
the term ‘hotel’.
With regards to legal duties of the innkeepers, the common law has laid down
various legal duties of the innkeepers that can be referred to in its precedent. This
research focused only on the duty of the innkeepers to provide accommodation,
duty to provide refreshment and duty not to discriminate the guests. Since there are
no precedents and specific rules available in Malaysia, any issues raised in this area
will be resolved using the common law, United Kingdom (UK) and United States
(U.S) courts’ decisions provided they are permitted by local circumstances and
inhabitant to do so (Nuraisyah 2013).
3.1 Duty to Provide Accommodation
It is part of the legal duty of an innkeeper to provide shelter, premise or lodging to

every guest who comes to ask for service and who is able to pay a reasonable sum for
the services and facilities provided (Nuraisyah 2007). However, it is noted that there
are two dimensions to the laws either to admit the public which is subject to a
contract law or specific statutes and the law of rightful refusals (Linda and Robert
1995). Under these circumstances, the duty to provide accommodation is not
absolute (Gan and Goh 2014). The innkeeper may refuse to accept guests in case of
unscrupulous guests, minors, young adults or even a person with disruptive beha-
viour. This is important in order to protect the goodwill of the inn, to safeguard the
existing guests and public interest. According to the case of Rothfield v North British
Hotels (1920) SC 805, the manner and conduct of the guest had caused distraction or
annoyance to other patrons; thus, he was removed from the hotel by the management.
The common law also appended that, an innkeeper whose rooms are fully
occupied is not under an obligation to provide accommodation to a traveller. In the
case of Browne v Brandt (1902) 1 KB 696, a motorist whose car had broken down
came to an inn in the early morning was refused permission to sleep in a public
room as all the bedrooms were full and the court had held that this was not unlawful
for the innkeeper to do so.
In this research, all the respondents unanimously agreed that they have provided
accommodation facilities based on types of inns and ratings of hotels at the public
place in their hotels. They had made efforts to upgrade their accommodation ser-
vices and facilities to fulfil public needs and to compete with other hotels. This can
be seen from what were mentioned by H19, H20 and H25 in their survey forms that
they have provided amenities, such as printing and fax services, in-room dining and
even spas. Regarding accepting guests who arrive late, the respondents have applied
the common law practice that they will just accept them but subject to availability
of rooms and priority will be given to those guests who have booked the room
earlier either through online services or phone. Guests who come and do not make
reservation are called as ‘walk-in guests’ and the innkeepers are under the same
duty to accept the guests whether they come individually or in a big group as it all
depends on the availability of rooms.
For this duty to provide accommodation, it seems that there were no difficulties
in applying the common law among the hoteliers in Melaka except for walk-in
guests who arrive late after midnight. According to H7, they would not accept
guests who come to the hotel after 12 midnight. Whereas, the rest of the respon-
dents agreed that they would only accept a walk-in guest who comes after midnight
provided such a guest informs them in advance that they would arrive late. Under
common law, the law is clear on the duty of the innkeeper to receive guests at
whatever hour of the night he may arrive if the guest conducts himself properly as
decided in the case of R v Ivens (1935) 7C & P 213.
3.2 Duty to Provide Service in a Non-discriminatory

Manner
Grounds for discrimination could be race, gender, disabilities, religion or belief

(Gan and Goh 2014). The innkeepers must reasonably use their effort to refrain
from discriminating a guest either in relation to the services or facilities provided.
Pursuant to Article 8 of the Federal Constitution that states that there should be
equality before the law, no one should be treated differently or unequally.
The common law and Malaysian law emphasise that disabled guests must be
treated fairly and reasonably. Thus, the innkeepers are encouraged to provide
facilities that suit disabled persons and treat them accordingly as required by
Section 26 of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008. According to H8, the
requirement to provide room for disabled persons is compulsory before the regis-
tration of hotel ratings. Hence, there is no dispute with regard to this duty.
In this research, all respondents have provided accommodation facilities for
disabled persons and majority of them allocate the ground floor rooms for this
purpose. In addition to that, they also provide wheelchairs for those who are in
need. It is thus assumed that they were aware of a citizen’s rights and equality
before the law as enshrined in the Federal Constitution such as charging equally
irrespective whether the guests were disabled or normal.
3.3 Duty to Provide Refreshments
Common law provides that the innkeeper is under a duty to provide reasonable
refreshment to a guest or traveller. According to Nuraisyah (2013), the term rea-
sonable is flexible in nature and it is not necessary for a hotel to provide a complete
set of meals to its guests. Thus, one might think that even a bottle of mineral water
can be included as a reasonable refreshment. As long as an innkeeper provides
reasonable refreshment, it is not obligatory on the innkeeper to provide refreshment
which is not available in the inn. In R v Higgins (1948) 1 KB 165, a family arrived
at an inn on Sunday at lunchtime and asked for a meal. However, the innkeeper
refused to provide them with a meal. Instead, they offered them sandwiches on the
ground that they had limited supply of food. The court held that the innkeepers had
a reasonable excuse for refusing to serve meal, however, this should not be
encouraged as good management of a hotel.
The Innkeepers Act 1952 is silent on the duty to provide refreshments; drinks or
nibbles or snacks to the guests. Because of this lacuna, some hotels take advantage
by avoiding reasonable refreshment, especially if the hotel is rated one star. Each
hotel seemed to be adopting different views regarding the application of this duty.
Some hotels assumed the duty to provide refreshment was optional (H3) and
depended on the hotel’s rating (H4 and H6). H10 added that the duty to provide
refreshment would be the responsibility of the four- and five-star hotels only but not
for budget hotels. H1 opined that providing refreshments is secondary and
inessential to the travellers around Melaka. Travellers come to Melaka to try local
dishes and famous traditional cuisines available around.
Furthermore, lack of specific guideline and explanation has caused various views
with regard to duty to provide reasonable refreshment. As written earlier, as long as
the refreshment is reasonable, a hotel is regarded to have fulfilled this duty.
However, this led to non-uniformity and it seems to affect the conformity to
common law duties. From the interview, seven respondents valued the customers or
the guests by providing them with a welcome drink, whereas others assumed that
the basics of having free bottles of mineral water and packets of coffee and tea in
the room as refreshment (H2, H7, H13, H14, H16, H17, H21, H 22, H24 and H26).
3.4 Duties of Innkeepers Under the Innkeepers Act 1952
Under the common law, the innkeeper is liable for any loss or damage caused to the
property brought by the guests into the hotel. Historically, regardless of any value
of a guest property and a mere failure on the part of the guest to notify the
innkeepers that his bag or luggage contained valuables, the guest will not be
considered to be negligent but the innkeeper will be liable for the loss of them
(Hemphling 1929).
The liability of the innkeepers was also extended to take all reasonable measures
to secure hotel environment and maintain reasonable protection to safeguard guest’s
property (Julie et al. 2006). The innkeepers will be strictly liable within its hos-
pitium or bounds of the inn. It is not necessary whether the goods were deposited
with the hotel safe or not.
However, nowadays, the law has changed and many countries have displaced
the rigidity of the common law that the innkeeper will only be liable to the loss of a
guest property if the relevant statute provides so. Each country has different laws
with regard to this matter (Gan and Goh 2014).
In Malaysia, the Innkeepers Act 1952 which was enforceable in Malaysia on 29
May 1952 was widely influenced by the U.K. law. The main objective of this Act is
to provide relief for innkeepers. It contains only seven (7) sections but this research
only focused on Section 4 of the Act. According to Section 4 of the Act, the
innkeeper will not be liable for the loss or damage of a guest property if the price of
property is more than RM500. However, this limitation was barred if the loss or
damage of a guest property was due to the negligence of the innkeepers or its
employees and the property was lost or damaged during the safe custody of the
innkeepers. The guest must inform the innkeeper that the deposit is for safe custody,
i.e. if the property is left on the reception desk and got lost, the innkeeper will not
be held liable for such lost (Nuraisyah 2007). Pursuant to the limitation under
Section 4 of the Act, it seems to be in line with the objective of the Act because the
guest cannot simply go against the innkeepers if his belonging was stolen or lost
due to his own negligence.
The limitation under Section 4 of the Act impliedly imposes a duty on the part of
the innkeeper to provide safety box or other receptacles for its guests. The Act
allows the innkeepers to require from its guests to declare the value of the property
deposited and the innkeepers may refuse to receive the goods for safe custody if the
value of the property is more than RM5000. The safety box does not refer to the
safe box provided in the hotel room. The safe custody box must be fastened and
sealed by the depositor.
In this research, the respondents were also asked regarding the application of
Section 4 of the Act on whether the respondent has provided a safe custody box or
not, what are the conditions required for a guest to safe keep his or her belonging
and the respondents’ views with regard to the imposition of a safety box. The
interview has revealed that the respondents were aware of the existence of Section 4
of the Act but were still ambiguous on the liabilities imposed by that section.
Among the 26 respondents, 15 of them have provided the safe box for their guests
at the front desk. According to one of the respondents (H9) who had furnished the
safety box, ‘… the safety box was actually upon requests by guests because
sometimes even though we have provided the safety box in the room, they still
request our hotel to keep their belongings’. Some of the respondents were still
unsure of the type of safety box mentioned in Section 4 of the Act and assumed that
it is referring to a safety box provided in the hotel rooms. Section 4 does not clearly
specify the types of safety box and where it should be placed. It is also silent on
whether it is mandatory for all types of inn to have safety box regardless of the
ratings of the inn. One of the respondents contended that the safety box is not
compulsory for a budget hotel. Thus, this ambiguity together with the lack of case
laws in Malaysia has caused non-uniformity in the application of Section 4 of the
Act and has led to various assumptions and interpretations in its application.
4 Recommendations
The existing provisions in the Innkeepers Act 1952 have many loopholes and it
seems to be no longer relevant as suggested by Sharija (2009). Nuraisyah (2013)
mentioned that this Act needs to be amended in order to make it comprehensive and
suitable to cope with issues of non-uniformity of law among the hoteliers. Some
proposed suggestions are as follows:
1. The existing law should be amended as it was only revised in 1981 in order to
make it relevant to the then development of tourism industries. The
fast-changing technology in communication today must be taken into consid-
eration in amending the law to make it comprehensive and holistic to tackle each
possible problem within the tourism industry.
2. Section 4 of the Innkeepers Act needs to be detailed so that it will help the
hoteliers to observe and apply its requirement. The ambiguity of Section 4 has
led to lenient enforcement of providing the safety box at the front desk of the
hotel. Hence, it is high time for the legislator to enact a piece of legislation
which makes it mandatory for all hotels and inns, irrespective of their ratings, in
this country to have safety boxes installed at their hotels for safekeeping of the
guests’ property. Perhaps, what could vary is the value of goods to be deposited.
The lesser the rating of the hotel, the lower the value of the goods that could be
deposited at the safety box in that hotel.
3. A power via subsidiary legislations must be given to the relevant minister to
make specific rules pertaining to duties of the innkeepers in Malaysia. Thus,
uniformity in the application of common law duties could be achieved which
will lead to a much more satisfactory service in accommodation facilities in
Malaysia. Subsidiary legislations could solve a lot of problems of interpretations
because specific provisions on how to carry out the objective of the legislation
could easily be determined. This would maintain uniformity in the application of
the law relating to innkeepers.
4. Some common law duties should be converted into statutory provisions and this
move will be able to solve any doubt in the application of such duties by the
innkeepers. Having rules enacted in statutes gives a greater impact than those
rules available under the common law because of its status as a written law
(law passed by Parliament) compared to an unwritten law. For example, if the
Act specifically requires the hotels to provide safety boxes to safeguard the
guests’ property, then it would not cause any inconsistencies in conforming to
the rule. If the Act makes it compulsory for hotels to prepare refreshments, no
questions would be asked if the hotel is penalised for not doing so.
5. A committee should be established that has a supervisory power to ensure that
hotels in Malaysia conform with all rules and regulations passed concerning the
hotel industry. This committee can also function as a tribunal to recommend to
hotels what should be done to maintain standards imposed by the industry. It is
submitted that this committee shall have jurisdictions and scope of work like an
ombudsman who is an independent neutral body to receive complaints from the
public regarding public bodies (Jain 2013).
6. The public should be educated of their duties, rights and liabilities through
brochures from relevant ministries or through any broadcasting medium so that
they might be aware of their rights and liabilities which eventually would be
applied when they encounter issues relating to accommodation services.
7. The Tourism Ministry may also organise courses from time to time for hotel
providers so that they are aware and updated of their duties under the common
law and the Innkeepers Act and at the same time encourage them to comply to
such duties.
5 Conclusion
The Innkeepers Act 1952 has been the focus of this writing since it is to discover
solutions to any difficulties arising out of its enforcement. The preceding paragraphs
display that those who are in this industry seem to try to be lawful in their daily
operation but with their own understanding of what the law is. The purpose of
proposing to amend the Act is not only to provide reliefs to innkeepers but to
safeguard the public especially the hotel guests. Although the Tourism Act 1992
was enacted but this Act only focuses on the licensing of tourism industry and
travel agencies. Therefore, the Innkeepers Act 1952 is in dire need to be amended in
order to benefit everyone especially the innkeepers’ guests. It is also hoped that the
legislation will take into account some common law duties to make them statutory
in nature so that any issues on non-uniformity in applying the duties conferred upon
innkeepers will be resolved.
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Chapter 44
Legal Framework Governing Waqf
Implementation in Malaysian
Universities: Lessons Learnt
from Turkish Legal Frameworks
Rohayati Hussin, Rusnadewi Abdul Rashid and Noor Inayah Yaakub
Abstract At present, there is no precise legal framework in governing waqf

implementation in Malaysian universities. Under the existing Malaysian legal
provisions, the State Islamic Religious Council (SIRC) is the sole trustee of waqf
either waqf am or waqf khas. Thus, in creating waqf, universities must get the
permission from the SIRC beforehand even though they are governed under their
own higher education laws. Nevertheless, SIRC in each state does not provide a
clear framework on how universities based on waqf should be governed as they are
under the power of Minister of Higher Education. Consequently, there are various
ways of implementing waqf in Malaysian universities, as well as, no standard
framework on the management of these institutions. Likewise, in Turkey, there are
comprehensive laws regulating their waqf (foundation) universities as well as their
waqf universities management. This study has incorporated qualitative and
exploratory approaches. In summary, the researchers opine that the existing legal
frameworks governing the implementation of waqf in Malaysian universities
require some enhancement and improvement to suit the need of the institutions. In
fact, the reference could be made to Turkish frameworks as they have the best
model to be learnt and adopted in Malaysian context wherever appropriate.
Keywords Education Foundation Framework University Waqf
R. Hussin (&)
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA, (Uitm) Kedah, Bedong, Malaysia
e-mail: roha427@kedah.uitm.edu.my
R. A. Rashid
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA, (Uitm) Perlis, Arau, Malaysia
e-mail: rusnadewi@perlis.uitm.edu.my
N. I. Yaakub
Director, Global Wisdom Academy, Islamic Universiti of Malaysia (IUM),
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
e-mail: inayah@uim.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_44
478 R. Hussin et al.
1 Introduction
To date, a plethora of studies have viewed that waqf among the strongest instrument
not only for the protection of religious and benevolent organizations but also for
educational, science and technology as well as economic development. It is irre-
futable throughout the history, waqf has demonstrated the aptitude in supporting the
financial of prominent universities in Islamic states, such as al-Azhar University in
Cairo, University of al-Qurewiyyin in Fez and the Shrine College of Abu Hanifah
in Baghdad. Considering the significant roles demonstrated by waqf, presently, a
momentous number of well-known universities in the world were instituted and
sustained using waqf properties, such as the Vakif Universities/Universities of
Turkey such as Abant Izzet Baysal University, the King Abdul Aziz University of
UAE, the University of Cordova in Spain and Universitas Islam Indonesia in
Jogjakarta, Indonesia (Osman et al. 2015; Mahamood and Rahman 2014).
Following the same step, Malaysia also has put the effort to adopt waqf in a way
to reduce the reliance of the universities on the government resources through
Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015–2025 (Higher Education). Believing the
uniqueness of waqf through its pillars, viz. irrevocability, perpetuity and inalien-
ability, the waqf assets could be generated in order to give advantage to benefi-
ciaries. In the same way, to ensure this effort could be achieved, it requires the
enhancement of the charity culture of waqf among members of the Muslim society
in Malaysia. The perception of several Muslims that waqf is only in the form of
mosques, madrasahs and Muslim burial ground should be changed.
Among the public universities currently, practice waqf for funding their edu-
cation are National University of Malaysia (UKM), Putra University of Malaysia
(UPM), University of Science Malaysia (USM) and Islamic Science University of
Malaysia (USIM). Additionally, Islamic University of Malaysia (IUM) and
University College Bestari (UCB) are the examples of private universities which
also use waqf to finance their institutions. Although all these universities are
adopting waqf for several years nonetheless, their waqf implementation and man-
agement differ as no standard procedures are available. The lack of standard pro-
cedure and guidelines affect its efficient implementation by the universities.
This study has incorporated qualitative and exploratory approach. A qualitative

research is defined as an inquiry process of understanding a social or human
problem based on building a complex, holistic picture, formed with words,
reporting detailed views of informants and conducted in a natural setting (Creswell
2009). Conversely, an exploratory approach is important in this study in order to
know how waqf is implemented as an alternative instrument in funding the uni-
versities. In collecting data, two main methods are used, namely library research
44 Legal Framework Governing Waqf Implementation … 479
and interviews. The first method involves the collection of data from primary and
secondary sources. This includes classical and contemporary Shari‘ah books on
waqf, particularly pertaining to education (waqf education), sources from Shari‘ah
and conventional books on development and other relevant sources from journals,
conference papers and websites. In addition, several Malaysian and Turkish leg-
islations are scrutinized for the purpose of this study. As regard to the second
method, interviews are conducted which involve expert interviews. All the inter-
views are recorded and transcribed. Finally, all the data will be analysed using the
content analysis method.
3 Waqf Terminologies
Wakaf or waqf (plural awqaf) or hubs (plural ahbas) is an Arabic masdar which is
derived from the word waqafa and literally means ‘detention’, ‘to prevent’, ‘to
restrain’. The term awqafa, which has the same meaning as waqafa, is very rare in
the Arabic language. Waqf is called in different terms, such as boniyad in Iran and
habs or tasbil in North and West Africa. Jurists in Southeast Asia sometimes write it
as wakaf or wakap. However, in Indonesia, it is known as wakap. The term wakaf is
used in Malaysia to mean the same. Furthermore, it is noticed that Federal
Constitution in Malaysia uses the word wakaf apart from several times mentioned
in State Enactments which is a Malay spelling and consonant for waqf. Meanwhile,
in Turkey, there are several terms used to refer to waqf, i.e. vaqf (plural evqaf),
evkaf, vakif or vakfi. In addition, the term waqf in Turkey also refers to foundation
as illustrated by Sesli (2010). In Malaysia, the term waqf can be seen in Melaka
Wakaf Enactment 2005, as follows:
The dedication of any property from which its usufruct or benefit may be used for any
charitable purpose whether as wakaf am or wakaf khas according to Hukum Syarak, but
does not include a trust which is defined under Trustee Act 1949 [Act 208].
3.1 Legality of Waqf
The term waqf has not been specifically mentioned in Al-Quran or hadith never-
theless, many verses are interpreted as instructing Muslims to spend their wealth in
the way of Allah as there will be a great reward. Allah said:
Believe in Allah and His Messenger and spend out of that in which He has made you
successors. For those who have believed among you and spent, there will be a great reward
(Al Hadid: 7)
Allah S.W.T also said in other verse:

The example of those who spend their wealth in the way of Allah is like a seed [of grain]
which grows seven spikes; in each spike is a hundred grains. And Allah multiplies [His
reward] for whom He wills. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing
(Al Baqarah: 261)
As mentioned in the two Quranic verses above, the waqif (the endower) will
continue to receive Allah’s rewards even after his/her death as long as the waqf
property is used in a good manner. One way to be a donor is through waqf. Not
only that, waqf is the best instrument to do charity because the property endowed
will be managed by the authorized person/institution known as mutawalli to ensure
the permanence of the awqaf assets. There is also a hadith mentioning about waqf
as started by Prophet Muhammad Peace and Blessings be Upon Him (PBUH) when
Umar who asked the Prophet (PBUH), what to do with a palm orchard he owned in
the city of Khaibar and the Prophet (PBUH), said:
Give it in charity (i.e. as an endowment) with its land and trees on the condition that the
land and trees will neither be sold nor given as a present, nor bequeathed, but the fruits are
to be spent in charity.
(Narrated by Bukhory)
4.1 Should Waqf University Be Given A Status

As Mutawwali?
There is no specific definition of waqf universities so far. However, from the

literature, it could be agreed that a waqf university means a university established
based on waqf concepts and principles either wholly or partly. At the moment, all of
the universities mentioned beforehand have been approved by SIRCs to implement
waqf in their institutions. Mahamood and Mahamood (2016) assert that the exe-
cution of waqf in the universities without the authorization of SIRC is considered
contradicting Malaysian laws. The illustration can be seen in Section 4(1), Wakaf
(State of Selangor) Enactment 2015 (Enactment 15) stipulates that:
The Majlis shall be the sole trustee for all wakaf situated in State of Selangor…
Section 45 of the same enactment mentions that:

Any person who administers or manages wakaf am or wakaf khas without the written
permission of Majlis or Corporation commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable
to a fine not exceeding one thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six
months or to both
Nevertheless, it depends on the discretion of the SIRC of the state either to grant
the status to the universities or not to manage their own institutions. As explained
by Mahamood (2016), there are three different terms for waqf manager in respect of
waqf universities which are depicted in Fig. 1.
An-nazir in the context of waqf university refers to SIRC as the sole trustee of all
waqf assets. Al-mutawwali, on the other hand, manages waqf university under the
supervision of SIRC. Next, al-qayyim is considered as an agent of SIRC which has
lesser power to manage waqf independently compared to al-mutawwali. Among the
waqf universities that already granted the status as mutawwali are USIM, UIM and
UCB. UKM, on the other hand, is granted a title as al-qayyim.
Even though SIRCs have discretion power to grant the status to universities yet,
no specific prerequisites set by them as well as lack of uniform guidelines in
appointing a university as al-mutawwali or al-qayyim. Consequently, the efficiency
of waqf implementation in the universities is affected. Some universities in
Malaysia are waiting to be appointed as al-mutawwali for several years. With the
mutawwali status, a university may have the freedom to manage their own insti-
tution even though still being controlled by SIRCs. Prof. Dr. Wan Kamal Mujani,
Dean of Faculty of Islamic Studies, UKM (personal interview, February 26, 2016)
reported that a strong support by Chief of Minister of the state with regard to the
waqf implementation in university does influence the decision of SIRCs in granting
university a status as mutawwali. He further explains that some requirements set by
SIRCs are contentious by waqf universities as if they do not have the confidence to
allow them to manage their own waqf fund. He suggests that waqf universities
should be given their own freedom to manage their waqf assets, while SIRCs are
still responsible to monitor the overall operation of waqf in HEIs.
In the same way, Saleem (2009) opines that universities should act as managers
(mutawalli) and beneficiaries of waqf assets. This would create the right incentives
for universities to actively promote and encourage the creation of new waqf assets
for educational purposes, provide professional support for the management of waqf
Fig. 1 Waqf universities

manager
assets and contribute to the educational and socio-economic development of the

society. Therefore, the researchers believe that waqf universities should be given
opportunity to manage their waqf assets independently apart from monitoring by
SIRCs.
4.2 Existing Legal Frameworks Governing Waqf

Implementation in Malaysian Universities
At the moment, the implementation of waqf in Malaysian universities either public

or private universities is commenced in various means. USIM for instance, a public
university that established their own waqf centre with the collaboration of the SIRC,
Negeri Sembilan which is known as Al-Abrar Waqf Fund in March 2013. The
establishment of the centre was endorsed by the University’s Board of Directors in
the meeting of in May 2013.
Conversely, waqf implementation in private university like UCB is started by a
non-governmental organization known as Pertubuhan Kebajikan Anak Yatim
Malaysia (PEYATIM). During the personal interview conducted with President of
PEYATIM Prof. Datuk Dr. Tengku Mahmud Mansor on (personal interview,
February 3, 2016) reported that a piece of land belonging to PEYATIM has been
divided into small lot of one square foot each to be sold to potential contributors
(waqif) at a price of RM30.00 per lot. Those lots that are acquired would then be
donated back to PEYATIM as the recipient. The funds collected after the sale of
plots will be considered as waqf fund (Hussin et al. 2016).
Another essential point, PEYATIM has collaborated with several bodies in
Malaysia, such as Pos Malaysia, Bank Simpanan Nasional Berhad (BSN), etc., to
help PEYATIM in promoting the sale of land. The President further explains that
till today, there is 13 million MYR fund which Yayasan Wakaf Pendidikan Anak
Yatim atau Miskin Malaysia (YAWATIM) has received from almost 2000 dedi-
cators or waqifs all over the states in Malaysia. YAWATIM is an authorized body
which was established on 2 November 2011 as company limited by guarantee with
the registration No 96651H pursuant to Section 16(4) of Companies Act 1965. The
purpose of establishing YAWATIM is to ensure that the fund collected is com-
plying with the law in Malaysia. As far as the law in Malaysia is concerned,
PEYATIM as a non-governmental organization is prohibited to collect deposit from
public, therefore, establishing YAWATIM is satisfying the requirement of law. In
addition, waqf funds collected will be used to develop various infrastructure pro-
jects and also to be invested in order to have high economic returns in future
(Sayyin and Hamid 2015).
Though waqf is under the state jurisdiction as listed in Federal Constitution
under List II (the Ninth Schedule), nonetheless, the implementation of waqf in the
universities needs to comply with Federal laws as education is listed under Federal
List in the Ninth Schedule. Among the Federal laws related to the implementation
of waqf in the universities are Universities and University Colleges Act 1971
(UUCA 1971, amended 2009), Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996
(Act 555), Income Tax Act 1967 (Act 53), Contract Act 1950 (Act 136),
Companies Act 1965 (Act 125), Societies Act 1966 (Act 335) and Trustee Act 1949
(Act 208). Even though waqf term does not appear in the legislations mentioned
before, nonetheless, reference to these laws are needed as waqf application also
relates to other matters.
As far as this study is concerned, there is no precise framework in term of waqf
implementation in universities. The only legal requirement that needs to be fulfilled
is to acquire permission from SIRC prior to implement waqf in their institutions as
explained before. A few existing literature indicates that special regulations or rules
are vital in order to govern the overall system of universities based on waqf. This is
due to waqf has some exclusive features and a number of strict Shariah principles
need to be followed (Mahamood and Rahman 2015).
4.3 Foundation (Vakif/Waqf)
According to Disli (2013) in Turkey, the other terminologies used nowadays other
than waqf are foundation, the third sector, civil society organization,
non-governmental organization and voluntary sector. Foundation (vakif) is the most
imperative and communal type of benevolent bodies which may generally be defined
as the transfer of benefits arising from specific private assets to public property by
allocating those assets to charitable, social or cultural services (Yalti 2008). The
specific definition of foundation could be grasped from Article 101 of Turkish Civil
Law No. 4721 (‘Civil Law’) as a group of properties with legal personalities,
established through the allocation of appropriate assets and rights for a certain and
constant purpose by real persons or legal entities. Foundations are considered to be
legal entities. The Civil Law, Law on Foundations No. 5737, Regulation on
Foundations, Bylaw on the Registration and Announcement of the Foundations that
was published in the Official Gazette dated 26.04.2013 and numbered 28269, as well
as other relevant legislation, comprises provisions regarding the incorporation of
foundations (Ecem 2010). Additionally, Kuleli and Turkon (2008) assert that
Foundation Law is the most imperative legal basis in Turkey relating to foundations.
The existence of the foundation law allows foundations to be established in Turkey as
well as to play an effective role in business life.
4.4 Current Turkish Legal Frameworks Governing Waqf

(Vakif) Implementation in Universities
At the moment, there are about 68 waqf universities in Turkey and the number
continues to rise. Its largest city, Istanbul, has 38 universities, and this constitutes
the largest number at present. Law plays a vigorous role behind the victory of waqf
universities in Turkey. Among the legal frameworks which are used to govern the
overall system of higher education institutions in Turkey are Higher Education Law
(Law No. 2547), The 1982 Constitution, Turkish Civil Code (Law No. 4721) and
Foundation Law 2008 (Law No. 5737). The university established by foundation is
bound to follow the laws set by their government.
The establishment of foundations in Turkey does not only benefit the private
universities but also public universities. Commonly, public universities are financed
by the government, nonetheless there are several type of foundations, associations
and corporations which sphere these universities. It is irrefutable that the formation
of foundations to support State Universities should comply with Civil Code and
Foundations Law as well as Article 130 of The 1982 Constitution. University
foundations have been encouraging and helping universities to improve themselves
since the commencement of the Republic (Hatice 2011).
Furthermore, in 2007, the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) has reported the
significance of non-profit universities in order to reduce the burden carried by
public counterparts via providing high-quality education to their students (Erkoc
2011). Turkish Constitution: Code No. 130 stipulates that the primary prerequisite
for the business person to form a university is not-for-profit reason. Therefore, there
is no university based on profit in Turkish higher education sector. In fact, several
regions of Turkey have established universities based on foundation, such as
Bilkent University and Baskent University in Ankara and Koc University in
Istanbul. In the subsequent decade, 21 more private institutions were established, 14
of them in Istanbul, 4 in Ankara, 2 in Izmir and 1 in the South in Tarsus.
Subsequently, Turkish Constitution 1982 also requires a private university to
have adequate funds to meet a part of its costs, and the level of education as well as
research must not be lower than public university geographically closest to it. In
addition, a private university must enter into a formal covenant with one of the
public universities before its operating. This is to provide for the possibility of its
being closed by the CoHE as not up to standard. By that agreement, all properties of
the private university would be handed over to the public university, and the public
university would accept the students of the scattered private university (Dogramaci
2005). Koc University, for instance, was founded in 1993 as a non-profit private
university in Istanbul, Turkey. In the 20 years since its establishment, Koc
University has become one of the leading universities in Turkey, distinguished by
notable contributions to the elevation of education, knowledge and service both
domestically and beyond. Koc University is supported by the resources of the
internationally renowned Vehbi Koc Foundation. The establishment of Koc
University is in line Article 130 of the 1982 Constitution as this article explains that
only foundation can establish universities and any other higher education institu-
tions. Private sectors who formed foundations must inform the General Directorate
of Foundation (DGF) if they wish to institute a university. When the DGF agrees,
the foundations may apply to the CoHE.
More importantly, the foundation university is a separate legal entity to foun-
dation. Therefore, if the foundation in future need to be closed for certain
circumstances, the university’s legal status remains. Hence, all the assets whether
movable and immovable assigned by foundation to university will be the univer-
sity’s assets. In addition, if the foundation is terminated, the DGF will transfer the
authorized power of the terminated foundation to other foundation whose purposes
are the same (Additional Article 15 of Law No. 2547). Another essential point, the
Turkish 1982 Constitution stipulates that foundation universities are subject to the
provisions for state institutions of higher education, as regards to the academic
activities, employment of teaching staff and security, except for financial and
administrative matters (Article 130 X). In fact, referring to the Constitution, the
Council of State has ruled that the contracts of the academic staff at foundation
universities are administrative contracts and any disputes arising from these con-
tracts should be heard in administrative courts (Division VIII of Council of State,
Date: 04.02.2003, No. 2002/557-2003/561).
Besides, the board of trustees which consist of at least seven persons has the
administrative power to rule foundation universities. They have the utmost control
and ultimately, they will be accountable for the conduct of the bodies (Arslan
2013). Having the administrative power, the board will make or dissolve the
contracts of the other administrators and academic staff and other employees. The
board also oversees the budget of the university. Other than that, the board of
trustees carries out other functions designated by law as well as can delegate some
powers, which are appropriate, to the administrators of the university (Additional
Article 5 II of Law No. 2547).
Generally, the leading body of foundation will appoint the members in the board.
There is no age limit for them as long as they fulfil the required qualifications for
public workplace, however, at least two-thirds of them should have a bachelor’s
degree. Then, a chairman will be chosen by the board of trustees among of them
(Additional Article 5 I of Law No. 2547). It is reported that private universities are
not subject to be controlled by Council’s either financial or administrative issues.
Hence, they enjoy privileges in contrast to public universities. Another essential
point is the university rector is selected by the board of trustees after consent given
by the Council of Higher Education as stipulated under Article 13a of Law
No. 2547. As a rector, his function is to accomplish the decisions of the board of
trustees. Nevertheless, in fact, this practice has been disparaged, as the board of
trustees is alleged to impede the business of Rector’s. For that reason, it is sug-
gested that the Rector should be chosen by the President of the Republic as well as
state universities and should be the authorizing officer of the university.
5 Conclusion
Overall, the existing laws governing the implementation of waqf in Malaysian

universities require some enhancement and improvement to suit the need of the
institutions. Apart from that, there is a need to propose a specific framework
governing the implementation of waqf in Malaysian universities in order to
accomplish the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015–2025 (Higher Education) in

reducing the reliance of the universities on government resources. The reference
could be made to Turkish frameworks as they have the best model to be learnt and
adopted in Malaysian context wherever appropriate. The different cultures of waqf
practices between Malaysia and Turkey should not be a hindrance for Malaysia to
learn their experiences in implementing waqf in universities. In the same way, the
collaboration among the stakeholders specifically SIRCs, the Ministry of Higher
Education (KPT), the University Board of Directors (UniBoD) and more impor-
tantly, the Waqf Board in Universities could facilitate to achieve the objectives of
this study.
Acknowledgements This research paper is part of a research study at Ph.D. level which is funded
by the LRGS Grant [LRGS/2013/UKM–UKM/SI/03] under the title ‘Pelestarian Institusi Wakaf
Untuk Memperkasa Pendidikan Tinggi Negara’. A great appreciation and gratitude to the Ministry
of Higher Education for providing this grant.
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Chapter 45
Corrective and Retributive Justice
Model for Trespass of Waqf Land
Rusnadewi Abdul Rashid and Rohayati Hussin
Abstract Section 425 of the National Land Code 1965 (NLC) provides a penalty
of RM 10,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year to the trespasser
of waqf land in this country. Though the law is clear, it is very disappointing that
the remedies are not commensurate with losses incurred. Taking into account the
economic situation in the country, the penalty is very unreasonable.The area of land
encroached upon, the current market value of the land encroached upon, the total
profit earned by the invaders, the losses incurred by the State Islamic Religious
Council (as a sole trustee for waqf in this country), as well as costs incurred during
the claims, litigation and enforcement cases have not yet been calculated. As such,
it is essential that the remedies be replaced with the Corrective and Retributive
Justice Model as a better alternative model for solving the issue of trespass of waqf
land. Considering the main aim of the study is to achieve justice and fairness for
trespass of waqf land cases, therefore, this study employs doctrinal research. The
data collected are analyzed using the content analysis method. In brief, the
researchers opine that these combined models hold key to more adequate and
comprehensive remedies in providing punishment for trespass of waqf land case.
Keywords Corrective Land Retributive Trespass Waqf
1 Introduction
The government is already embarked on the National Transformation Program

(NTP) consisting of the economic (NEP) and Government Transformation
Programme (GTP) to improve the economic development of the country (Ismail
R. A. Rashid (&)
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA Perlis, Arau, Malaysia
R. Hussin
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA Kedah, Bedong, Malaysia
e-mail: roha427@kedah.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_45
490 R. A. Rashid and R. Hussin
and Aminah 2014). In relation to waqf land, there is a need for a transformation
agenda due to institutional and legal constraint that restrict the smooth running of
development plan. Waqf refers to a religious endowment that is voluntary and
irrevocable dedication of one’s wealth or a portion of it—in cash or kind, and its
disbursement for syariah compliance projects (Ismail and Aminah 2014). Waqf has
been a charitable mechanism to education, health, welfare and other activities. It
plays a vitally important role in the social fabric without burdening government.
The ownership of a land is very important when considering reclamation or
development of waqf land. In Malaysia, the State Islamic Religious Councils
(SIRCs) are the sole trustee of waqf land. The purpose of the appointment of the
council as the sole trustee of the waqf is to ensure the waqf properties are managed
and administered properly and efficiently to generate substantial revenue for the
welfare of the people (Siti et al. 2016). Waqf land management is essential in
the development of waqf properties in Malaysia. This is because the success of the
management is able to generate a high income for the local people (Kahf 2003).
Sadeq (2002) explained that a successful real estate development should be able to
develop the people’s economy at the same time solve the problem of poverty. In
other words, the development of an efficient waqf land should be implemented to
generate mutual benefits to Muslims (Hassan and Abdullah 2008). However, Ihsan
and Ibrahim (2011) demonstrated that waqf land in Malaysia faced with the
problem of management and administration. Some problems often exist in the
management of waqf land for states such as the issue of trespass (Mokhtar 2015).
The findings prove that the SIRC has been dealing with the issue of the trespass
to waqf land (Afandi et al. 2016). It so happens due to the lack of enforcement
action and insufficient penalty imposed (Rusnadewi et al. 2015). There are also
situations where the waqf land was illegally invaded, abused or leased to
non-Muslims. The invaders are not only unlawfully occupying the waqf land but
also making unnecessary claims to the SIRC. Furthermore, there are among inva-
ders undertaking activities which are in conflict and forbidden by Islam. It is well
known that it has become the responsibility of each SIRC to take action and claim
damages (Tahir et al. 2005) against any encroachment of waqf land. However, it
should be clarified that the action must be made through the appropriate legal
process. It is clear that the SIRC, as the party responsible for the management and
the administration of waqf land, strictly used the legal mechanism to prosecute the
offender.
2 Problem Statement
The doctrine of adverse possession was historically useful as a legal remedy. It finds
its foundation through principles established by common law. In Malaysia, the
doctrine of adverse possession may not be raised against the State Authority. NLC
does not recognize adverse possession. Therefore, unlawful occupation of State
land even after a long time would not enable the occupier to obtain title to the land
45 Corrective and Retributive Justice Model … 491
and is regarded as an offence. It shall not constitute a bar to the bringing of any
action for the recovery thereof by the proprietor. Therefore, landowner may bring
an action against the squatter at any time. Applying this doctrine of No Adverse
Possession (NAP) to the state, Section 425 of the NLC provides the penalty of RM
10,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or both to the trespasser
of waqf land in this country (Azizi 2013). Though the law is clear, it is very
disappointing that the remedies were not commensurate with losses incurred.
Taking into account the economic situation in the country, the penalty is very
unreasonable (Rusnadewi et al. 2015). The area of land encroached upon, the
current market value of the land encroached upon, the total profit earned by the
invaders, the losses incurred by the SIRC (as a sole trustee for waqf in this country),
as well as costs incurred during the claims, litigation and enforcement cases have
not yet been calculated.
In the same way, this penalty also must be valued on loss and damage incurred
from the point of feeling sentimental value of the founders of waqf who have
donated their land to be benefited from. As such, it is essential that this principle be
replaced by the Corrective and Retributive Justice Model as a better alternative
model for solving the issue of trespass of waqf land. The Corrective Justice analysis
of compensation for wrongful loss applies, mutatis mutandis, to restitution for
wrongful gain, whereas Retributive Justice works on the principle of how justice
should be done whenever a wrong is committed. These combined models hold key
to more adequate and comprehensive remedies for trespass of waqf land which
significantly resulted in an economic loss to the country.
This research study has employed doctrinal research and the approach applied is a
content analysis methodology. According to Anwarul (2007), doctrinal research is
essentially a library-based study, which means the materials needed may be
available in libraries, archives and other databases. The underlying aim of such
research is to gain and present new knowledge and ideas or to suggest change and
reform. Since the main aim of this study is to achieve justice and fairness for
trespass of waqf land cases, therefore, the relevant literatures need to be reviewed
specifically on No Adverse Possession (NAP) doctrine. The materials could be
referred from numerous sources such as textbooks, journals, articles, government
reports and online sources. In addition, several legislations are scrutinized for the
purpose of this study. Then, content analysis approach is adopted in order to
analyze all the data collected.
A corrective justice is a theory of tort law and it accounts for central feature of tort
law. A tort suit enables the victim of a wrong to seek a remedy from the person who
injured her. In judgment, it requires the defendant to compensate the plaintiff
financially. It explains why tort law links victim and injurer since it takes the injurer
to have the duty to repair the wrongful losses that he causes. A corrective justice
seems more suitable in case of trespass of waqf land because it involves an eco-
nomic element. On the same way, Aristotle demonstrated that corrective justice
deals with the relationship of the doer and the sufferer of a wrong (Weinrib 1994).
From the standpoint of corrective justice, the two parties are equals, and justice
consists in vindicating their equality. The doer’s unjust treatment of the sufferer
disturbs this equality, leaving the doer with a gain and the sufferer with an
equivalent loss. Thus, under corrective justice, liability is the juridical manifestation
of the logic of correlativity. The connection between the parties requires that this
loss by the plaintiff be correlative to a gain by the defendant. The concept of gain
and loss is very typical in case of trespass. Applying a corrective justice theory will
impose a duty on the invaders to repair and account for any loss to the SIRC for any
loss suffered due to the trespass.
However, a corrective justice in some situation is not adequate, since all too
often, it is not possible for a wrongdoer to repair the injury that she inflicted on her
victim. When a victim suffers a serious bodily injury, for example, it may be
possible for the wrongdoer to pay her medical bills or compensate her for lost
wages, but the physical damage the victim suffered is probably beyond repair. More
importantly, the problem is all the more striking when the wrong involves a serious
affront to the victim’s dignity. For example, it is doubtful that an invader could
repair the “loss” suffered by the SIRC and the founder of waqf’s feeling when his
endowed land was intruded and misused by the offender. In cases such as these, the
researchers believe that a possible way should be suggested to respond to the
wrongdoing that does not require repair since repair is not possible. With this in
mind, it is suggested that a corrective justice theory must be combined with the
retributive justice theory in giving the utmost remedy in the issue of trespass to
waqf land.
Many theorists believe that a principle of retributive justice does a good job of
interpreting and justifying criminal law. This is because retribution is usually
perceived as one of the most prominent theoretical foundations of criminal liability
(Cotton 1997). Tort jurisprudence does not appear to be the natural habitat for
retributive concerns. This is because the punishment is determined by the specific
plaintiff’s loss, not by the gravity of the defendant’s wrong. In the second edition of
his book, Torts and Compensation Professor Dobbs presented the current debate in
tort scholarship as resting mainly on this question: ‘Should judges decide cases on
the basis of corrective justice with a view to righting wrongs and doing justice
between the parties? Or should they decide cases according to what is good for
society as a whole?’ (Dobbs 1993).
45 Corrective and Retributive Justice Model … 493
Currently, there are two major camps of tort scholars. One understands tort
liability as an instrument aimed largely at the goal of deterrence, commonly
explained within the framework of economics, that is, retributive justice. The other
looks at tort law as a way of achieving corrective justice between the parties. In this
research, the proposed model is the combination of a corrective justice theory and
retributive justice theory because first, corrective justice does not penalize wrongful
conduct unless damage ensues, whereas from a retributive perspective wrongful
conduct must yield the same sanction regardless of the fortuitous occurrence of
harm.
5 Conclusion
Thus, in the case of trespass of waqf land, both corrective and retributive justice
model must be used aiming at providing punishment. Even though there is no
financial loss suffered, the act of trespassing of waqf land will give mental effect to
the founder of waqf since he intended the land to give benefit to the society.
Moreover, corrective justice often imposes liability for conduct that cannot be
deemed morally wrong (Steven 1987). The act of trespassing waqf land is morally
and religiously wrong which only can be sanctioned by the retributive justice. Last,
even though wrongful conduct results in harm, the severity of the punishment
imposed in corrective justice is by and large determined by the fortuitous amount of
the plaintiff’s loss, which is usually a poor measure of the gravity of the defendant’s
wrong. Retributive justice will remedy all the other types of loss suffered which is
not covered by a corrective justice.
Acknowledgements This research paper is part of FRGS Grant [FRGS/1/2016/SSI10/UITM/02/

4]. A great appreciation and gratitude to the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia for
providing this grant.
References
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Azizi Z (2013) Pencerobohan tanah kerajaan—Tinjauan dari sudut perundangan tanah. Jurnal
Pentadbiran Tanah. (3) bil. 1, 54–61
Cotton M (1997) Back with a vengeance: the resilience of retribution as an articulated purpose of
criminal punishment, 37 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 1313, 1315 (2000); Paul Butler, Retribution, For
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Dobbs DB (1993) Torts and compensation. cf. schwartz, mixed theories, at 1801.Ernest
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1994
Hassan Z, Abdullah MN (2008) The investment of waqf land as instruments of Muslim’s
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institution. Humanaomics 27(4):252–269
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Mokhtar S (2015) The evaluation framework for waqf land and management in Malaysia.
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Tahir SM, Iman AHM, Omar I (2005) An ideal financial mechanism for the development of Waqf
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org/10.1525/sp.2007.54.1.23
Chapter 46
Legal Awareness on Copyright
Protection Among Tertiary Students
in Malaysia
Ida Rosnita Ismail and Zeti Zuryani Mohd Zakuan
Abstract Higher education institutions around the world are very concerned about
copyright infringement as some of the institutions have faced high-profile lawsuits
due to copyright infringement committed by the students. Copyright infringement
in higher education institutions become possible due to file sharing programs which
make it easy for students to download and share copyrighted content via institutions
network. In Malaysia, the government has established institutional framework as
well as legal framework in order to overcome this problem. However, the gov-
ernment needs to involve in educating the students as well as the society regarding
copyright infringement. Awareness of the law might be able to prevent students
from committing the offence in the future. This study aimed to identify tertiary
students’ legal awareness on copyright protection for digital contents. A total of 400
survey questionnaires were distributed at various higher education institutions in
Malaysia. The result suggests that taking ethics/law courses do not have an effect on
legal awareness on copyright protection.
Keywords Copyright Legal awareness Malaysia Tertiary students
1 Introduction
In the wake of information and communication technology (ICT) era, Malaysia as

well as other countries in the world are facing the issue of copyright infringement.
Two related factors that contribute toward copyright infringement is the easy access
to the Internet and the advances in peer-to-peer file sharing programs. As a result, it
I. R. Ismail (&)
UKM-Graduate School of Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
e-mail: idarosnita@ukm.edu.my
Z. Z. M. Zakuan
Department of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA Perlis, Arau, Perlis, Malaysia
e-mail: zeti@perlis.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_46
496 I. R. Ismail and Z. Z. M. Zakuan
is easier for the students to download and share copyrighted content illegally via
campus network (Gerlach et al. 2009). Due to this phenomenon, copyright
infringement has gained much attention within the higher education sector, espe-
cially when some of these institutions had to face with high-profile lawsuits due to
copyright infringement committed by the students (Chiang and Assane 2008).
Besides establishing institutional (e.g., Intellectual Property Corporation of
Malaysia or MyIPO) and legal (e.g., Copyright Act 1987) frameworks to solve the
problem, raising legal awareness is also viewed as an important mechanism in
educating the students on copyright infringement (Dryden 2013). Legal awareness,
which can be defined as legal consciousness of individuals regarding the existing
law (Harris 2012), provides the society a form of protection by preventing them
from infringing copyrighted contents. This argument is in line with Rest’s (1979)
idea that obedience to laws is an initial step in ethical conduct. Therefore, to avoid
copyright infringement, the society must obey the law but not before they are aware
about the law.
As copyright is not an emerging issue, students may be aware of the copyright
protection in its conventional forms. Students, for example, may be aware that it is
illegal to photocopy a book or to buy pirated CDs. With the advancement of
information and communication technology, however, these conventional forms of
copyrighted works are also available online. This means that anyone can access to
the copyrighted works in the form of digital contents, such as e-books, e-magazines,
music, film, and computer programs at anytime, anywhere. Although students are
well-resourced Internet users and technology savvy (Selwyn 2008; Wang and
McClung 2010), they may not be aware that the copyright protection is extended to
digital contents. It is because students typically assume, albeit falsely, that they
have the right to download whatever they find on the Internet (Siegfried 2001) and
there is no issue of copyright infringement. Hence, the main objective of this paper
was to identify tertiary students’ legal awareness on copyright protection for digital
contents. The current research was conducted based on the following two research
questions: (1) Are tertiary students in Malaysia aware of the copyright law? (2) Is
there any difference in legal awareness about copyright protection between those
who take law/ethics course and those who do not take law/ethics course?
2 Literature Review
In this section, we provide a brief literature review on copyright law in Malaysia

and copyright infringement among university students. We also discuss briefly on
raising legal awareness through taught courses.
Copyright Law in Malaysia
Law of copyright in Malaysia is governed by the Copyright Act 1987, which came
into force on December 1, 1987. It is an act that provides for the law relating to
46 Legal Awareness on Copyright Protection … 497
copyright and for other matters connected therewith. It provides a comprehensive

protection for copyrightable works. The Copyright Act 1987 was replaced by the
Copyright Act 1997 in response to the booming of the Internet industry. Later, the
Act was tabled in the Parliament for amendment in 2011 and the new amended Act
came into force in 2012. This new Act may be cited as the Copyright (Amendment)
Act 2012. This Copyright (Amendment Act) 2012 should be read together with
Copyright Act 1987.
Works protected under the Act are provided under Section 7(1) of the Copyright
Act 1987. In particular, the section provides that the protected works include lit-
erary works, musical works, artistic works, films, sound recordings, and broad-
casts. Derivative works under Section 8 and published editions of works under
Section 9 shall also be eligible for copyright. According to Section 7(2), works
shall be protected irrespective of their quality and the purpose for which they were
created. However, according to Section 7(2A), the protection shall not extend to
any idea, procedure, method of operation, or mathematical concept. The protection
is only given to the qualified person whereby according to Section 10 of the Act,
qualified person refers to anyone who is a citizen or a permanent resident in
Malaysia, or a body corporate established in Malaysia and constituted or vested
with legal personality under the laws of Malaysia.
The provision shows that the law emphasized the importance of protecting one’s
work. Copyright infringement is defined under Section 36 of the Copyright Act
1987, which provides that copyright is infringed by a person when he does
something with the work without the consent of the owner of the work. In cases of
copyright infringement, Section 37(1) of the Copyright Act 1987 provides that it
“shall be actionable at the suit of the owner of the copyright”, which means that the
owner of the copyright has the right to sue the infringer. The offences and pun-
ishments relating to copyright infringement are provided under Section 41 of the
Copyright Act 1987 which is illustrated in Table 1.
Copyright Infringement among University Students
Previous studies had addressed the issue of copyright infringement among students.
It is assumed that students are more likely than any other groups to be involved in
copyright infringement because they are expected to make use of the Internet as part
of their learning process, which, in turn, makes them well-resourced Internet users
(Selwyn 2008). Another probable justification for sampling students when
examining issues pertaining to copyright is that they are heavy digital contents
consumers but have limited disposable income (Wang and McClung 2010). As
such, they are more likely than any other societal groups to commit copyright
infringement.
Most of the studies using students sample focus on examining students’ per-
ceptions, motivations, attitudes, and behaviors toward software piracy (Jaafar et al.
2008; Liang and Yan 2005; Teston 2008; Woolley and Eining 2006). In later years,
more studies were conducted to understand the effect of information and commu-
nication technology, such as the Internet, on copyright infringement among
Table 1 Offences and punishments for copyright infringement

Offences Punishment
Sales, hire, distribution, possession, First offence: a fine not less than RM2000
exhibition, imports of any infringing copies and not more than RM20,000 for each
infringing copy or imprisonment for a term
not exceeding 5 years or both
Subsequent offence, a fine not less than
RM4000 and not more than RM40,000 for
each infringing copy or imprisonment for a
term not exceeding 10 years or both
Contrivance of infringing copies First offence, a fine not less than RM4000 and
not more than RM40,000 for each
contrivance or imprisonment for a term not
exceeding 10 years or both
RM8000 and not more than RM80,000 for
each contrivance or imprisonment for a term
not exceeding 20 years or both
Circumvention, removal, alteration, First offence, a fine not more than
distribution, import of the electronic works RM250,000 or imprisonment not exceeding
without authority 5 years or both
RM500,000 or imprisonment not exceeding
10 years or both
students. For example, Wang and McClung (2010) examine the intention to illegal
digital downloading among college students in the USA. Yu (2013), on the con-
trary, examines a broader concept of digital piracy among university students.
Empirical evidence from these studies supports the assumption that students are
likely to engage in digital piracy and also suggest that copyright infringement
among tertiary students is not uncommon.
Despite the significant contributions of the numerous studies in understanding
copyright infringement among tertiary students, there are limitations that require
further scholarly attention. First, as these studies are narrowly focused, either on a
specific behavior such as illegal music downloading or a specific context such as
digital piracy, some important aspects with regard to complexity of copyright
infringement of digital contents may be excluded. Brown (2014) argued that
individuals often commit multiple digital piracies because they seek out different
types of digital media for different reasons. For example, a student who downloads
software illegally to finish his assignment could also download music files using
online peer-to-peer file sharing for group listening during a celebration party. In a
study on software piracy among university students, Wood et al. (1998) found that
students are more likely to let others copy the pirated software in return for favor
from the recipients. In line with this argument, students who illegally download
digital contents may share the downloaded files with their friends. This means that
the online misbehavior is extended to reality, which also means that copyright
infringement is not confined only to digital piracy.
Second, Liang and Yan (2005) contended that there were relatively few software
piracy studies that focused on non-US student samples. This pattern is also visible
for studies that extend the issue of copyright infringement to online context. Only
several scholarly articles were retrieved when using keyword search—which
includes “copyright infringement”, “digital piracy”, “students”, and “Malaysia”—in
academic databases, such as EBSCOHOST and Emerald FullText. The retrieved
studies, however, were mainly investigating the attitude toward digital piracy
among students (Jaafar et al. 2008; Alam et al. 2011). This also indicates that may
be there are only several, unnoticed studies1 had addressed the issue of copyright
protection and infringement from the legal awareness perspective. Therefore, there
is a need to address the issue of copyright infringement by investigating the stu-
dents’ legal awareness on copyright protection in Malaysia, particularly in relation
to digital contents.
Raising Legal Awareness via Taught Courses
Awareness on issues relating to copyright infringement can be dealt with by having
updated policy in the universities. This policy needs to be communicated to and
understood by the universities’ members. In this instance, copyright education
needs to be developed and students should be required to attend the copyright
course organized by the universities. Di Valentino (2015) reported that in a uni-
versity whereby the course is offered to its faculty members, only one-third of them
attended the course. Of those who attended the course, majority reported that the
course was able to enhance their knowledge of copyright infringement. These
findings suggest that universities’ members may have knowledge about copyright if
they attend copyright courses. This finding is in line with Horvara (2010) that argue
information literacy by way of educating the university members, for example,
through taught courses, is an important method to raise awareness about copyright
infringement issue among them.
3 Method
The present study adopted the socio-legal research approach in addressing the
research questions. This approach was deemed appropriate to the present study
because the study intended to uncover the actual realities and truth on the phe-
nomenon of interest and to explain the level of awareness on copyright protection
among tertiary students in Malaysia (Yaqin 2007).
1
We acknowledge that there could be studies examining the relationship between copyright
infringement and legal awareness, which are not retrievable in our search results due to access
constraints that are beyond our control.
Data were collected from a purposive sample of tertiary students at various

higher education institutions in Malaysia. A total of 400 survey questionnaires were
distributed to potential respondents but only 222 complete survey questionnaires
were returned, resulting in a valid response rate of 55.5%. Each student was given a
paper-and-pencil survey questionnaire that comprised a cover letter and two-survey
sections. To encourage students to participate in the survey, the cover letter spec-
ified that participation was on voluntary basis and all information given would be
kept confidential. The survey questionnaire was prepared in English and Malay
language using the translation–back-translation technique. The respondents were
asked to complete the survey questionnaire in one of the two versions.
The first section of the survey questionnaire contained two questions. The first
question was a general question intended to identify if the respondents were aware
of the law that governs the copyright issues in Malaysia. If the respondents indicate
that they are aware of the law, they are required to identify the name of the Act. The
second question, on the contrary, requires the respondents to indicate their level of
awareness to nine items about legal awareness on copyright protection by circling a
number between 1 (totally unaware) and 5 (totally aware) on each item.
The items for legal awareness on copyright protection were developed by the
researchers based on the literature review on copyright issues and were further
refined to include specific legal provisions found in the Copyright Act 1987.
Although it is possible to include more items, the construction of the items was
limited to two considerations. First, the Copyright Act 1987 has a long list of legal
provisions. To include all the provisions, it was impractical and could exhaust the
potential respondents in responding to the items. Second, not all the legal provi-
sions were applicable to the student-respondent. For example, Section 41(1) of the
Copyright Act 1987 that specifies activities involving trading, importation, and
exhibition of one’s work is not relevant to be responded by students. Therefore, on
the basis of literature review and information on copyright available in the official
website of MyIPO, only nine items representing the common behavior and
knowledge on copyright protection were selected for inclusion in the survey
questionnaire.
Demographic information comprising respondent’s age, sex, ethnicity, education
level, university that the respondent currently attended, and the current semester
were sought in the second section of the survey questionnaire. In addition, the
respondent was asked to identify if they had taken any ethics or/and law course at
the attending university, and the average weekly number of time that they spent on
browsing the Internet. Descriptive analyses revealed that majority of the respon-
dents were female (76.5%), Malay (95%), and were between 20 and 25 years old
(92.3%). Also, most of the respondents were attending bachelor’s degree programs
(65.3%), were currently in semester four (25.7%), and were studying at a
teaching-based university (73.6%). Of 222 respondents, 33.4% specified that they
had taken ethics and 21.6% had taken law as course subject. The average number of
times that the respondents spent on browsing the Internet was 35.72 (SD = 131.51).
4 Results
Descriptive results revealed that most respondents were aware of the existence of
legal protection for copyright. Twenty-eight respondents reported that they were
totally aware of the law governing the copyright issues in Malaysia and 146
respondents reported that they were aware of the law but could not identify the
specific Act. Only 45 respondents reported that they were not aware of the legal
protection for copyright. Respondents who reported being aware of the law gov-
erning copyright issues in Malaysia were asked to write down the name of the Act.
Only 21 respondents, however, correctly identified the Copyright Act 1987 as the
law governing copyright issues in Malaysia.
Table 2 shows the mean, standard deviation, and response frequencies of
respondents’ legal awareness on copyright protection on the nine items. Results
indicate that respondents were most aware of the exclusive rights given to copyright
owners of digital content for a specific period (83%, M = 4.10, SD = 0.78), and
followed by their awareness on the automatic right granted to an owner who has
made sufficient effort in making the work original in character (78%, M = 3.98,
SD = 0.75). Results also revealed that respondents were aware that making unau-
thorized copies of a copyrighted work is a copyright infringement (74%, M = 3.91,
SD = 0.75) and possessing an unauthorized copy of downloaded digital content is
an offence (58%, M = 3.59, SD = 0.90).
At the other end of the continuum, a majority of the respondents reported that
they were not aware that students were not allowed to make copies of an authorized
downloaded music file for their friends although they were not charging their
friends for making the copies (65%, M = 2.31, SD = 1.01). Respondents were also
unaware that copyright owners are given the exclusive rights to control the
reproduction of the works such as photocopying (62%, M = 2.37, SD = 0.86).
More than half of the respondents reported that they were unaware that copyright
protection was given to the owners regardless of the quality of the works (56%,
M = 2.47, SD = 1.04). Another item that has a high score on unawareness level is
the possibility of taking a civil or a criminal action against the wrongdoers as
specified in the Copyright Act 1987 (50%, M = 2.56, SD = 0.87). Interestingly, a
large number of respondents reported that they were either unaware or not sure if
translated works are eligible for copyright protection (57%, M = 3.20, SD = 1.10).
A further test was carried out to address the second research question.
Specifically, the independent-sample t-test was conducted to compare the legal
awareness scores between tertiary students who took ethics/law courses and tertiary
students who did not. The independent-sample t-test results revealed that there was
no significant difference in the scores for students who took ethics/law courses
(M = 3.16, SD = 0.35) and tertiary students who did not take the courses
(M = 3.17, SD = 0.34); t (220) = −0.27, p = 0.79 (two-tailed). The result suggests
that taking ethics/law courses do not have an effect on legal awareness on copyright
protection.
Table 2 Mean, standard deviation, and frequency of legal awareness on copyright protection
Legal awareness on copyright protection Response frequencies (%)
items 1 2 3 4 5 Mean SD
1 Copyright of the digital content is 1 2 14 52 31 4.10 0.78
the exclusive right given to the
owner of a copyrighted work for a
specific period
2 Copyright is given automatically to 1 3 18 55 23 3.98 0.75
every individual who has made
sufficient effort in making the work
original in character
3 Translated works available online 5 24 28 31 12 3.20 1.10
are eligible for copyright protection
4 Copyright owners are given 13 49 28 9 1 2.37 0.86
exclusive rights to control the
reproduction of the works such as
unauthorized downloading of digital
contents
5 Copyright is infringed if a student 1 3 22 55 19 3.91 0.75
makes unauthorized copies of a
copyrighted digital content
6 Students who download a music file 21 44 22 10 3 2.31 1.01
for their own listening cannot make
copies for their friends although no
charges are made for such copies
7 Possessing an unauthorized copy of 3 6 33 45 13 3.59 0.90
downloaded digital content is an
offence
8 Digital contents original in character 17 39 28 11 5 2.47 1.04
are given the copyright protection
regardless of its quality
9 The Copyright Act 1987 specifies 9 41 38 10 2 2.56 0.87
that a civil or a criminal action could
be taken against the wrongdoers
Note N = 222. Responses were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (totally
unaware) to 5 (totally aware), with 3 indicates not sure
5 Discussion
The main objective of this study is to identify tertiary students’ legal awareness on
copyright protection for digital contents. Descriptive data analyses were conducted
to reveal the empirical answers to two research questions. First, this study found
that majority of the respondents was aware of the legal protection for copyright. As
copyright becomes an issue of growing interest globally, efforts such as campaigns
in the mass media, road shows, seminars, and exhibitions are taken by the gov-
ernment, especially through MyIPO, to educate the public at large. In addition,
tertiary students are made aware of the copyright law and protection through taught
courses. Results of the study, however, also suggest that the information on
copyright protection might not be imparted completely. For instance, in this study,
students were well informed about the owner’s exclusive right to his original work
and possessing unauthorized copies is an offence. On the contrary, majority of them
were not aware that they are not allowed to make unauthorized copies for their
friends and they wrongly perceived that quality matters in obtaining copyright
protection.
In answering the second research question, a comparison of the legal awareness
scores was made between tertiary students who took ethics/law courses and those
who did not. Result reveals that there is no significant difference between the two
groups of tertiary students. A likely explanation is that not all ethics and law
courses offered at the university level include a topic on copyright law. Many
business law courses either do not include the topic or only partly include the topic
in its learning contents. Similarly, ethics courses mostly focus on theory and
principles of ethics as well as functional ethics (e.g., ethics in marketing and ethics
in production). Issues on copyright infringement are discussed only as examples of
the application of theory and principles of ethics. This explanation, however, is our
speculation based on the respondents’ answers that show only 21 out of 174 cor-
rectly identified Copyright Act 1987 as the law governing copyright issues. We did
not ask the respondents if they took a course that includes copyright law as one of
its learning contents or as a whole course on its own. Therefore, future studies
should explore this research direction by identifying whether tertiary students who
specifically took the copyright law course report higher legal awareness than those
who did not.
A managerial implication of this research is that more serious efforts on raising
the legal awareness among tertiary students should be taken to reach out this group
of potential infringers. Although existing efforts such as the ones taken by MyIPO
are in place, tertiary students are not fully aware of the legal provisions pertaining to
copyright. We suggest that more frequent collaborations should be undertaken by
MyIPO, Ministry of Higher Education, and higher education institutions to raise
legal awareness on copyright among tertiary students. Another implication is that
higher education institutions should consider including copyright law in the ethics
or law courses’ syllabus. Alternatively, the higher education institutions may also
opt to hold a regular copyright awareness campaign as an effort to suppress
copyright infringement among its students.
Although this study has a pronounced contribution to the existing body of
knowledge, it is not without limitations. First, student sample was selected using
purposive sampling to achieve the study objective. Such selection was made on the
basis that students are more likely than any other groups to infringe copyrighted
works (Selwyn 2008; Wang and McClung 2010). As a result, our findings are
limited in its generalizability. Therefore, future studies should replicate this study
using a different population and a probability sampling strategy so that the findings
could be generalized. Second, the items used in this study were meant to measure
the level of legal awareness among tertiary students. Although careful selection of
the items to be included in the survey was made, we did not validate the scale.
Hence, future studies that intend to adopt the items as indicators of legal awareness
measurement scale must establish the construct validity and external validity. Also,
future studies should consider the issue of adequacy and relevancy in adopting
these items across populations. Third, digital contents are the foci of this study. We
made no attempt to compare the tertiary student legal awareness on digital contents
and conventional forms of copyrighted works. Therefore, an attempt to address this
gap should be an interesting avenue for future studies.
6 Conclusion
At present, copyright infringement is still a pervasive issue in the higher education

institutions. Although the legal and institutional frameworks are well established in
Malaysia, tertiary students are not fully aware of the legal provisions on copyright
protection as found in the Copyright Act 1987. The courses that they took at their
higher education institutions also did not help much in increasing their level of
awareness on copyright protection. The present study implies that more proactive
efforts should be taken by all parties of interest to combat copyright infringement
among tertiary students in Malaysia, especially in the wake of the ICT era.
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Chapter 47
Negligence in Child Care Centres:
Law Versus Reality in Malaysia
Ekmil Krisnawati Erlen Joni, Salmiah Salleh,

Mimi Sofiah Ahmad Mustafa, Aliyah Abdullah,
Ida Rahayu Mahat and Yuhanza Othman
Abstract Child care centres (CCC) are important for the development of early
childhood. Currently, the demand for CCC is increasing among dual career parents
to enable them to enter the workforce. CCC has a legal duty to exercise reasonable
care and supervision to ensure that all the children are safe in their care. The Child
Care Centre Act 1984 was enacted to ensure the well-being and safety of the child.
Nevertheless, it is disheartening that there are still cases of children dying or
suffering due to negligence of the CCC despite the existence of specific legislations.
The issue of noncompliance among the CCC to the law is questionable. Hence, this
paper attempts to identify the weaknesses of the existing law pertaining to the
protection of children in CCC in Malaysia and compare the laws prevalent in a
neighbouring country, Singapore. This research applied a doctrinal approach which
is qualitative study since it does not involve statistical analysis of the data. It is
hoped that this paper would provide some guidelines to overcome negligence in
CCC. The contribution of the study is significant to the government to assist in
controlling the CCC in order to protect children from any harm as they are the most
valuable resources of the nation.
E. K. Erlen Joni (&) S. Salleh M. S. Ahmad Mustafa A. Abdullah

I. R. Mahat Y. Othman
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka,
KM 26 Jalan Lendu, 78000 Alor Gajah, Melaka, Malaysia
e-mail: ekmil777@melaka.uitm.edu.my; ekmil.krisnawati@gmail.com
S. Salleh
e-mail: asalfa568@melaka.uitm.edu.my
M. S. Ahmad Mustafa
e-mail: mimisofiah@gmail.com
A. Abdullah
e-mail: abdullah.aliyah@gmail.com
I. R. Mahat
e-mail: idarahayu318@melaka.uitm.edu.my
Y. Othman
e-mail: yuhanza@melaka.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_47
508 E. K. Erlen Joni et al.
Keywords Child Child care centres Duty of care Negligence

Protection
1 Introduction
Child care centres (CCC) are important for the development of early childhood
education in helping to shape the nation’s future leaders. Economists believe
investment in early child care and education is a good strategy for developing
human capital as an important source of economic growth. Realising the importance
of the early child care and education, the government has listed ‘enhancing
Pre-School and early childcare’ in one of its National Key Results Areas as part of
the Government Transformation Programme structure. Currently, there are 3729
registered CCC in Malaysia in 2014 as compared to only 522 in 2010. It shows that
the demand for CCC is increasing among dual career parents to enable them to enter
the workforce and to contribute to the success of all National Key Economic Areas.
In Malaysia, there are four types of CCC. First, the home-based CCC that
receive 4–9 children for child care. Normally, this CCC operates in a private home.
Second, the institution-based CCC accept ten or more children for child care and are
operated by the private sector. Third is the workplace CCC which accept ten
children or more for child care and as the name implies, they are located in the
workplace or can be offsite managed by others. Fourth is the community-based
CCC which also receive ten children or more. This last type of CCC has operational
cost assistance from the Federal or State Government because its purpose is to assist
low-income earners in urban and rural areas to get child care service [Section 5 of
Child Care Centre Act 1984 (CCA)].
Each day, thousands of parents entrust their young children to CCC. Parents
relinquish temporary custody of their children to the CCC employees, believing
their children will receive care and be protected from undue harm. Reports on the
negligent conduct of the child care providers are not aplenty but unfortunately cases
do exist of children who are injured or die in these CCC.
Scenario in Malaysia
According to Calisi (2011), CCC have moral, ethical and legal duty to exercise
reasonable care and supervision to ensure that all the children are safe in their care.
Duty of care requires the staff of a CCC to provide children under their care with an
adequate level of protection against harm and all reasonably foreseeable risk of
injury (Edwards 2015; Norchaya 2010). Unfortunately, there are several acts and
omissions committed by these CCC as well as their staff which are detrimental to
the child concerned (Mohd et al. 2015) stated that a number of reported cases have
surfaced on the failure of CCC to ensure that the health, safety and well-being of
children are upheld at all times resulting in mortality and morbidity. It was reported
that the number of child death at the CCC has been on the rise from 16 cases in
2012, 20 cases in 2013, 23 cases in 2014 and as in July 2015, 4 cases were reported
47 Negligence in Child Care Centres: Law Versus Reality in Malaysia 509
(Norliza 2015). Among the causes of death reported at CCC are death caused by
choking by bottle-feeding (Pengasuh perlu mahir 2015; Norhayati 2016; Norliza
2015); sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (Bayi mati pada 2015); 3-month-old
baby dies after being found unconscious at CCC (Bayi mati pada 2015); death
because of brain haemorrhage due to shaken baby syndrome (Alaui 2015); and
3-month-old baby in critical condition due to CCC negligence (Bayi 3 bulan 2016).
It seems that quite a number of cases involving negligence causing morbidity and
mortality occur in CCC (Norliza 2015). The recent news, however, has indicated
that the authority was serious in handling cases relating to CCC, where report by a
newspaper on 24 October 2016 shows that 8-day CCC and 6-day care centres were
prosecuted in court and 11 CCC had been compounded (65 taska 2016). The report
also mentioned that licenses of 65 CCC were cancelled because of failure to reg-
ister. Inevitably, this was triggered by various reports on negligence in CCC.
Hence, this further strengthens the need to attain the objective of this research.
However, we believe many more cases are suspected to have occurred but not
reported or they were settled out of court.
A study conducted by Eberl et al. (2009) identified 347 kindergarten injuries
during the 22-month study period. It shows that many kinds of injuries might
happen inevitably to children in CCC. Children with frequent minor injuries at
young age are more likely to sustain severe injuries at a later point of time (Eberl
et al. 2009). Therefore, in order to avoid such injuries, it is part of the CCC’s duty to
exercise caution and care towards children in their custody. CCC’s liability for
children’s injuries remains an intensely argued issue.
Existing Law in Malaysia
In Malaysia, the laws governing CCC are The Child Care Centre Act 1984 (Act
308), Child Care Centre Regulations (Compounding of Offences) 2011 and Child
Care Centre Regulations 2012. The Child Care Centre Act 1984 was enacted to
sanction the registration, inspection and enforcement of CCC and for matters
related thereto, to ensure that the well-being, safety and overall development of the
child are held paramount. Albeit the presence of the statutes, the above frightening
scenario results in the urgency to examine the current law in Malaysia. As such, it is
timely to identify the weaknesses of the existing law pertaining to the protection of
children against negligence in CCC in Malaysia. In addition, comparison with the
laws prevalent in a neighbouring country is hoped to enhance this research in
finding better protection for children in CCC.
2 Methodology
This research involved a qualitative study of the doctrinal approach that had no
statistical analysis of the data. In using the doctrinal approach, descriptive research
was engaged to examine, describe, interpret and explain the law consisting of
primary sources such as statutory legislation and decided cases. The main statutes
analysed were the Malaysian Child Care Centre Act 1984 read together with the
Child Care Centre Regulations (Compounding of Offences) 2011 and Child Care
Centre Regulations 2012 (MCCR).
In order to provide some guidelines to prevent negligence in CCC, reference will
be made to the neighbouring country, Singapore. The relevant laws are the statutes
of the Republic of Singapore, i.e. the Child Care Centres Act (Chapter 37A)
(SCCCA) and Child Care Centres Regulations 2012 (SCCR) will be analysed.
Singapore is chosen because CCC in Singapore are assumed to have high com-
pliance to the Act as the number of negligence cases reported between 2011 and
2012 were only seven without any upward trend (The Ministry of Social and
Family Development Singapore 2013).
In order to assess the quality of CCC, evaluation criteria should be concerned with
child–adult ratio, physical environment, group size, child care providers charac-
teristic including formal education and training as well as their experience in
handling children in CCC (Zaman et al. 2012).
The Child Act 2001 defines ‘child’ as a person under the age of 18 years old.
However, for the purpose of a CCC or locally known as ‘TASKA’, ‘child’ is meant
for children of 4 years of age and below. It comes under the Ministry of Women,
Family and Community Development.
The Child Care Centre Act 1984 (CCA) sets the minimum standard and
requirement for CCC. Section 4 of the CCA requires every institutional-based CCC
to be registered (Chiam 2008). Meanwhile, Section 6 of the CCA provides that
anyone who operates CCC without registering the same shall be guilty of an offence
and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding 10,000 ringgit or to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years or to both and in the case of a second
or subsequent offence, to a fine not exceeding 20,000 ringgit or to imprisonment for
a term not exceeding 5 years or to both. The important aim of the Act is to protect
the interests and safety of the children against any form of abuse or neglect. Among
the conditions for registration are for the TASKA to be registered with the
Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) or the Registrar of Societies
(ROS) except for TASKA at home, and to meet the minimum standards of the
Department of Social Welfare. The TASKA should also fulfil the conditions stip-
ulated by the technical agencies, such as Local Authorities, Fire and Rescue
Department, Department of Health and Department of Lands and Survey (Sarawak
only). Once registered, it lasts for 60 months (5 years).
Although the CCA provides punishment for unregistered CCC, a statistic
reported by the Department of Welfare Services showed that the total numbers of
registered CCC as at 2014 were 3729. In Selangor, the total number of registered
CCC was 1043, Kuala Lumpur (322) and Johore (271) (Jabatan Kebajikan
Masyarakat 2014). However, these numbers do not portray the real situation. Many
more remain unregistered. Whilst it was reported that in 2012, there were
approximately 2000 CCC not registered with Department of Welfare Service (JKM
dedah lebih 2013), according to Women, Family and Community Development
Minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim there were still 938 nurseries, nationwide
that have been identified to be operating illegally since 2014 (938 nurseries 2016).
The question is, why are there so many unregistered CCC in Malaysia?
Noncompliance with the Child Care Centre Act 1984 and other existing laws seems
to be rampant. It is rather unfortunate that most negligence cases causing morbidity
and mortality happen in unregistered CCC. In 2012, 10 children died in unregis-
tered CCC out of 16 cases reported (Norliza 2015). Comparatively, the number of
negligence cases reported between 2011 and 2012 in Singapore; there were only
seven cases with no upward trend (The Ministry of Social and Family Development
Singapore 2013).
Therefore, the law in Singapore was analysed in order to mitigate negligence in
CCC in Malaysia. As far as registration is concerned, the situation is different in
Singapore. The Licensing of the CCC is provided in Section 3 of SCCCA. If a CCC
is not licensed, any person who operates it shall be guilty of an offence and shall be
liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding SGD5000 and imprisonment for a term
not exceeding 2 years or both. In contrast with the position in Malaysia, the
duration of license is for a period of 2 years, whereas in Malaysia, the validity of
registration is for 5 years (Section 11(3) of CCA). In this aspect, the authors are of
the opinion that for the purpose of monitoring the quality of CCC and to ensure
compliance of the law, the duration of 2 years is preferable rather than the 5-year
duration. The child care operators would have to take necessary precautions to
comply with all regulations to be registered. As far as the penalty is concerned, the
SCCCA provides harsher punishment compared to the CCA in Malaysia.
Malaysian law, however, provides a penalty for subsequent offences, whereas this is
not so for the SCCCA.
All the CCC must follow prescribed standards in order to protect the children
from acts of negligence by the child care providers. Among the standards prescribed
in the legislation and regulation to ensure the children are protected against neg-
ligence are the ratio between the children and the child care providers, proper safety
standard as regard to premises and facilities and maintaining appropriate equipment
in case of emergency as well as adequate number of staff with suitable qualifications
or experience (Section 8 of CCA). Children are vulnerable; thus, it is imperative
that CCC must at all time be alert to ensure children are safe and secure. Lack of
supervision is the single greatest cause of CCC injuries. If there are insufficient
staffs keeping watch on a group of children, the likelihood that one of the children
might be involved in some kind of trouble and unintentionally injure himself or
others may arise. It is interesting to highlight that, in Singapore, the licensee and
staff must ensure that no child in the CCC is at any time left alone without
supervision [Reg. 25(9) of SCCR]. If the licensee or any member of the staff of a
CCC fails to comply with the above requirement by leaving any child alone in the
CCC without staff supervision, the director may issue a warning letter against them
[Reg. 25(10)] which may affect their future appointment as a staff in CCC [Reg. 24
(3) of CCCR] where the licensee is prohibited to employ any person unless that
person furnished a declaration that he had never previously received any warning
letter from the director to that effect. This shows that the Singapore law is firm in
emphasising on the safety of children against negligence. However, no such
requirement is provided under the Malaysian Law which merely provides the staff–
child ratio as stated in Reg. 18 of Malaysian Child Care Centre Regulations
(MCCR) 2012 where in order to facilitate the registration process, every CCC must
follow the minimum standard laid down by the Social Welfare Department. Among
the minimum standards of staff–child ratio is the ratio of 1:3 of child care providers
to children below 1 year old; the ratio of child care providers to children between 1
and 3 years old is 1:5, whilst the ratio of child providers for children above
3–4 years is 1:10 (third schedule).
The huge difference between Malaysian Law and Singaporean Law is in the
aspect of the selection and qualification of the staff, where the authors are of the
opinion that the Singaporean Law imposes stricter requirement for the licensee to
employ a supervisor and staff that have the necessary child care qualifications and a
valid certificate in first aid recognised by the director [Reg. 24(2)]. The minimum
training level requirements are as follows as stated in Table 1:
In contrast, in Malaysia, only the operator of CCC, manager, supervisor and
registered child care provider are required to pass the PERMATA Early Child Care
and Education Course. Nevertheless, an operator may appoint a child care provider
who is registered with PERMATA and possesses the PERMATA Early Child Care
and Education Course certificate after attending the PERMATA Early Child Care
and Education Course and passing the exam related therewith. They must also be
registered with the Director General within 12 months after being employed or
appointed as a child care provider [Reg. 14(3) of CCR 2012]. Comparatively, the
requirement for attending early child care course is less demanding in Malaysia as
compared to Singaporean law because our law still allows child care operators to
Table 1 The minimum training level requirements

Age of children Educarers/teachers Para-educarers/educators Law
(group/class type)
Infant Certificate in infant Not applicable Regulation 2
and toddler care of Singapore
CCCR
Playgroup (Above Certificate in early Fundamental in early Third schedule
18 months– childhood care and childhood care and of Singapore
30 months) education education course CCCR
Nursery 1 (for Certificate in early Fundamental in early Third schedule
children attaining childhood care and childhood care and of Singapore
3 years of age) education education course CCCR
Nursery 2 (for Certificate in early Fundamental in early Third schedule
children attaining childhood care and childhood care and of Singapore
4 years of age education education course CCCR
hire a person who is not registered and not certified by PERMATA. The child care
quality can also be evaluated by looking at the child care provider attributes, such as
their formal education, specialised training and caretaking experiences and traits
like empathy, compassion and sensitivity towards children’s needs (Zaman et al.
2012). The authors believe it is high time to make it mandatory on every child care
provider to first attain the certificate of PERMATA Early Child Care and Education
Course before he/she can be employed as a child care provider. This is so because
such training and education would help to reduce the number of negligence cases in
CCC because they would have already been exposed to handling infants and
children, especially to avoid negligence. There is a persuasive body of research
literature which demonstrates a correlation between formally qualified staff and
high-quality service provisions in children’s services (Russell 2008). Staff qualifi-
cations have been consistently identified as one of the key variables that can sig-
nificantly influence the delivery of excellent quality outcomes for children in child
care settings (Russell 2008). In addition, Regulation 14(3) of MCCR 2012 may
impose difficulty to the child care operators because although it may be easier for
them to hire caregivers who are above 18, but to pass PERMATA Early Child Care
and Education Course within 1 year could be an uphill task. This is because the
course will have to be completed, whilst they are working and that it is based on the
availability of placement by the course providers. Besides, child care operators have
to incur more cost in getting replacement for the child care providers who go for the
basic course. To add, there are only a handful of caregivers that may have the
necessary qualification to be the replacement. As a result, child care operators will
have no choice but to hire a part-timer who is not qualified and inexperienced in
handling children which subsequently may cause a negligent act or omission on the
part of the CCC. Thus, it is submitted that every child care providers must attend
and pass the PERMATA Early Child Care and Education Course so that the quality
of CCC and the safety of children in CCC can be more assuring.
In order to prevent negligence in CCC, it is extremely important for the child
care operators to adhere to a proper safety standard as provided by the Act. This
covers the premise, equipment, facilities, electrical and wiring in the premise. Both
countries specifically mentioned that it is the duty of the staff, operator and
supervisor to ensure safety of the equipment as well as the premises (Regs. 27–29
and 33 of the MCCR 2012). To add, the child care providers and staff are under a
duty to physically inspect the playground equipment to ensure that they are safe and
free from any broken glasses or any harmful object. Interestingly, the SCCCR first
schedule provides detailed safety measures [Reg. 27 and Reg. 28(4)] as compared
to MCCR 2012. The provisions include, among others, the CCC is required to be
on the ground floor of the building unless otherwise approved by the director and
must be located away from the main road and other traffic hazard; the CCC is not
allowed to install a swing door and the floor shall not be of bare concrete; the floor
shall be clean, damp-proof, safe, level washable and with a nonslip surface. All
these requirements are necessary to ensure the safety of the children and to avoid
any injury on them. As far as Singaporean law is concerned, Reg. 43 SCCR pro-
vides a penalty to those who violate any of the provisions and those found guilty
shall be punished with a fine of not more than SGD 2000 and in the case of a
continuing offence to a further fine not exceeding SGD50 for each day if the offence
continues after conviction.
Despite the above statutory laws and regulations to protect children, the number
of child death at the CCC in Malaysia has been on the rise from 16 cases in 2012
(where it was reported that ten children died in unregistered CCC) to 23 cases in
2014 (Norliza 2015). Hence, the issue of compliance of CCC to statutory provisions
is questionable and this obvious nonregistration fatality calls for preventive mea-
sures to prevent more injuries and deaths at CCC.
4 Recommendations
In preventing negligence in CCC, the first important element to observe is the

enforcement of the Act by the government through officers from the Department of
Welfare Services. This is because active enforcement will ensure that nonregis-
tration CCC could be identified and punished accordingly.
Furthermore, the current law needs to be upgraded so as to mitigate negligence.
In comparison, much can be learned from the Singaporean law which provides
more detailed and specific actions to be taken as well as precautions relating to the
premises and equipment in CCC.
Quality of child care service is impossible without the quality of child care
providers. The academic and professional qualification of child care providers must
go beyond the 103-h course. Therefore, it is timely to increase the qualification of
child care providers and amend the Act so as to make it a mandatory requirement
that PERMATA Early Child Care and Education Course and other courses be
deemed a prerequisite. In this regard, the government should conduct a free course
or provide subsidies for those above 18 years old to attend the PERMATA Early
Child Care and Education Course as this would help them to be employed by CCC.
This is in line with the finding of Chiam (2008) stating that the Child Care Centre
Act 1984 (Amendment) Act 1285/2007 hardly provides for delivery of quality child
care. It is basically more on administrative purpose than for the assertion of quality
child care. The only improvement in the child care standard is the ratio of children
to child care provider which was reduced from 5:1 to 3:1 for children below 1 year
old. As such, child care providers are not driven to strive for better qualifications
and professionalism since the government has not raised the bar on the quality of
child care providers.
Besides that, it is suggested that each CCC must install a CCTV to help the
operators and parents or guardians to prove negligence acts or omissions. In most
cases like sudden infant death or choking by bottle-feeding, it is difficult for parents
to prove negligence as there is no CCTV installed and there is no witness to help the
parents to succeed in their claims. In the situation of negligence, the parents can
bring the case against the child care operators although it is very difficult to prove
negligence (Foster 2015). Perhaps, the government should provide some subsidies
for this facility to be installed in each registered CCC.
On top of the above-mentioned suggestions, long stressful working hours
without proper considerations for the health and diet of the child caregivers might
also be contributory to cases of negligence in CCC. The child caregivers are only
human and they are probably in need of constant attention which may not be
apparent physically. Ihonor (2012) in her report stated that impulsivity was found to
associate negatively with decision-making when the decision-maker did not
observe his/her diet correctly. Hence, it is proposed that a yearly compulsory
medical checkup encompassing both physical and mental status of the child care-
givers be introduced into the system to ensure the child caregivers are fit to handle
the children under their care.
5 Conclusion
As the development of early childhood education is paramount in ensuring the

development of human capital as one of the important sources of economic growth
in our country, anything that may retard this route should be viewed seriously.
Therefore, the above recommendations must be given consideration by relevant
authorities. Nevertheless, all preventive measures must be taken not only by gov-
ernment but also especially by child care operators, managers, supervisors, child
care providers as well as staff at CCC in order to prevent negligence in CCC. It is
submitted that Singapore has shown a good practice as compared to Malaysia in
terms of quality of CCC, qualification of child care providers, the law and good
enforcement. Thus, it is high time for us to review the law relating to CCC and
strengthen the enforcement in Malaysia.
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Chapter 48
A Need for Regulatory Framework
of Nominated Property in Malaysia:
An Issue of Rights and Duties
of Nominee
Siti Asishah Hassan and Rusnadewi Abdul Rashid
Abstract For Muslims, a nominee shall be regarded as mere executor or trustee

and not an absolute beneficiary of the nominated property. Thus, the nominee is
responsible to distribute the deceased property to the beneficiaries according to
faraid rules. Nevertheless, the problems arise when the nominee misuses the
property for his own benefits. Consequently, it leads to the violation of property
rights of Muslims beneficiaries and may cause disputes and hostility among the
nominee and the beneficiaries that could destroy the family institution and ummah
in entirety. This research is based on qualitative content analysis methodology. It
mainly aims to discuss the legal rights and duties of nominee and it seeks to identify
the laws applicable in resolving the issues and problems relating to nominee. This
paper provides some useful input to the public and proposes some recommenda-
tions for some related institutions and the policy-makers in implementing the rel-
evant laws and policy on matters relating to nominee in the administration Muslims
property in Malaysia.
Keywords Nominee Executor Trustee Nominated property
1 Introduction
Nominated property is a property which has been named in the name of one or more
owners of property to be owned by a nominee or more with the conditions that the
transfer of property to a nominee is only effective after the owner’s death. It exists
in a situation where a person contributed or save money or any property for various
S. A. Hassan (&)
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
e-mail: asishah79@gmail.com
R. A. Rashid
Faculty of Law, Universiti Teknologi MARA Perlis, Arau, Malaysia

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_48
518 S. A. Hassan and R. A. Rashid
purposes, and naming a person as a recipient of the property in the event of death.
Thus, the process of naming an individual(s) as a nominee is known as nomination.
Oxford Dictionary of Law defines nomination as the naming by a member of a
friendly society of a person to take his interest in the society on his death, without
the need for a formal will (Elizabeth 2002). In nomination, there are two parties,
namely the nominator and the person named that is the nominee (Abdul Rahman
2006). Nomination constitutes a contract in Islamic law (Abdullah et al. 2012). The
word aqad under Islamic Law literally means to tie between two ends of something
either physically or morally. Contract or aqad covers everything a person commits
himself to do which included unilateral and bilateral action, namely the offer and
acceptance. In Malaysia, nominator normally is a person who has taken up insur-
ance policies or saved money in certain bodies, such as Tabung Haji, Employees
Provident Fund (EPF) or co-operative societies. Nominee may comprise one
or more of which is usually made up of the nearest heirs. There are two types of
nomination, namely a contractual nomination which is made by virtue of
Section 23 of the Civil Law Act 1956 has the effect of creating trust in favour
of nominees as in the case of nomination of a life insurance policy made and a
statutory nomination as in the case of nomination made under the Employees
Provident Fund (EPF) Act 1991 or the Co-Operative Societies Act 1993 (Marican
2008). The main purpose of nomination is to ensure the nominee to claim the
money or property of the deceased from certain institution, such as Employee
Provident Fund (EPF), Tabung Haji, insurance company, takaful company and
Co-operative Societies and that property will be distributed quickly as it is not
subjected to the Probate and Administration Act 1959 and the Will Act 1959.
For non-Muslims, other than will, nomination can be considered as one of the
easier methods for distribution of property in the event of death. If the nominator is
still alive during the period of contribution, he will be the owner of the money or
property. Nevertheless, when the nominator died before receiving the money or
property, the nominee will be the absolute beneficiary of the property. On the
contrary, for Muslims, a nominee shall be regarded as mere executor or wasi and he
or she is not an absolute beneficiary. Moreover, he is responsible to distribute the
deceased properties among the beneficiaries according to the Islamic law of
inheritance. There were, however, cases where nominees have failed to distribute
the properties according to the faraid rules and used that property for his own
benefits (Abdul Rahman 2006). The problems arise where there is confusion as to
the status, legal rights and responsibilities of nominee who has the obligations to
distribute the property among the beneficiaries according to the Islamic law of
inheritance. As a result, the property rights of the beneficiaries are violated and the
distribution of the deceased’s property is not properly managed and could not be
resolved. Furthermore, the misappropriation of nominated property may cause
serious disputes among the nominee and the beneficiaries that could cause disorder
to the Muslims family institution and society. In Malaysia, there are no specific
rules or regulations which govern the rights and duties of nominees and general
matters pertaining to nominees can be found in various laws (Abdul Rahman 2006)
such as Civil Law Act 1956, Financial Services Act 2013, Islamic Financial
48 A Need for Regulatory Framework of Nominated Property … 519
Services Act 2013, Employee Provident Fund Act 1991, Lembaga Tabung Haji
(Deposit and Withdrawal) Regulations, 1975 and others. The objective of this paper
is to discuss the legal position, rights and duties of nominee and it seeks to identify
the laws applicable in resolving the issues and problems relating to nominee and to
find any gaps or lacunae in the laws and practices in the administration Muslims
nominated property in Malaysia. This research will mainly focus on the current
practices of nomination by related bodies and institution which impose the nomi-
nation policy, such as Employee Provident Fund Act (EPF), Tabung Haji, insur-
ance, takaful and co-operative societies.
2 Method
This study is based on the qualitative research and the approach to be applied is a
content analysis methodology. Content analysis is a type of secondary data analysis
that is used to analyse text, including, books, manuscripts, interview transcripts,
newspaper and websites to determine the frequency of specific words or ideas
(Burns 2000). Content analysis enables researchers to examine through large vol-
umes of data with relative ease in a systematic fashion. In view of this, the content
analysis will start to be done with data collection (Yaqin 2007). It is the process of
gathering and measuring information on variables of interest, in an established
systematic fashion that enables one to answer stated research questions, test
hypotheses and evaluate outcomes that have already been collected by others,
although it may not necessarily have been analysed or published. Data collected
from a source that has already been published in any form is called as secondary
data. It consists of published printed sources, published electronic sources, gov-
ernment records and private sector records. Thus, this research involves library
based for the collection of secondary data and it is known as doctrinal research,
where there is a essential to examine the secondary sources mainly the provision of
Civil Law Act 1956 (Act 67), Penal Code (Act 574), Employee Provident Fund Act
1991, Lembaga Tabung Haji (Deposit and Withdrawal) Regulations 1975,
Financial Services Act 2013, Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 and other legal
and non-legal literatures relating to nominees.
The Legal Position of Nominee

This term is not defined, indeed, it is not even employed in company statutes, nor
have the courts adopted any single clear definition. In commercial practice, persons
may be nominated or elected to the Board of Directors as of right by an individual
shareholder, a class of shareholders, or some other groups (e.g. a major lender to the
company or the employees of the company), rather than by the general body of
shareholders. Basically, the word ‘nominee’ is not clearly defined and clarified
under the law. According to Raja Musa Ag J, in the case of Re Ismail bin Rentah
(1940) MLJ 98, the word ‘nominate’ has not been defined in the Enactment or in
the rules. In its dictionary sense, it has been defined to mean ‘to name, or designate
by name, for an office or place; to appoint’. According to his Lordship, the word
‘nominate’ does not convey to the meaning that to nominate a person to receive a
fund necessarily means that person is to receive that fund beneficially. The National
Fatwa Council in 9 October 1973 provides that:
Nominees of the funds in EPF, Post Office Saving Banks, Insurance and Co-operative
Societies are in the position of persons who carry out the will of the deceased or the testator.
They can receive the money of the deceased from the sources stated to be divided among
the persons entitled to them under the Islamic law of inheritance.
Based on the fatwa, a Muslim nominee shall be regarded as an executor (wasi)

and he is not an absolute beneficiary of the nominated property. In the event of the
nominator’s death, a nominee will be responsible to distribute the property to the
beneficiaries of the deceased according to faraid rules. According to Section 2 of
Muslim Will Enactment (Selangor), 1999 executor or wasi means ‘a person to
whom the execution of a will of a deceased person is confided and includes a
person deemed to be appointed as executor by the Court’.
Section 2 of Civil Law Act 1956 defines executor as:
the executor or administrator of a deceased person, and includes, as regards any obligation,
any person who takes possession of or intermeddles with the property of a deceased person.
This type of executor is a person who is not being an appointed by the court and
he get involves in the affairs of the deceased’s estate and will bear all the
responsibilities and liabilities as executor. Under Islamic law, a wasi should be a
Muslim, adult, sane, free of irreproachable character, and a fit person to perform
duties entrusted to him (Al-Nawawi 1914). Regarding to the status of Muslim
nominees, the courts have their own methods or approaches in deciding the cases.
The judges had examined the nomination clause thoroughly before delivering the
judgment in order to determine the real intention of the nominator, whether to act as
a trustee or to receive it as a beneficiary (Abdullah et al. 2012). This can be seen in
several decided cases (Table 1):
The Appointment and Status of Nominees in Various Institutions
Employee Provident Fund (EPF)

Regulation 6(1) of the Employee Provident Fund Regulations 2001 provides that the
member of the fund who has attained the age of 18 or above may nominate in
Form EPF 4 any natural person to receive the amount standing to his credit and due to
him as his death. Additionally, Regulation 9(2) of the Employee Provident Fund
Table 1 Case summary

Cases Judgement Remarks
Re Ismail bin Rentah [1940] The court held that the nomination did not Nominee is
MLJ 98 confer a right on the nominee to take a trustee
beneficially, as the daughter merely held the
money as a trustee for all the beneficiaries.
Therefore, the money of the deceased under
the custody of the Co-operative society was
to be divided among all the beneficiaries
Re Man bin Minhat [1965] 2 The Court held that the moneys payable Nominee is
MLJ 1 under the insurance policy did not form part a beneficiary
of the estate of the deceased. It is lawful for
a Muslim to dispose off his property during
his lifetime by way of a gift or through
trustee
Re Bahadun bin Haji Hassan The court held that the sum payable under Nominee is
[1974] 1 MLJ 4 the policy should be paid to the widow for a beneficiary
her own benefit and the sum did not form
part of the assets of the estate of the
deceased
Wan Puziah v Wan Abdullah The court held that the nomination by the Nominee is
Muda and Anor [2001] JH 235 deceased depositor for her savings account a beneficiary
with the Lembaga Urusan dan Tabung Haji
(LUTH) in favour of the plaintiff was a
bequest
Saniah bte Ali v. Abdullah bin The court held that the moneys payable out Nominee is
Ali [1990] 3 MLJ 135 of the Fund on the death of a member are a beneficiary
specifically excluded by the Singapore
Central Provident Fund Act from the estate
of the deceased and in consequence are not
subject to the Administration of Muslim
Law Act
Regulations 2001 provides that when a Muslim member dies having made a nomi-
nation in accordance with the Regulations, the persons nominated shall receive the
credit of such deceased member as an executor and not solely as a beneficiary and shall
distribute such amount in accordance with the Islamic law. According to Rule 34(1) of
the Employee Provident Fund Rules 1991, nomination must be made in writing in
Form EPF 4 and shall be signed by the member of the Fund in the presence of a witness
and the signature of such member shall be attested by the witness. A cautionary
statement is added to a note annexed to Form EPF 4, which provides that:
For members who are Muslims, the nominee elected will be treated as an executor/
administrator to the member’s credit.
Said et al. (2013) agrees that the form clearly informs and reminds members of
the status and role of a nominee with regards to member savings or contribution
money. Nevertheless, Abdullah (2011) argues that even though a nomination form
states that the nominee appointed is merely an executor or trustee according to the
1972 fatwa, the wording of ‘nomination’ might imply a different connotation and it
does not necessarily mean that a nominee is an executor or trustee but it depends on
the meaning of the wording of the nomination clause. It should be noted that the
form and the provision under Regulation 9(2) of the EPF Regulations 2001 could
be considered as a reminder of the institution on the status or legal position of the
nominee which does not provide any penalty if the nominee failed to distribute the
property to the beneficiaries in accordance with the faraid law.
Tabung Haji
According to section 6 of the Lembaga Tabung Haji (Deposit and Withdrawal)
Regulations, 1975 (as amended in 1993), all Tabung Haji depositors are allowed to
make nominations. Depositor who is above the age of 18 may appoint a nominee
who will be considered as a trustee. Therefore, if the depositor dies, his savings will
be paid to the nominee and he is requested to distribute the money the beneficiaries
according to faraid law.
Insurance Company
Under insurance law, the legal position for non-Muslim nominee is clearly provided
under Section 23(1) of the Civil Law Act 1956 whereby a trust will be created in
favour of the nominee if the nominee is the spouse or child of the policy owner, or
if the nominee is the policy owner’s parent. When such a trust is created, the policy
is known as a trust policy. Meaning that the policy shall neither form part of the
estate of the deceased policy owner nor be subjected to the deceased policy owner’s
debts. In fact, under Section 166 of the Insurance Act 1996 provides that the
nominee in a policy is regarded as an absolute beneficiary under the policy.
However, for Muslims, the provisions under Section 23(1) of the Civil Law Act
1956 are not applicable to Muslims and do not affect Muslims as provided under
Section 25 of the Civil Law Act 1956. It means that the effect of disposal of
Muslims property would be dealt with according to Muslim law only. Section 163
of the Insurance Act 1996 gives the policy owner the power to nominate any
person, albeit a ‘natural’ one, to receive the proceeds. According to section 167(1)
of the Malaysian Insurance Act 1996, the Muslim policyholder may appoint a
nominee although it is provided that when a Muslim nominee receives the policy
moneys upon the death of the policyholder, he receives the moneys as an executor
and not solely as the beneficiary. Moreover, Section 167(2) provides that a nominee
of a Muslim policyholder who, on receipt of the policy moneys, shall distribute the
policy moneys in accordance with Islamic law. However, at present, the statutory
trust nomination is governed under schedule 10, section 130 of the Financial
Services Act 2013. This new Act replaces the Insurance Act 1996 and reconfirms
that the status of Muslim nominee under Schedule 10 Paragraph 6 who receive the
policy moneys will do so as executors and will have to distribute the same in
accordance with the relevant estate distribution laws.
Takaful Company
Before the enforcement of the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013, the Takaful Act
1984 does not specifically mention the status of nominee as participant or recipient
of takaful proceeds but section 65(4) refers to ‘proper claimant’ as the recipient of
the takaful benefits which is very general in nature. The section presumes that in the
case of a Muslim participant, it should be distributed according to the Syariah while
for a non-Muslim participant, it should be distributed according to the Distribution
Act 1959 (Ismail 2009). Hence, a nominee of the Muslims’ deceased property in
takaful is considered as wasi or executor only. However, with the implementation
of the new Act, i.e. the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013, the position of Muslim
nominee is either to be considered as executor or as a beneficiary. Under Schedule
10, Section 142, Paragraph 3(1) of the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013, it is
provided that a nominee shall receive the takaful benefits payable under a takaful
certificate either as an executor or as a beneficiary under a conditional hibah as the
case may be, as stated in the nomination form by the takaful participant. Halim and
Arshad (2014) proposed that further study should be conducted to determine the
status of nominee in receiving the takaful benefit payments under the Islamic
Financial Services Act 2013.
Co-operative Societies
At present, the issues on nomination relating to Muslim members of Co-operative
Societies have been resolved because the Co-operative Societies Act 1993 has been
amended accordingly. According to Section 24(1) of the Co-operative Societies Act
1993, nomination is not applicable to Muslims members of a Co-operative society.
As a result, only non-Muslim members are allowed to nominate persons to benefit
from his share and interest in the Co-operative society.
The Law on the Rights and Duties of Nominee
In Malaysia, there are no specific rules and regulations which govern nominated
property and the consequential rights and duties of a nominee. In fact, the law relating
to nominee is applied differently in various institutions such as EPF,
Government-backed co-operatives, financial institutions and insurance companies.
The absence of specific laws and regulations regarding the duties and responsibilities
of the trustee or wasi contribute to the conflict in nomination practice (Hassan and
Rashid 2014). In addition, the use of the term ‘nominee’ in the nomination forms by
many institutions should also be taken into account because the term ‘nominee’ has
different meanings or interpretation especially for Muslims. The use of the word
‘nominee’ also may cause confusion and misunderstanding because not all people are
able to understand the meaning and the implications of the word. Otherwise, this will
cause a lot of problems that can lead to negative attitudes in the context of Muslims
estate management, for instance, the breach of duties and the misappropriation of
nominated property by the nominee. Abdullah (2011) proposes that in achieving the
purpose of nomination, the related institutions should introduce a clear provision
which explains clearly the purpose and duties of the nominee.
Even though the status of nominee as an executor or wasi has been decided by
the National Fatwa Council, there were different fatwa issued by the Islamic
authorities at the state level, which lead to the inconsistency in the distribution of
nominated property after the death of nominator. In fact, there are no rules and
regulations which ensure that all fatwas issued by the National Fatwa Council that
are related to the Islamic law are fully implemented by the parties concerned. For
that reason, the respective authorities should undertake proactive steps and addi-
tional effort to increase the public awareness regarding the importance of nomi-
nation and nominee’s responsibilities (Ahmad and Ibrahim 2002; Kamarudin et al.
2015). Kamarudin et al. (2015) propose that the authorities should legislate laws
and regulations to govern the practice of nomination which consist the requirements
and responsibilities of the nominees. In addition, Saad (2002) and Abdul Rahman
(2006) propose that a specific law such as ‘Nomination Act’ should be enacted in
order to solve the issues and problems relating to nominees and to avoid any
unclaimed nominated property.
According to the normal practice of Government institutions such as EPF,
Government-backed co-operatives and insurance companies, after the nominator’s
death, the nominee will have a direct access to the deceased’s property as quickly as
possible without going through the lengthy administrative delays of estate admin-
istration. Once the nominated property is disbursed, it is out of the institutions’
control and it is not the jurisdiction of the institutions to ensure that the money is
properly distributed to the beneficiaries. Consequently, there will be a great pos-
sibility that the nominee will misuse or misappropriate the property without the
knowledge of the beneficiaries. One of the solutions if the nominee has misap-
propriated the nominated property is the beneficiaries that may lodge a police report
and bring a criminal action against the nominee for criminal breach of trust under
Section 405 of the Malaysian Penal Code which provides that:
Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property
either solely or jointly with any other person dishonestly misappropriates, or converts to his
own use, that property, or dishonestly uses or disposes of that property in violation of any
direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal
contract, express or implied, which he has made touching the discharge of such trust, or
willfully suffers any other person so to do, commits ‘criminal breach of trust’.
The offence of criminal breach of trust is punishable under Section 406 of the
Penal Code which provides that:
Whoever commits criminal breach of trust shall be punished with imprisonment for a term
which shall not be less than one year and not more than ten years and with whipping, and
shall also be liable to fine.
Nevertheless, it may be argued that such punishment may be inadequate in

remedying the property rights of the beneficiaries if the nominee has dispose of all
the nominated properties. In reality, many beneficiaries are not aware of their rights
either under Islamic law or civil law and therefore action could not be taken against
the nominee who has breached his duties as an executor. According to Billah (n.d.),
a nominee is a trustee, guardian, safe-keeper who is entrusted to carry out certain
duties and responsibilities. The governing principles of nominee under Islamic law
could be derived from the doctrine of al-Amanah. For instance, Abu Bakar et al.
(2014) suggest that in achieving maqasid al-Shariah or the objectives of Islamic
law, the status of nominee as a trustee under the family takaful certificate should be
similar to trust nomination. Under maqasid al-Shariah, there are three categories of
rights which must be protected including daruriyyat (essentials), the hajiyyat
(complementary benefit) and tahsiniyyat (embellishment). The essentials or the
daruriyyat consist of five namely the protection of faith, life, lineage, intellect and
property (Kamali 2014). As a trustee, a nominee is obliged with a great responsi-
bility to protect the interest of the beneficiaries and to render back the property
when required according to the Islamic law of inheritance. Al-Quran has expressly
mentioned on the concept of ‘amanah’ or trust which may be applicable to the
nominee who is considered as a trustee and this can be supported by several verses
in the Quran:
And if one of you deposits a thing in trust a thing with another let the trustee (faithfully)
discharge his trust, and let him fear his Lord (Surah Al-Baqarah (2):283)
And do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly… (Surah Al-Baqarah (2):188)
O you, who believe, do not betray God and His Messenger, and do not knowingly violate
your trusts. (Surah Al-Anfal (8):27)
And he who misappropriates shall come on the Day of Judgement with what he misap-
propriated. (Surah Al-Imran (3):161)
4 Conclusion
Based on all the above discussion, the position of nominees in EPF, Tabung Haji,
Insurance, takaful and co-operative societies are considered as executor or wasi.
A nominee is entitled to receive the benefits or the proceeds in their capacity as a
trustee for the beneficiaries of the deceased’s person. Nevertheless, the property
does not belong to the nominee unless he is a beneficiary. The nominee is obliged to
distribute the deceased’s property among the beneficiaries according to the Islamic
law of inheritance. Basically, the nominees are governed by certain rules and
regulations such as EPF Regulations 2001, Lembaga Tabung Haji (Deposit and
Withdrawal) Regulations 1975, Financial Services Act 2013, Islamic Financial
Services Act 2013, Co-operative Societies Act 1993, and others. However, there are
several gaps or lacunae in the laws because the provisions on the status of nominee
are very general. Furthermore, there are no specific or express provisions on the
rights, duties and liabilities of the nominees in the administration and distribution of
the deceased properties. Even though the fatwas clearly mentioned that the nominee
should distribute the properties according to Faraid law or Islamic law of inheri-
tance, this could not totally prevent the nominee from abusing his duties. With the
absence of the specific rules and regulations governing this matter, this may lead to
the misuse and misapplication of the nominated properties. Thus, the authors
suggest that the rights and duties of nominee as an executor or wasi must be
strengthened by the introduction of certain rules and regulations and these should be
applied to the related bodies and institutions. Hence, a study is needed in order to
determine the liabilities of nominee and identify the relevant laws applicable in the
case of misappropriation or misapplication of nominated property by the nominee.
In short, with specific rules and regulations relating to this matter, the objective of
making nomination will not defeat the purpose and it will create awareness and
understanding among Muslim society in Malaysia on the important role and
responsibilities of nominees in the distribution of Muslim’s property.
Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank Universiti Teknologi MARA Malaysia (UiTM)
for supporting this research. And also for all parties involved in providing support and guidance to
start for the realization of this Ph.D. research.
References
Abdul Rahman N (2006) Pentadbiran harta amanah orang Islam: Tinjauan kepada harta penama.
Dlm. Siti Mashitoh Mahamod (ed) Harta amanah orang islam di malaysia perspektif
undang-undang dan pentadbiran. Penerbit Universti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur
Abdullah MA (2011) Islamic wealth management: is the nominee a trustee or beneficiary? An
analysis on the application of the nomination instrument in the disposition of property in
Malaysia from the perspective of Islamic law. Law Rev 4:697–708
Abdullah MA, Arifin M, Omar MN, Napiah M, Deen M (2012) Is a nominee a trustee or a
beneficiary? A study on the Islamic legal maxim “in contracts effect is given to intention and
meaning and not words and forms” and its relevance to the nomination concept and practice in
the administration of a Muslim’s estate in Malaysia. Aust J Basic Appl Sci 6(11):53–159
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takaful. ISRA Int J Islamic Finance 6(1):67–85
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Part XIV
Marketing
Chapter 49
The Relationship Between Management
Competencies and Internal Marketing
Knowledge Towards Internal Marketing
Performance
Samsudin Wahab, Muhamad Fairos bin Mohamad Shah

and Syafiqah Nasuha Faisalmein
Abstract Nowadays, globalization keeps the banking industry facing more chal-
lenge business environment when big numbers of foreign bank penetrate local
market in Malaysia. Internal marketing knowledge that covered product knowledge
and market segmentation strategies should be spread enough internally in order to
combat competitors. Knowledge sharing is another marketing tool that supports
operational staff in ensuring the return on company investment. This paper explores
the relationship between internal marketing knowledge and internal marketing
performance. It also determines the influence of management competencies towards
internal marketing performance. The populations of study are banking staff from a
popular bank located at Kuala Lumpur, and simple random sampling was selected
from the target populations. Data collection resulted in 70 answers from the
commercial bank’s employees. Based on the finding, the result showed that internal
marketing knowledge and management competencies are two anchor factors in
determining internal marketing performance. Further recommendation has been
attached at the end of paper for the betterment of marketing management in a
banking industry in Malaysia.
Keywords Internal marketing Knowledge Management competencies

Banking
S. Wahab (&) M. F. b. M. Shah S. N. Faisalmein

Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi
MARA Pulau Pinang, Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
e-mail: samsudinphd@yahoo.com
M. F. b. M. Shah
e-mail: mohd.fairos76@gmail.com
S. N. Faisalmein
e-mail: syafafi@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_49
532 S. Wahab et al.
1 Introduction
Banking has operated in a moderately steady for many years (Al-Hawary et al. 2013).
Besides, the changing in economic and also political conditions affects the financial
crisis that makes the whole world still recovering. Due to these factors, all commercial
bank was forced to find new basis to build and protect their competitive understanding
of competition. Major improving technique that commercial bank realized is by
improving their service quality and creating relationship with customer. This is the
key to battling their competitor and led the performance. By implementing and
conducting successful Internal Marketing (IM) in commercial bank, normally, this
can consequence increase the commitment of employees. It is important to identify the
weakness and strengths of the certain commercial bank for easy to access and measure
their commitment and also action in marketing besides offering modification plan that
is possible to them for increasing their commitment towards employees using IM in
generating pleasant work environment (Moghadam 2012). This research is more
focused on the factors that give effect on Internal Marketing in commercial banks.
Commercial bank is important because they provide huge service to the public, which
is important to economic. This research represents sample to commercial bank in
Kuala Lumpur and mainly focuses on the employees in commercial bank to evaluate
the factors affecting IM. All these scopes of study give researcher complete evaluation
offactors that affect IM in commercial banks. The specific objective of the study was to
investigate the influence of managerial competence towards IM and the influence of
IM knowledge towards IM.
Internal Marketing (IM) and Managerial Competence as the Determinant for
Internal Marketing Performance
Internal Marketing (IM) can be defined as the act of selling the organization to
its internal customers that can give motivation to their employees which expose to
increase employee’s performance (Gronroos 1982). This is one of the ways to make
a strong understanding base on the problem area that related to the existing
knowledge. Zimuto (2013) says that IM focuses on the staff attention, which means
the usage of marketing in the organization’s internal activities in order to get much
performance in external marketplace. These also provide managers with apprecia-
tion and understanding of the employees in view of their jobs based on the IM
(Sinčić and Vokić 2007). Therefore, it makes huge impact to their organization.
Nahla (2014) mentioned that managerial competence is where the managerial
success to implement their responsibilities as stated in organization service outlined.
If the managerial fails to give the best leadership to their employees, this can create
a big gap between them in management. Managerial that lack of employee’s
controlling may lead to failure on achieving organization’s objectives and make
employees fail to provide satisfactory service to their external customers and lastly
make their customers probably go to competitor’s organization. Crosby and
Johnson (2003) stress that they must have good communication in organization to
49 The Relationship Between Management Competencies and Internal … 533
make them easy to understand employee’s attitudes, aspirations and concerns that
can indicate long-term satisfaction for external customers.
According to the literature, there are three main dimensions in IM: maintain
managerial goal emphasis and clarity; ability to provide necessary support to
employees so then they can do their work and achieve an objective; lastly, inter-
action between the employees so they can make a good teamwork and create
efficiencies.
Many organizations like commercial bank do not have proper knowledge about
IM concepts. This is because probably managers do not understand the full concept
of IM that makes them difficult to implement it in organization (Crosby and
Johnson 2003). Internal customers should feel satisfied with their job, workplace
and managerial, so they can produce good service that might satisfy their external
customers.
If the managerial fail to interpret the IM concepts, organization’s reputation will
be damaged as well as decreased employee’s innovation in organization.
Managerial should make interaction, staff training, review and get employee’s
feedback (Hogg et al. 1998). To implement the good IM, they should well
understand the concept, so then they can make effective strategies to their orga-
nization. It will be difficult for them to practice the concept in commercial bank if
they do not have knowledge in IM. Previous research has confirmed the influence
of marketing knowledge towards marketing performance (Moghadam 2012), even
though in marketing literatures product knowledge is important not only by mar-
keting operators but also very necessary for every department in organization,
especially for banking industries.
Research Objectives and Hypothesis
Based on the above reviews, this paper comes with two research objectives
namely
• Is there a relationship between internal marketing knowledge and internal
marketing performance?
• Is there a relationship between managerial competence and internal marketing
performance?
It is also hypothesized that
• There is a relationship between internal marketing knowledge and internal
marketing performance
• There is a relationship between managerial competence and internal marketing
performance.
534 S. Wahab et al.
2 Methodology
This empirical research is quantitative in nature; all the data were collected from the
survey. The duration for data collection is between 6 and 8 months; since the
respondent location is within Klang Valley, the researcher managed to collect the
data only in 3 months. All the items in the questionnaire are adopted from the
previous research. In order to ensure the items are valid, another reliability test has
been conducted.
The population of the study involved employees at X Banking Berhad. The
number of population determines based on how many staffs or employees that are
working in the certain department. Based on the details given, the total population
employees in X Banking Berhad are 27,000 workers in Malaysia. Therefore, total
sample as recommended by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) is 375 workers. Their
recommendation is accepted rigorously by social science researchers all over the
world.
Simple random sampling has been chosen since the sampling design is proba-
bility sampling. Using simple random sampling method, this can point out and
certify the inclusion of the small groups that could be overlooked entirely by other
sampling method (Mugenda and Mugenda 1999).
3 Findings
Reliability Test Result

Table 1 represents the reliability analysis of the variables in this study.
Researcher used Cronbach’s alpha as the reliability coefficient that gives consis-
tency of the scale and reliability. This also indicated how well the items correlated
with one another. If the Cronbach’s alpha was near to 1, then the factor of con-
sistency reliability was high. If the value of Cronbach’s alpha was 0.6 and below, it
shows that the items are not reliable (Sekaran and Bougie 2013). The researcher
produces a good result based on the table because all the value of Cronbach’s alpha
was 0.6 and above near to 1.
Table 1 Reliability test result

Variables Cronbach’s alpha No. of items
Internal marketing performance 0.824 6
Managerial competence 0.802 6
Internal marketing knowledge 0.699 6
Correlation Analysis Result

In order to test the relationship between the variables, correlation analyses have
been conducted. The purpose of this analysis is to check individual relationship
between independent variables which are
• The relationship between managerial competence and internal marketing per-
formance to answer hypothesis one
• The relationship between internal marketing knowledge and internal marketing
performance.
The finding for this study based on Table 2 shows relationship between internal
marketing performance and independent variables which are managerial compe-
tence and internal marketing knowledge. The finding shows that all independent
variables are significant with dependent variable. The result shows that r-value for
internal marketing knowledge is the highest, which is 0.656 or 66% at 99 confi-
dential intervals that according to the rule of thumb, it has strong relationship
between its dependent variable. It is followed by managerial competencies that have
0.459 or 46% at 99 confidential intervals. The p-value (r) shows that a probability
of internal marketing knowledge, managerial competence, was 0.000 indicating that
they are highly significant because the p-value is more than 0.01 significant levels.
H1 There is a relationship between internal marketing knowledge and internal
marketing performance: This hypothesis is ACCEPTED.
H2 There is a relationship between managerial competitiveness and internal
marketing performance: This hypothesis is also ACCEPTED.
Table 2 Correlation analysis result

Managerial Internal Employees Internal
competence marketing involvement marketing
knowledge performance
Managerial Pearson 1 0.649** 0.238 0.459**
competence Correlation
Sig. 0.000 0.052 0.000
(2-tailed)
N 375 375 375 375
Internal Pearson 0.649** 1 0.127 0.656**
marketing Correlation
knowledge Sig. 0.000 0.316 0.000
(2-tailed)
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
536 S. Wahab et al.
4 Discussion
This research has found that both variables have a significant relationship towards
internal marketing performance. In terms of the management competencies,
Ghoneim and El-Tabie (2014) find that managerial must know how to handle their
employees. Based on the past study, managerial that knows how to implement their
responsibility towards employees can make a good intention in organization. This
shows that internal marketing can increase the performance. Besides, managerial
can also conduct regular improvements in working environment. Hasaballah et al.
(2012) stated in their paper that effective leadership is positively related to
employee’s performance. So this study finding is similar to the previous study.
Logically, good workers will contribute more towards organization through their
support and previous achievement. Their excellent contribution will assist man-
agement in handling problem, decision-making and goal achievement. Contradictly,
a bad team will cause a serious failure towards organization.
Knowledge workers contribute more towards organization compared to low zero
knowledge staff. The finding of this study is similar to the previous study. Previous
study has confirmed that internal marketing knowledge has a significant effect on
the bank performance via customer loyalty. Ghoneim and El-Tabie (2014) find that
the study obtained positive relationship between internal marketing and business
performance. Commonly, knowledge workers understand more about what they are
responsible for, more serious and always meet the target. Therefore, the manage-
ment has to provide a training and another initiative in order to gain a knowledge
internal marketing workers.
As a conclusion, it is proved that internal marketing knowledge and management

competencies are important in determining organization effectiveness. Knowledge
is power and it should be shared among the staff in order for the staff to be more
competent.
As researchers had already recognized limitations for this study, it is recom-
mended for future researchers to take this into consideration and to prepare
themselves to extend the limitations in the future. Therefore, the future research
should use different types of areas or location or try to use event to examine the
relationships between IM knowledge, management competencies and organiza-
tional performance in variety of industries in different methodologies and research
contexts.
References
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message. Mark Manage 2(7):10–11
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African Centre for Technology Studies, Kenya
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Int J Sci Res Publ 4(11):1–8
Sekaran U, Bougie R (2013) Research methods for business, 6th edn. Wiley, UK
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marketing concepts into the new internal marketing philosophy. Working paper series 07-12.
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business, Zagreb
Zimuto J (2013) Perception of manager on internal marketing in nongovernmental organizations in
Zimbabwe: a case study of Masvingo Province. Glob J Commer Manage Perspect 3(6):
521–531
Part XV
Natural Heritage
Chapter 50
Culture and Ethnic Impressions:
Decorative Arts of Batek Tembeling,
Pahang
Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor, Tengku Intan Suzila Tengku Sharif

and Liza Marziana Mohamad
Abstract The traditional carvings and handicrafts of Batek of Tembeling in

Pahang, Malaysia are used to interest visitors of Kuala Tahan National Park.
However, recent natural calamities such as excessive logging, the massive flood of
2014 and El Nino have reduced the number of tourists. The present paper discusses
the decorative carvings produced by the Batek through their cultural sense and the
Batek’s challenges in merchandising their products. The purpose of the study is to
understand the Batek carving senses, problems and future plans for the sustain-
ability of the traditional industry. It is suggested that these decorative arts signify a
close relationship of the Batek with the environment. The decorations are also
governed by the tools used, perception and the skill of the carver. Through
observation–participation method, the carvings were primarily photographed and
semi-structured interviews were conducted with the Batek representatives and a
local tourist guide. The interview transcript was coded using the Atlas.ti software.
Among the issues disclosed were Batek reluctance to keep abreast with demands,
poor cooperation between the Batek and tour agents, and lastly, the possible loss of
heritage.
Keywords Batek hep’ Decorative arts Carvings Indigenous
M. Y. M. Noor (&) T. I. S. T. Sharif

e-mail: mohdyusri@pahang.uitm.edu.my
T. I. S. T. Sharif
e-mail: intansuzila@pahang.uitm.edu.my
L. M. Mohamad
Faculty of Arts and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka,
e-mail: lizamarziana@melaka.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_50
542 M. Y. M. Noor et al.
1 Introduction
The Orang Asli (indigenous people) of Peninsular Malaysia consists of three main
sub-groups based on lifestyles, language and locale (Ratos 2006). The Negrito
community includes the Jahai, Batek, Che Wong, Kensiw, Kintak and Mendriq.
The Senoi people are the Jah Hut, Lanoh, Temiar, Semai, Sabum and Semnam,
while the southern Proto-Malay includes the Semelai, Semaq Beri, Mah Meri and
Temoq.
With cultural artworks like wooden statues, masks and palm-weave ornaments,
the Malaysian indigenous artwork is beginning to receive due recognition. The Mah
Meri, for example, is popularly known for their dance mask. The dances convey
their history and rituals while the masks signify good, evil and trickster spirits
through flora and fauna representations (Ratos 2006). These masks and other
woodcarvings, however, are dying due to two major reasons: the deforestation of
the Batu Nyireh woods and dying interests of the young generations. Another
popular artistic artwork is tattooing, although it is also dying due to the lack of
practitioners (Ratos 2006). The older Jah Hut carves jungle demons, benign and
malignant spirits and the lives of mothers and children using Pulai wood (Ratos
2006). In Ulu Cheka, Pahang, the younger generations of Jah Hut are still main-
taining their heritage to date.
Limited Orang Asli artworks are on display today. One of the known modern
Malaysian art scenes is Shaq Koyok. Focusing on Orang Asli depiction of life, Shaq
Koyok paintings are exhibited internationally (Ratos 2006). The present paper
discusses the cultural and ethnic impressions of decorative carvings produced by
the lesser known Batek tribe and their challenges in marketing their products.
The Current Problem
To date, Batek Hep’ artwork has limited documentation. One such reputable
documentation of Orang Asli artworks was published in 2006. Like most docu-
mentations, it covers the Mah Meri who are renowned for their wooden masks and
statues. As Batek artworks are not as refined as the Jah Hut or Mah Meri, they are
almost undocumented. Batek artwork has the potential to be a sustainable income
for several Batek settlements in close vicinity to Kuala Tahan because these set-
tlements have become show villages for tourists where they demonstrate
fire-starting and blow-piping skills. However, the artworks are rarely purchased by
tourists due to some conflicts with the tour agencies. As such, most Batek youths
have become boatmen and tourist guides with these agencies to bolster their already
minimal income instead of producing carvings. Rumours that tour agents have
manipulated this matter are also prevalent. Due to this change of occupation,
carving is becoming an endangered skill.
50 Culture and Ethnic Impressions: Decorative Arts … 543
2 Literature Review
Among Batek artworks that they still sell are their /cnilas/ ‘hair ornament’ and /
banəɁ/‘dart case’. In order to discuss the Batek ethnic impressions, some theories of
arts are discussed. These theories enable the Batek impressions to be discussed
systematically. Some may claim the lack of artistic value to the Batek impression
and that simplicity is at play. Thus, such perception is also put forth.
Presentation of Arts
An art is a pinnacle and celebration of any world cultures and civilizations
regardless of form or presentation. Mankind has begun to debate the philosophy
behind the representation of art so to give meaningful and fulfilling dynamism to
the reality of each artistic presentation. In the Orang Asli context or any civilization
around the world, art is a representation of a culture that is illustrated in creative
force, portraying identities, values, heritage, beliefs and unique life system. Artistic
presentations are frequently produced with thoughtful propositions and particular-
ized planning to confer identity of the artists within the confinement of his culture.
In the quest for artistic meaning, the effort to define and deliberate meaning is
viewed as an attempt to complete one another.
Artistic Perceptions
Arts is universally linked to the concept of beauty and scenic and picturesque
notions, although may fail to impress the analysers. An art is defined commonly
perceived as refined, nice, beautiful and impressive. Yet, the uniqueness of an art
piece leads to its personal sense of attraction that is able to induce a variety of
feelings, deliberations, thoughts and evoke questions. Consequently, theories of arts
emerge in any artistic discussions.
In relation to an art form, Plato, suggested that an art is a work of mimesis or
copy. This copy depends on human observation of life and the world. This induces
the concept of ideas, a foundation to any description of the arts. The idea proposed
is the effort deduced from the understanding and production of idealistic beauty and
serenity. This is transcendence. For Plato, the concept of ultimate beauty and
serenity cease exists in this world but can be learned and copied from the universe
in one’s attempt to produce perfections. On the other hand, Aristotle perceived
beauty and serenity as physical objects that can be presumed by human senses
(Rahmah and Nor Azlin 2002).
Simplicity in Application
Dewey (1934) in Art as Experience stated that the theory of expression has three
main principles. First, an art is a communication tool or a vehicle to transport
feelings of the artists to the audiences. Second, an art is a self-expression of the
artists. For Dewey, experience is a significant data in stimulating the artist to
express his aesthetic feelings. Experiences have two characteristics which are past
and new experiences where both will lead to the embrace of meaning of an art
(Campbell 1993). Dissimilar to theory of expression brought by Dewey, Veron

(2010) and then Collingwood (1938) proposed expression of feelings as a method to
capture beauty. This is interconnected to the emotions as a form of human action
and behaviour that evoke the aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience is uttered
through different approaches based on interest and passion.
Veron (2010) also spoke of self-expression art while expanding Dewey’s theory
by stating that art is divided into two which are decorative art expression and
modern artistic expression. Veron defined that decorative art expression is some-
thing significant in expressing artists’ aesthetic feelings. This, nonetheless, is an
emergence induced from satisfaction and beauty only which was evoked through
the senses. For Veron, the decorative arts expression is significant in its perfection
of art form aligned by artistic elements of modern arts expression, nevertheless,
emphasis on a broad definition of beauty which involves other values, such as
anger, sadness and eeriness as elements of expression. The ultimate objective is not
only to achieve mere beauty but according to Veron is insufficient to accelerate
ideas and artists’ sense of expression.
In The Principles of Art, Collingwood (1938) argued that arts is best when
directed by unique emotions that were not specified by a good puppeteer—a lesser
form of technical art. Like John Dewey and other expressionist theorists, expres-
sions are initiated from within and illustrated through the human as an emotional
vehicle evoked from the presented data which is based on culture and period.
However, for Collingwood, to view an artwork is to possess the secret of the heart.
Collingwood also feels that art is a platform to share emotions as each art has
actions and the human knowledge. The idea that an artwork serves as a medium to
communicate is not new, but Collingwood suggested that art should only be created
to achieve truth and depth understanding of what is meaningful for human. This
manifesto is considered to be a normative viewing as to how an artwork should be
valued and comprehended (Graham 1997). Art should not be analysed through the
definition of art only.
Batek Arts
Batek arts have not received the similar recognition as other Orang Asli arts.
Ratos (2006) failed to include the Batek arts as it may have been perceived as
lacking artistic quality. To date, Nurul Fatanah (2010) and Lye (2005) have cap-
tured some of the Batek artistic senses. As their focus is on anthropological work,
no specific discussion was significantly made about the Batek artwork yet. Figure 1
shows the top half of a hair comb called /cnilas/. Here, a snake-like image is visible.
This may represent the winding curves of Tembeling River as it carves through the
jungle. In the impression, they are presented as arches and the top seems to mirror
the bottom.
Figure 2 shows more patterns on the /banǝɁ/ dart case. Each dart case has a
unique design which exhibits some form of reduplication of tree or sprout images.
These dart cases always come with /gǝl gɛl/ which are circular markings around the
dart case. These markings can be singular line or twin lines with some
Fig. 1 Hair comb /cnilas/ (Nurul Fatanah 2010)
Fig. 2 Dart case /banǝɁ/ (Nurul Fatanah 2010)
parallelogram images which are no longer found on the present dart cases. The one
on the far right has symbols that are almost similar to symbols of foreign native
tribes.
Objectives
There are two main objectives. The first is to understand the Batek carving
impressions. The second is to unfold the problems and future plans for the sus-
tainability of the traditional industry.
3 Methodology
Through an observation–participation method, the carvings were photographed.

Each photograph is visually and descriptively analysed using Dewey’s (1934)
theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the Batek representatives
and a local tourist guide. The interview transcript was coded for problem and future
plans using the Atlas.ti software.
Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with the Batek representatives
and a tourist guide in order to gain insight into market penetration. To conduct such
interview with the Batek requires trust because they are very sceptical of Malays
whom they view as oppressive and opportunistic due to previous negative expe-
riences. Some of the interviews were recorded, whilst others were transcribed.
These enable more comprehensive data as threats are minimized. The
semi-structured interview focuses on the sale of /cnilas/ and /banəɁ/. The more
these items are sold, the more they are produced thus expanding the creativity of the
Batek generation to generation. Without substantial sale, these particular arts may
be lost.
The documentations of the Batek conversations and ideas are transcribed. The
tourist guide’s comments were also transcribed. These are in pdf format which can
be analysed using Atlas.ti software. Codes then are marked. Atlas.ti allows coding
generation and links are then established.
4 Discussions
Batek Carvings
Dewey (1934)’s art theory—‘an art is a communication tool or a vehicle of a
self-expression of aesthetic feelings and experience’—serves as the codes to
analyse these artworks. Figure 3 shows usage of visual presentations of types of
leaves and flowers on /banǝɁ/. These decorative arts signify a close relationship of
the Batek with the environment. The decorations are also governed by the tools
used, perception and the skill of the carver. The carver imagines the plants he saw in
his trips to the jungle or during moving. The Batek are traditionally hunter–gath-
erers and lead a carefree living. They abide to their traditional customs. Each line
stroke on the leaf is almost a copy of the other. One of the images in Fig. 3 suggests
the stem of a plant. There are ten rings of growth, and each shows almost parallel
strokes of growth. Here, it is deemed as a communication tool. The Batek’s life
revolves around seven beings. There are seven waterfall steps, seven levels of flood
and seven warnings of flood. However, there are ten levels of growth here. The final
Fig. 3 Dart case /banǝɁ/

with flora-based carvings
five rings are larger than the first five rings. This communicates the significance of
Batek’s later life as role models to the young. For example, the Batek children are
known to learn by copying the adults (Lye 2005).
Figure 4a, b shows several dart cases being displayed for sale to tourists. Each
has unique carvings as none is identical to another. Each case depicts flora images.
Six out of the eight dart cases have /gǝl gɛl/ ‘waists’ which communicates the
significance of Batek’s nature and the simplification in carving.
A star-like image on the second dart case (Fig. 4b) is a rare symmetrical image.
A circle was created and eight sectors were made. These are randomly distributed
across a circular area with a radius of 45° each. The circle is made of dots, while the
inner lines are carved in a braided manner.
In the samples, /gǝl gɛl/ ‘line waists’ are often seen in straight lines. Rarely a /gǝl
gɛl/ ‘waist’ is seen in braided form as shown in Fig. 5, where an image of a
pineapple is illustrated. Yet, it is divided into two parts by five /gǝl gɛl/ lines. As a
vehicle of a self-expression of aesthetic feelings and experience, it expresses Batek
life today as a struggle between traditional customs and modernization. By keeping
to their semi-nomadic hunter–gatherer lifestyle, they are able to claim sanctuary
within the Malaysian national park in the peninsular (Bisht and Bankoti 2004).
Binding them to their heritage as the national park’s only certified dwellers has
relegated them as the least developed tribe within Peninsular Malaysia.
Figure 6 shows an almost symmetrical depiction of leaves grown from a petiole.
Continuous thin wavy lines are seen at the top and bottom of the leaves. They are
irregular with short line breaks and drawn freehand. These lines also replace the
lateral veins of the leaves where simplified, straight stroke lines are usually present.
Figure 7 suggests a great precision in the development of the earlier mentioned
continuous thin wavy lines. The lines are well developed within illusory boundaries
(a) (b)
Fig. 4 a, b Dart cases /banǝɁ/ with unique carvings

Fig. 5 Dart case /banǝɁ/

with symmetrical image
Fig. 6 Batek /cnilas/ with

flora-based carvings
in a series of number four-like images. The illusion boundaries are made with soft
curves. This /cnilas/ is rare and unlike the other /cnilas/ which are for sale, this is a
personal ornament.
Fig. 7 Batek /cnilas/

with modern lines
Sustainability of Batek Arts

Links between the claim of the Batek and the claims of the tour agents are
established. Figure 8 shows 5 statements related to Batek positive attitude, 7
statements related to problems, 3 statements related to sales, 4 statements related to
agents, 6 statements related to claims and 11 statements related to Batek negative
attitude made by the agents/locals. From the left, the perceived Batek positive
attitudes seem to contradict with the problems that they claim. Their negative
attitudes, as well as the tour agents, are both causing the problems. Claims have an
Fig. 8 Atlas.ti software output

association with the problems and the agents. The agents are associated with the
sales of Batek products and this is a property of the problems.
The poor cooperation between the Batek and tour agents is interpreted from the
continuous complaints from the Batek. They claim that the tour agents only bring
tourists to selected villages. According to the tour agents, one of the reasons for this
is easier access to the village from the river bank, despite other villages offering
better variety of products. Another reason is lower fees received by the village
representatives.
The Batek acknowledged the possible loss of heritage knowledge if the carving
task is not passed to the younger generation. The females usually prepare the raw
products, that is, bamboo, and the males do the carvings. However, the younger
males’ preference to work as boatmen is endangering the skills due to lack of
practitioners. The unwillingness of the Batek to keep abreast with demands is the
main claim of the tourist agent. The Batek are not willing to offer better access to
their village, and they seem reluctant to diversify their sales. The Batek are also
deemed unenthusiastic about selling the products at a nearby souvenir shop area.
Therefore, these link parties have to work together in order to produce the best
products and sales which will solve the problem and improve the Batek sales.
5 Conclusion
The cultural and ethnic impression of the Batek is apparent on the /cnilas/ and /
banəɁ/. The sales of these items can ensure the growth of the Batek arts. Yet to
ensure the survival of the art form, the Batek need to be willing to keep abreast with
the demands and willing to progressively produce and market these arts. The tourist
agency also has a great role in bringing tourists to Batek villages so that sales can be
maintained. This may avoid future loss of Batek’s cultural heritage.
Acknowledgements We are very grateful to the initial photography team members led by
Associate Professor Dr. Azhan Hashim, formerly Deputy Rector of Research and Industrial
Linkages, UiTM Pahang.
References
Bisht NS, Bankoti TS (2004) Encylopedia of the South East Asian ethnography. Global Vision
Publishing House, Delhi, India
Campbell S (1993) Interpreting personal. Expression and the formation of feelings. Cornell
University Press, Ithaca, London
Collingwood RG (1938) The principle of art. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Dewey J (1934) Art as experience. Minton, Balch & Company, New York
Graham G (1997) The philosophy of art. Routledge, New York
Lye TP (2005) The meanings of trees: forest and identity for the Batek of Pahang, Malaysia. Asia
Pac J Anthropol 6(3):249–261 (Taylor and Francis Online Library)
Nurul Fatanah KZ (2010). Batek Hep: Manifestasi alam dan kebergantungan hidup terhadap
rimba. Unpublished masters’ thesis. Institut Alam Sekitar dan Pembangunan (LESTARI).
UKM, Bangi
Rahmah B, Nor Azlin H (2002) Kesenian Melayu. Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur
Ratos A (2006) Orang Asli and their wood art. Marshall Cavendish, Singapore
Veron E (2010) Aesthetics 1879. Kessinger Publishing, Montana
Part XVI
Religious Studies
Chapter 51
Usefulness and Effectiveness of Mind
Mapping: An Analysis of CTU101
and CTU151 Courses
Norazmi Anas, Shahril Nizam Zulkipli, Mohd. Syukri Mohd Noor,

Abd. Munir Mohamed Noh, Mohamed Imran Mohamed Ariff,
Zulkifli Mohd. Ghazali, Intan Noorazlina Abdul Rahim
and Hartini Mohd Rosli
Abstract Mind mapping is a graphical depiction of a topic or idea, and its rela-
tionship in a hierarchy/level helps to increase the teaching and learning process in a
classroom. The graphical depiction through the process of imaging and manipu-
lating complex sets enhances students’ (1) memorization, (2) critical analysis and
(3) conceptual understanding. Furthermore, these processes are able to motivate
students, thus making them more active in class. This paper investigates the
(1) usefulness and (2) effectiveness of the mind mapping concept in the (1) CTU101
N. Anas (&) S. N. Zulkipli Mohd. S. Mohd Noor Abd. M. Mohamed Noh

Academy of Contemporary Islamic Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Tapah Campus, Tapah Road, Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: norazmianas@perak.uitm.edu.my
S. N. Zulkipli
e-mail: shah4107@perak.uitm.edu.my
Mohd. S. Mohd Noor
e-mail: syukri484@perak.uitm.edu.my
Abd. M. Mohamed Noh
e-mail: abdmu409@perak.uitm.edu.my
M. I. Mohamed Ariff Z. Mohd. Ghazali
Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA,
Tapah Campus, Tapah Road, Perak, Malaysia
e-mail: moham588@perak.uitm.edu.my
Z. Mohd. Ghazali
e-mail: zulki656@perak.uitm.edu.my
I. N. Abdul Rahim H. Mohd Rosli
Department of General Studies, Kolej Poly-Tech MARA Kuantan,
Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: noorazlina@gapps.kptm.edu.my
H. Mohd Rosli
e-mail: hartini@gapps.kptm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_51
556 N. Anas et al.
(Basic Principles of Islam) and (2) CTU151 (Islamic Thought and Civilization)
course, respectively. These courses are among the introduction level courses at the
Universiti Teknologi MARA. The research presented in this paper was conducted
using a survey (structured questionnaire). Participants were students from Universiti
Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Perak Branch, Tapah Campus. The findings provide
empirical evidence that mind mapping concepts help in the classroom teaching and
learning through illustrations, short forms, graphics and audio that can enhance
students’ interest in Islamic studies. Finally, the findings from this research will be
used in the development of the I-MAPS application program that can be accessed
through technology as an effort to increase students’ knowledge and understanding.
Keywords Usefulness Effectiveness Mind mapping CTU101

CTU151
1 Introduction
The use of a diagram or mind mapping has been practiced by Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) when explaining certain issues to his friends. This claim is supported
through a hadith narrated by Abd Allah bin Mas’ud, the Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) drew a square, then he drew a line in the middle of it and let it extend
outside the square and he drew several small lines attached to that central line. It
serves as a clarification that (each line) is the human being, (square) is the inevitable
death and (the line which is outside the square) is the never ending of human being
hope (Sahih Bukhari). Therefore, it is applicable that the methods of sketching
diagrams or mind mapping can be used as a supportive learning approach. The main
issues of teaching and learning of Islamic Studies are the students’ interest and the
traditional teaching and learning methods that cause the ineffectiveness of teaching
and learning (Lubis et al. 2009; Hussin and Rasul 2013) and the lack of ICT skills
(Pisol et al. 2015). The aim of this research is to investigate the (1) usefulness and
(2) effectiveness of the mind mapping in the (1) CTU101 (Basic Principles of Islam)
and (2) CTU151 (Islamic Thought and Civilization) course, respectively This
research forms part of a larger study which is to develop an interactive mind map
application for the diploma students of UiTM whom would take the CTU101 and
CTU151 course, respectively.
Mind mapping is a graphic picture that lists down a particular topic, idea and
relationship between both the hierarchy and stage which can help increase the
process of teaching and learning in the class (Katagall et al. 2015). The concept of
mind mapping highlights; students are able to capture and manipulate complex set
through diagrams; they will memorize, understand and analyse easier (Davies 2011;
Chiou 2008) and thus they can improve capability, increase student motivation
(Rofi’i et al. 2014) and they can participate actively (Twardy 2004) in order to
achieve effective teaching and learning (T&L).
51 Usefulness and Effectiveness of Mind Mapping: An Analysis … 557
Sherbone (2014) describes the mind mapping concept as a method that can help
the process of curriculum development from various levels as premier idea to be
implemented in the class for focus development and collaboration between edu-
cators and students. Nowadays, the biggest obstacle in teaching and learning (T&L)
is the use of modern gadgets, for example, smartphone, tablet and others especially
to Y generation, and thus there is a need to manipulate all technologies so that it can
give a great impact to cybergeneration.
In addition, interactive mind map is seen as one of the tools for new teaching and
learning application of modern technology compared to the conventional mind map
which is easy to access, clearer and effective as well as engaging (Liu et al. 2015). It
is in line with research by Jablokow et al. (2015) in the field of engineering, Vitulli
et al. (2014) in the field of visual arts and MacKinnon et al. (2013) in four different
higher education, for example, medicine, English literature, Greek methodology
and architecture. Therefore, the concept of interactive mind map will be more
interactive and flexible to the students not only at school level but also to the
students in higher education.
CTU101 course (Basic Principles of Islam) and CTU151 (Islamic Thought and
Civilization) are two Islamic Education courses that are compulsory for semester 1
and 2 diploma students in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). Both courses
display the knowledge and understanding of the basic Islamic concept and Islamic
civilization during the period of 14 weeks. Furthermore, students are exposed to the
basic principles in Islam, focusing on the aspect of (1) faith, (2) sharia’, (3) worship
or ibada and (4) morals. However, more emphasis are given the importance of
understanding and appreciating faith as well as the application of sharia’, worship
or ibada and morals in the daily life (CITU 2010a). This course is stated as a
university course and has two credit/contact hours. The course outcomes are
(i) explaining Islam as Ad-Din, (ii) connecting the concept of faith as life’s basic
and (iii) applying the needs of sharia’, worship or ibada and morals in
self-development, society and country. The content of the syllabus includes five
(5) subtopics which are Islam as Ad-Din, Faith is the core of Muslim Development,
Sharia’ in Muslim’s Life, Worship Creates Quality in Human and Morals in
Developing Oneself (Mohd Asri et al. 2006; Che Zuina 2009; Abd Aziz et al. 2010;
Muhammad Zahirwan et al. 2014).
CTU151, on the other hand, explains about the Islamic Civilization concept and
its contribution to the world’s civilization. The discussion of the course includes
Islam in Malay world, family institution, socialization and Islamic kinship, and its
challenge faced by the current Islamic World (CITU 2010b). These courses are
stated as a university course and have two credit/contact hours. The course out-
comes are (i) explaining the concept of Islamic Civilization and its contribution to
the world’s civilization, (ii) explaining the growth and the influence of Islam in the
Malay world and (iii) describing the social system and Islamic statehood as well as
the challenge that is faced by today’s Muslim. There are five (5) main syllabus
contents that include the concept of Islamic civilization, universal values in Islamic
civilization, the development of Islamic civilization, Islamic civilization thought
558 N. Anas et al.
and Islam in Malay world (Fairuzah et al. 2008; Mohd Nasir et al. 2012; Ramawan
2012; Mohd Faizal 2014).
Memorization is one of the methods used in teaching and learning Islamic
Studies subject (Boyle 2006), especially when it involves Quranic verses,
al-Hadiths and its translations (Saad et al. 2009), while Ahmad (2007) stated that
Islamic Studies is a process of transferring moral values or knowledge that develop
the whole potential of human nature, physically and emotionally with solid and
balanced individuals who are able to carry out their responsibilities as God’s caliph
on earth. In addition, Jusoh and Jusoff (2009) stated that mind map is an innovative
teaching tool for Islamic Studies that can be memorized by the students to enhance
their understanding. It is parallel to the view of Lubis et al. (2009, 2010) which
emphasized that educator’s creativity of using various teaching styles in class in
helping people’s educational quality. The conventional teaching of Islamic Studies
that are based on textbook usage makes students feel tired and sleepy, and the
effectiveness of teaching decreases, thus finally making the students lose focus and
interest in learning Islamic Education subject that is classified as boring (Hamzah
et al. 2014).
2 Methodology
Based on the characteristics of this study, this research employed a case study
design, i.e. quantitative survey method in identifying the use and effectiveness of
the mind mapping concept in teaching and learning (T&L). The case study is
intensive (in depth) that explains one or more specific cases to small social unit
(Talib 2013). The participants for this study were obtained through a cluster
sampling technique consisting of the diploma students at Universiti
Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Perak, Tapah campus. The prerequisites for the par-
ticipants were that they have undergone the CTU101 and CTU151 courses (second
and third semesters), respectively. UiTM Perak, Tapah campus has more than 5000
diploma students. Prior to the actual survey being presented to the participants, a
pilot test was conducted to examine the reliability of the questionnaire items (refer
to Table 1). The reliability test results from the pilot test are presented in the
reliability subsection in this paper.
The field study for this research was conducted at Universiti Teknologi Mara,
Tapah campus in Perak. Using a cluster sampling technique, the survey questions
Table 1 Cronbach’s alpha value of latent variables

Construct Subscales No of items Cronbach’s alpha
Usefulness Teaching and learning 6 0.789
Revision 4 0.816
Effectiveness 8 0.908
for this research were sent out to students from three different faculties, namely
(1) Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences (FSKM), (2) Faculty of
Accountancy (FP) and (3) Faculty of Applied Sciences (FSG). The total number of
respondents was 357. This sample size is considered adequate as suggested by
Krejcie and Morgan (1970).
The questionnaire used in this research is divided into three sections, namely
sections A, B and C. Section A is on the respondents’ demographic data (i.e. six
items), whereas sections B and C focus on the usage and effectiveness of mind
mapping in teaching and learning (i.e. 10 and 8 items, respectively). The collected
questionnaires were then analysed using IBM SPSS 21.0.
Reliability Test
Table 1 shows the Cronbach alpha value for the pilot study performed in this
research. The Cronbach alpha value in Table 1 indicates that all the items in the
questionnaire are reliable as supported by Sekaran (2003)—Cronbach’s alpha
values that are greater than 0.80 are considered good.
Descriptive Analysis
Table 2 shows the summary of the participants’ background in this study. A total
of 360 questionnaires were distributed. However, only 350 questionnaires were
returned. Upon performing data cleaning, only 346 questionnaires were usable. The
participants whom had responded in this research consist of 28.3% male and 71.7%
Table 2 Respondent’s background

Items Frequency Percentage
(%)
Gender Male 98 28.3
Female 248 71.7
Faculty Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences 118 34.1
(FSKM)
Faculty of Accountancy (FP) 153 44.2
Faculty of Applied Sciences (FSG) 75 21.7
Course Diploma in Statistics 10 2.9
Diploma in Mathematics 19 5.5
Diploma in Actuary 55 15.9
Diploma in Computer Sciences 34 9.8
Diploma in Accounting 75 21.7
Diploma in Sciences 153 44.2
560 N. Anas et al.
Table 3 Descriptive statistics of latent variables

Items Sample Minimum Maximum Mean Mode
size
Usefulness (teaching and 346 1 5 3.56 3.67
Learning)
Usefulness (revision) 346 1 5 3.64 4
Effectiveness 346 1 5 3.92 4
female from three faculties. There are 34.1, 44.2 and 21.7% from Faculty of
Computer and Mathematical Sciences (FSKM), Faculty of Accountancy (FP) and
Faculty of Applied Sciences (FSG), respectively. The respondents from FSKM are
divided into four courses, such as Diploma in Statistics, Mathematics, Actuary and
Computer Sciences with the percentage 2.9, 5.5, 15.9 and 9.8%, respectively.
Table 3 provides a summary of descriptive statistics for three latent variables.
Based on these results, the mean value for effectiveness of mind mapping is 3.92.
This indicates that the respondents agreed that mind mapping has a good effect on
CTU101 and CTU151 courses. However, the mean values of usefulness of mind
mapping in teaching and learning and revision are smaller than effectiveness which
are 3.56 and 3.64, respectively. Both values of mean are between ‘not sure’ and
‘agree’. This could be speculated that mind mapping concept is not fully used by
lecturers in UiTM Tapah.
Correlation Analysis
Table 4 shows the correlation value of latent variables obtained using the
Pearson’s correlation method. Based on the results, there is a moderate positive
correlation between each variable as the correlation values are between 0.788, 0.727
and 0.731, respectively. This research employs a correlation value significant at
0.01.
Table 4 Correlation between latent variables

Variables Usefulness (teaching and Usefulness Effectiveness
learning) (revision)
Usefulness (teaching and 1
learning)
Usefulness (revision) 0.778** 1
Effectiveness 0.727** 0.731** 1
**p-value < 0.01
4 Conclusion
The main objective of this research was to investigate the usefulness and effec-
tiveness of the mind mapping concept in CTU101 and CTU151 courses, respec-
tively. The mean value of effectiveness of mind mapping in teaching and learning is
3.92. This suggests that majority of the students agree that mind mapping supports
their learning in the respective courses. Kennewell et al. (2008) stated that the use
of technology can make teaching and learning more effective and interactive (Isa
et al. 2010); this also can increase students’ interest towards Islamic Studies
especially when lecturers use teaching tools that are ICT based (Hamjah et al. 2011;
Usman 2013). In addition, skills and knowledge in ICT are the basic components
towards the teaching of Islamic Studies (Tamuri et al. 2012) and this has been
supported by Haris and Kassim (2016) and Wahab et al. (2017) which stated that
the use of multimedia and ICT in teaching and learning in modernization era can
increase or attract interest and motivate students through subjects that have been
taught in classes especially in Islamic Studies. Furthermore, the mean values of
usefulness of mind mapping in teaching and learning and revision are less than the
effectiveness of mind mapping which are 3.56 and 3.64, respectively. The values of
these means are between ‘not sure’ and ‘agree’. This could be speculated that mind
mapping concept is not fully used by lecturers in UiTM Tapah. In contrast, students
agree that mind mapping concept is useful during their revision and thus it is
effective in the teaching and learning (mode = 4). Based on the correlation analysis,
there is a moderate positive correlation between usefulness (teaching and learning),
usefulness (revision) and effectiveness of the mind mapping concept. This suggests
that the effectiveness of the mind mapping concept is good related to the usefulness
of mind mapping in teaching and learning and student’s revision. Finally, as a
conclusion, this research implies that students are interested to use the mind
mapping concept for teaching and learning and revision in the CTU101 and
CTU151. This result also implies that the development of the interactive mind
mapping application for CTU101 and CTU151 would be worthwhile.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by Universiti Teknologi MARA (106215160006)

under the ARAS (Academic & Research Assimilation) Research Grant 2015 and collaboration
with Kolej Poly-Tech MARA Kuantan.
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Chapter 52
Understanding of the Islamic Debt
Concept Among Government Servants
Mohd Kamal Azman Jusoh, Norhapizah Mohd Burhan,

Asjad Mohamed, Wan Azmi Wan Ahmad, Amiruldin Md Sham
and Mohammad Yusof Hassan
Abstract In today’s modern phenomenon, having debt has become the norm in
life. The modern and latest of the current transaction such as the introduction of
credit cards and instalment payment scheme facilities have facilitated a debt society.
Additionally, with the attractions and promotion of financial institutions that offer
debt financing scheme which has influenced the society being trapped into the midst
of serious debt, especially for debtors who are over-lust and do not have a proper
plan in making debt. In 2010, the Malaysian community household debt is the
highest in Asia and total RM7.3 billion for non-payment loan household debt in
2014. In 2009, a total of 1086 public servants had been declared bankrupt by the
Insolvency Department. The majority of 72.74% are male employees, while only
27.26% are female employees. The existence of bankruptcy cases not only has
tarnished the image of the public sector but it also greatly affects the individuals
involved. The bankrupt employees will lose their pension benefit when they are
retired. This phenomenon is very shocking as the concept of Islamic debt has been
discussed thoroughly in Islamic jurisprudence. It is the main foundation and
M. K. A. Jusoh (&) N. Mohd Burhan A. Mohamed W. A. W. Ahmad

A. M. Sham M. Y. Hassan
Academy of Contemporary Islamic Studies (ACIS), Universiti Teknologi MARA
Cawangan Pahang Lintasan Semarak, 26400 Bandar Tun Abdul Razak, Jengka,
Pahang, Malaysia
e-mail: mkamalazman@pahang.uitm.edu.my
N. Mohd Burhan
e-mail: nrizahuia_04@yahoo.com.my
A. Mohamed
e-mail: asjad@pahang.uitm.edu.my
W. A. W. Ahmad
e-mail: wanazmi@pahang.uitm.edu.my
A. M. Sham
e-mail: amirulms@pahang.uitm.edu.my
M. Y. Hassan
e-mail: yusofhassan@pahang.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_52
566 M. K. A. Jusoh et al.
guidance to the Muslim debtor and creditor. With that, a study should be conducted
to identify the level of understanding of the public servant regarding the concept
and ethics of debt prescribed in Islam. This paper will discuss the comparison level
understanding of government servant in UiTM regarding the debt concept in Islam.
Data in this paper is obtained from the questionnaire involving 690 respondents in
UiTM Shah Alam, Pahang and Penang, which consists of academic and adminis-
trative staff who are Muslims. Data is analysed using the Statistical Package for
Social Science (SPSS). Three variables, namely the location, grade and level of
education were analysed with the level understanding of ‘Akhlaq Mahmudah’. The
findings showed that the level of education and grade were significant differences in
the understanding of the concept of ‘Akhlaq Mahmudah’.
Keywords Islamic debt Government servant
1 Introduction
Recently, the rate of debt involvement has turned phenomenal. There is a per-
ception that only by having debt, a person can fulfil the needs of daily life. With the
complex modern lifestyle, people thirst to fulfil not only what they need, but also
what they want. The emergence of modern transactions such as credit cards and
instalment payment scheme has lured the society to involve in debt habits.
Moreover, attractions and promotions introduced by financial institutions have
encouraged the society until they are trapped with unpayable serious debts, espe-
cially to those who do not have proper financial planning. There was an increment
of 76.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2009 to 2010 in household debt
of Malaysia which recorded as to be the highest rate in Asia (Financial Stability and
Payment Systems Report 2010). It rose for 5% from 2010 to 2011 and in 2014, it
was found that Malaysia had an outstanding amount of RM7.3 billion for the
household debts. These included the use of credit card, as well as personal loans
(Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report 2014). The increment of the
outstanding amount of household debt eventually will affect the society. It causes
the failure in settling the payment and thus leads to bankruptcy issues in society.
These serious debt issues among Malaysian society will give a negative impression
on Malaysian public sector.
The issues related to debt among Muslim community were being discussed for
seriously for a long time. It is necessary for Muslims to understand the concept of
Islamic debt before they are involved in any. ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ is among the
practise that should be followed to ensure that the debt will be settled without
having any negative consequences later. Therefore, by having better understanding
towards Islamic debt, it will help to harmonize the Muslim community.
52 Understanding of the Islamic Debt Concept Among Government … 567
Akhlaq Mahmudah Concept in Islamic Debt

Islamic religion is very particular in every life aspect, including the establishment of
proper guidelines in managing debts, that involve both of the parties. Debtors need
to have ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ more than the creditors due to their responsibility
towards their debts. Thus, it is necessarily important for them to perform ‘Akhlaq
mahmudah’ as it is a noble behaviour that determines the value of humanity in
individuals. ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ portrays individual personality as a caliph. (Mohd
Sulaiman Hj Yasin 1992) ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ requires someone to control lust,
being truthful, honest, ‘qanaah’, as well as shy (Humaidi Tatapangsara 1981).
Among ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ in Islamic Debts are:
1. Determination to settle the debt
2. Performing good acts while paying
3. Borrowing to fulfil necessity
4. Fulfilling promise and punctuality in paying debts
Determination to Settle the Debt
A good debtor will work hard to pay his debt. It is because he already knows his
capability to settle the amount of money or things that are borrowed. According to
Ibn Manayyar, if someone borrows from others and he knows that he will not be
able to pay back, he actually takes the money without the intention to pay it
(Al-Asqalani 2000). As mentioned in Sahih Bukhari 2000, based on Rasullullah S.
A. W hadith, Allah will help people with debt if they have the intention to settle it:
Narrated by Abu Hurairah R.A, from Nabi S.A.W, he said “Whoever takes properties from
other people with the intention of paying it, Allah will help him to pay it, and to those who
take other’s properties with the intention to destroy it, Allah will help him to destroy it.”.
The meaning of ‘taking someone else’s properties’ in the hadith means bor-
rowing money or things belonging to others, while ‘paying’ refers to settling debt.
With the aims and determination, Allah will ease the person in paying the debts that
he committed to.
It is forbidden to be in debt with the intention to make the other person become
miserable and with the intention to destroy its properties. A person who borrows
other’s properties without any good purpose and resolute not to pay it will face the
consequences later. His life will not be blessed and peaceful. Besides, he will also
face severe punishment by Allah S. W. T in his life hereafter (al-San’ani).
Performing Good Acts while Paying the Debts
It is very important for the debtors to perform good acts while paying his debts.
This will show that the debtors are showing their appreciation to the debtors for
lending them money while in need. Besides, it also shows that the debtors are being
thankful and trying to ease the burden of the creditors. Performing good acts in
settling debts was shown by Rasulullah S. A. W. He said (Bukhari 2000):
From Abu Hurairah R.A, he said, “Rasulullah S.A.W owed a camel of certain age from
someone who would like to claim it back”. Rasulullah S.A.W asked his companion to give
him a camel of the same age to the man. However, they could not find the camel except for
the one which was a year older. Rasulullah S.A.W told them to give it to him. The man
said, ‘You have paid me full, so Allah would have paid you full’. The Rasulullah said, ‘the
best amongst you is the one who paid the debt with the best manner’.
Hadith above explains that it is better for someone to pay more than what he
owes. However, the additional amount is not mentioned in the agreement between
the debtor and the creditor as to avoid the extra amount that will turn into riba.
Therefore, the intention to pay more than the borrowed amount must be done after
the debt is settled.
Imam al-Ghazali mentions the best way to pay debt is when the debtor himself
has the effort to meet the person that he owes to pay his debt. And it is compulsory
for the debtor to settle his debt whenever he can afford to do so, without having to
wait until the payment due date (Al-Ghazali 1998).
Borrowing for Necessity
Akhlaq mahmudah allows someone to involve in debt in order to fulfil the daily
needs, and the sum to be borrowed should be the amount that he really needs only.
It is not advisable to borrow money from someone for impulse buying, for example,
buying something to fulfil what he wants, not what he needs. For example, bor-
rowing someone’s money as to buy a new car although the person has already
owned one is considered as not sensible as it is just the act to fulfil the want, not the
need. In Islam, the value of a debtor and a creditor is determined as the creditors
will always be higher than the debtor as it resembles one’s dignity.
There are different levels of necessity that allow individual to involve in debt.
Among the reasons that concede them to be in debt are individual lifestyle, numbers
of family members, house location, and environment. In Holy Al-Quran, there are
verses that discuss to what extent an individual is allowed to perform debt. As
stated in the verse, minimal necessity of a human being includes food and drinks,
clothes, accessory, furniture and transportation. Besides, it also involves the needs
of the married couple. Other needs that are not explained in Al-Quran, however, can
be regulated based on the current situation, for example, time, venue, races and
other variables.
Many hadith that came from Rasulullah S. A. W explained further on the life
necessity, besides what were mentioned in Al-Quran. One of them is the hadith
narrated by Al-Tirmidzi (2000):
From Uthman bin Affan R. A., Rasullullah said “Adam’s sons do not have right on other
thing except for: their house, clothes to cover aurah, bread and water.”.
According to Imam Al-Ghazali, the basic necessity includes food, drinks,

shelters and other needs. (Abdullah Lam bin Ibrahim 2003). Besides, Rasulullah S.
A. W has also stressed on the need of providing appropriate education (Ibn Majah
2000), marriage (Bukhari 2000) and look for proper care and medication when
being sick (Abi Daud 2000). Therefore, it can be concluded that basic necessity
depends on time, venue and society. It is the role of the country leader to decide on
the level of basic necessity after justifying the points of view from economic, fiqh
and social experts (Abdullah Lam bin Ibrahim 2003).
Fulfilling the Promise and Punctuality in Paying Debts
A good debtor will promise to pay his debts. Fulfilling the promise is one way of
being ‘siddiq’, which is required for each pious Muslim. By being ‘siddiq’, it gives
a good impression on other and shows one’s trustworthiness. Rasulullah S. A. W
was acknowledged as Al-amin before he was accredited as caliph due to his
determination in fulfilling his promise and his punctuality in settling his debt. There
is an incident narrated by Abdullah bin Abi al-Hamsa who was a credit of
Rasulullah S. A. W. (Abi Daud 2000)
From Abdullah bin Abi al-Hamsa, he said “I sold something to Prophet S.A.W before he
became ‘Rasul’, he did not manage to pay full price. I promise him to come back to his
place. However, I have forgotten about the promise and only went there after three days”.
When I arrived, he was still there and said to me, “Oh young man. You have troubled me.
I have been waiting for three days”.
Hadith above had explained Rasullah S. A. W determination to fulfil his pro-

mise. He willingly waited for the creditor for 3 days due to his promise towards
Abdullah bin Abi al-Hamsa’. This is one of the factors that leads his followers to
have faith in him. As to be a civilized citizen, having Rasullullah S. A. W as a role
model will make the society to be well developed (Mohd Sulaiman Hj Yasin 1992).
This research is quantitative in nature. It is designed based on observation and the

research samples are selected through stratified random sampling. A set of question-
naires was constructed based on ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ and answered by 690 respon-
dents from UiTM Shah Alam, Pahang and Pulau Pinang. Five min values of the Likert
scale in the questionnaire will be analysed and classified into three levels, namely:
1. Min score 1.00–2.33 indicates low understanding level.
2. Min score 2.34–3.67 indicates average understanding level.
3. Min score 3.68–5.00 indicates high understanding level.
Respondent demography
Respondent demography in this study focused on the locations of the respondents.
It involved 690 UiTM staff from three different campuses. Table 1 shows the
Table 1 UiTM campus Location Frequency Percentage

location
UiTM Shah Alam 525 76.1
UiTM Pahang 84 12.2
UiTM Pulau Pinang 81 11.7
Total 690 100
campuses involved, and each of these three campuses represents campus from city,
town and rural area:
From Table 1, there are 525 (76.1%) respondents who were from UiTM Shah
Alam, 84 respondents (12.2%) from UiTM Pahang and 81 respondents (11.7%)
from UiTM Pulau Pinang. This shows that majority of the respondents were from
the city campus.
There are several groups of position grade for administrative and academic staff
in UiTM.. Generally, the groups can be classified as support staff, professional and
management and top management. The position grades are illustrated in Table 2.
Based on Table 2, analysis has shown that 9.6% of the respondents are from
Grade 1 to 16 with the frequency of 66. There are 188 respondents from Grade 17
to 26, 111 (16.1%) respondents for both Grade 27–40 and Grade 51–54. The
highest percentage of 29.7% is for Grade 41–48 which is equivalent to 205
respondents. The least percentage is contributed by JUSA group, with 9 (1.3%)
respondents.
Table 3 indicates that the education level of the respondents involved the group
of Sijil Rendah Pelajaran (SRP) and below, 27 respondents (3.9%), Sijil Pelajaran
Malaysia (SPM) which is 159 respondents, (23.1%), and Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran
Malaysia (STPM) which is 21 (3.1%). As for the tertiary level, there are 119
(17.2%) diploma holders, 114 (16.5%) degree holders, 192 (27.8%) respondents
with Masters and 21 (3.1%) Ph.D. holders. This has shown that respondents with
M.A. contribute to highest percentage of 27.8% while the least percentage goes to
Ph.D. which is 8.4%.
Understanding of ‘Akhlaq Mahmudah’ in Islamic Debt
As portrayed in Table 4, ANOVA analysis shows that position grade
(F = 8.848, df = 5684, sig = 0.000) and education level (F = 5.028, df = 6683,
Table 2 Position grade Grade Frequency Percentage

1–16 66 9.6
17–26 188 27.2
27–40 111 16.1
41–48 205 29.7
51–54 111 16.1
JUSA 9 1.3
Total 690 100
Table 3 Education level

Education level Frequency Percentage
SRP and below 27 3.9
SPM 159 23.1
STPM 21 3.1
DIPLOMA 119 17.2
B.A. 114 16.5
M.A. 192 27.8
Ph.D. 58 8.4
Total 690 100
Table 4 Understanding of the Islamic Debt concept

Variable Min score Standard Sample F-test Sig.
(Mahmudah) deviation size
Location Shah Alam 3.95 0.488 525 2.534 0.080
Pahang 4.05 0.502 84
Pulau 4.04 0.448 81
Pinang
Position 1–16 3.76 0.442 66 8.848 0.000*
grade 17–26 3.86 0.488 188
27–40 4.01 0.437 111
41–48 4.03 0.505 205
51–54 4.11 0.442 111
JUSA 4.40 0.408 9
Education SRP and 3.81 0.391 27 5.028 0.000*
level below
SPM 3.84 0.490 159
STPM 3.86 0.425 21
DIPLOMA 3.94 0.460 119
B.A. 4.02 0.445 114
M.A. 4.07 0.523 192
Ph.D. 4.09 0.439 58
*Significant level is marked at a = 0.05
sig = 0.000) have significant differences on ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ concept.

Meanwhile, the respondents’ location did not contribute to any significant differ-
ence. (F = 2.534, df = 2687, sig = 0.080).
Analysis result has indicated that the respondents’ location does not influence
the level of ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ understanding. However, it is proven that both
education level and position grade had affected their understanding of the concept.
To discover the significance of understanding of Islamic debt concept based on the
education level and position grade in depth, Multiple Comparison through Tukey
Table 5 Comparison between different position grade

Title of Islamic debt (I) Grade (J) Grade Difference (I − J) (Min) Sig.
Akhlaq Mahmudah 1–16 27–40 −0.249 0.009*
in Islamic debt 1–16 41–48 −0.269 0.001*
1–16 51–54 −0.355 0.000*
1–16 JUSA −0.641 0.002*
17–26 41–48 −0.164 0.008*
17–26 51–54 −0.250 0.000*
17–26 JUSA −0.536 0.012*
Table 6 Comparison of education level

Title of Islamic debt (I) Education (J) Education Difference (I − J) Sig.
level level (Min)
Akhlaq Mahmudah in SPM B.A. −0.182 0.032*
Islamic debt SPM M.A. −0.234 0.000*
SPM Ph.D. −0.247 0.014*
Post-Hoc tests need to be done. Analysis has also shown that only certain position
grades have significant differences as stated in Table 5. Staff of Grade 27–40 is
seemed to have a better understanding as compared to those from Grade 1–16
(3.76).
By comparing the education level of the respondents in Table 6, it is found that
respondents with SPM are significantly different with B.A., M.A. and Ph.D.
holders. This indicates that respondents’ understanding from the low min score,
SPM (3.84) will increase to B.A. (4.02), M.A. (4.07) and Ph.D. (4.09).
Analysis has concluded that education level is very important in determining the
level of understanding towards Akhlaq mahmudah. It is assumed that, by having
higher grade position, eventually it will decrease the risk of involving in serious
debt. On the other hand, lower position grade and lower education background will
lead to the serious debt habits, due to low monthly payment to cater high living
cost. This explains the factors that contribute to many serious debt cases that
happened among support staff group. According to Disciplinary Management of
Public Service (2000), in the first quarter of 2009, from January to March, 80% of
serious debt cases had involved support staff group while the other 20% involved
the management and professional group. It was also recorded that no case involved
in top management.
4 Conclusion
Islam is a perfect religion that covers all aspects of human’s life, not only in the
world but also hereafter. It is highlighted in the Islamic debt guidelines of the
importance to avoid serious debt and not having any unnecessary debt. Prevention
is better than cure. However, the effectiveness of the Islamic debt guidelines will
only be beneficial if everyone has proper understanding of the concept. It will not
successfully be implemented if awareness among Muslims is sufficient enough.
The research findings have proven empirically that individual’s understanding of
debt can be increased by learning about it in depth. It is based on the importance of
learning in Islam. By having better understanding towards Islamic debt, eventually,
people who are in debt will be performing ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’. Nevertheless,
extensive research should be done in order to see the significance of knowledge in
correlation to performing ‘Akhlaq mahmudah’ in Islamic debt.
References
Al-Quran
Abdullah Lam bin Ibrahim (2003) Ahkam al-aghniya’, Cet.1. Dar al-Nafais, Jordan
Abi Daud, Sunan Abi daud dalam mausuat hadith al-syarif al-kutub al-sittah (2000) Cet. 3. Dar
al-Salam, Arab Saudi
Ahmad Ali bin Hajar al-Asqalani (2000) Fath al-bari bi syarah Sahih Bukhari, jil 5. Dar al-Hadith,
Qaherah
al-Syaukani, Mohd bin Ali bin Mohd al-Syaukani (T.T) Nail al-Authar, jil. 5. Maktabah Dar
al-Turath, Qaherah
Bukhari, Sahih Bukhari dalam Mausuat Hadith al-Syarif al-Kutub al-Sittah (2000) Cet. 3. Dar
Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report (2010) Bank Negara Malaysia homepage. http://
www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=en_publication&pg=en_fspr&ac=5&lang=en
Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report (2014) Bank Negara Malaysia homepage. http://
www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=en_publication&pg=en_fspr&ac=9
Humaidi Tatapangarsa (1981) Akhlaq yang mulia. Pustaka Singapura PTE, Singapura
Ibn Majah, Sunan Ibn. Majah dalam Mausuat Hadith al-Syarif al-Kutub al-Sittah (2000) Cet. 3.
Dar al-Salam, Arab Saudi
Imam Abi Hamid Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Ghazali (1998) Ihya’ Ulumuddin, jil.3.
Maktabah Misr, Mesir
Mohd Sulaiman Hj Yasin (1992) Akhlak dan tasawuf, Mas’adah (M) sdn. Bhd, Kuala Lumpur
Tirmidzi, Jami’ al-Tirmidzi dalam Mausuat Hadith al-Syarif al-Kutub al-Sittah (2000) Cet. 3. Dar
Part XVII
Sustainable Development
Chapter 53
Malaysian Household Perception
Towards Recycling and Waste
Generation: A Case Study at Northern
Region Housing Area
Adrina Rosseira Abu Talip, Nik Zunaidi Draman, Juliana Martin,

Herda Balqis Ismail, Asmawati Che Hasan
and Mohammad Hazizi Jamal
Abstract This study is conducted to determine the household level of awareness

towards recycling among the residents at Taman Sutera Prima, Penang. Thirty-five
(35) houses were randomly selected and the average people per household is five
(5). A set of questionnaire was distributed to attain the respondents’ level of
awareness on waste recycling. The findings indicate that the recycling awareness
amongst the respondent was moderate (65.7%). Moreover, the value of R2 obtained
from this study shows a good correlation between number of people per household
and waste generation. The R2 value = 0.78458 indicates that the increment in
numbers of people per household may increase the amount of waste generation. As
a conclusion, even though the waste generation is increasing due to the increase in
numbers of people, 77.1% of the respondents practice recycling in their daily life.
Thus, local authority needs to locate more recycle bins near the housing area to
encourage the people who acquired the high and moderate awareness (100%) but
do not practice recycling (22.9%) to practice it in their daily life. Indirectly, this
might help to minimize the issue on the landfill area.
A. R. A. Talip (&) N. Z. Draman J. Martin H. B. Ismail A. C. Hasan

M. H. Jamal
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pasir Gudang,
Masai, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: adrina9587@johor.uitm.edu.my
J. Martin
e-mail: julianamartin96@gmail.com
H. B. Ismail
e-mail: herdabalqis@johor.uitm.edu.my
A. C. Hasan
e-mail: asmawati.ch@johor.uitm.edu.my

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_53
578 A. R. A. Talip et al.
Keywords Awareness Disposal Landfill Recycling Solid waste
1 Introduction
There are various definitions of waste. According to Tchobanoglous et al. (1993),

solid waste is any material that arises from human and animal activities that is
normally discarded as useless or unwanted. Waste also applies to ‘a resource dis-
carded by its processor or user because apparently it is of no further use to the
processor’ (Diaz et al. 1993). Solid waste is a generic term used to describe the
things that we throw away, taking the matter generally described as garbage, refuse
and rubbish (Davis and Cornwell 2008). There are several classifications of waste.
The classification is by physical state (solid, liquid, gaseous), materials (paper,
glass, plastic, steel, etc.), physical properties (recyclable, combustible and com-
postable) origin (domestic, commercial, industrial, etc.) or level of safety (haz-
ardous, non-hazardous).
In 2012, it was reported that waste generation by Malaysians is 33,000 tonnes
per day which exceeds the projected production of 30,000 tonnes by 2020 (New
Straits Times 2003). One of the major contributors to this problem is a high increase
in Malaysian population in addition to the rapid changes in today modern lifestyle.
More packaging and improvident habits associated with greater affluence lead to
greater quantities of waste, as demonstrated by discarding wrappings and con-
tainers. Major consequence of Malaysia’s rapid urbanization is viewed as a social
transformation with a greatly increased generation of municipal solid waste (Murad
and Siwar 2007). Additionally, the type of solid wastes is to be more complex in
urban than rural areas. Study by Teik (2005) found that Penang is one of the states
in Malaysia with an average solid waste generation around 0.9–1.1 kg per person
per day which is higher than the national average (0.5–0.8 kg/person/day).
In Malaysia, about 95% of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is more preferably
to be sent to landfill rather than recycling or other treatments such as composting.
This landfilling method is not sustainable and leads to many environmental prob-
lems which might affect the public health, social and economic (Yaacob and Talib
2010). This situation contributed to the problem of looking for a new area and to the
provision of a waste disposal method which involves high administrative costs.
As the rate of waste generation continues to increase with the rising standards of
living and industrial development, measures to preserve the environment and to
control the production of solid waste is required. Implementation of recycling
program is an alternative to address the growing waste in Malaysia. Recycling is an
option to reduce the amount of solid waste and environmental pollution, which in
turn preserve the environment and prolong the landfill life. According to Pitchel
(2005), recycling is defined as the use of a material in a form of similar to its
original use. The recycling demands the waste producer to first separate the useful
53 Malaysian Household Perception Towards Recycling and Waste … 579
items of the waste thus ease the collection process of other solid wastes. Various
items of MSW can be recycled for manufacturing and subsequent use such as paper,
steel, aluminium, plastic, glass and yard waste (Tchobanoglous et al. 1993).
Recycling process is believed as one of the diverse ways of solid waste manage-
ment. It can help to reduce the dependency on landfill disposal system as it is
becoming to be more limited every day due to the increase of solid waste generated.
The approach of recycling is one of the measures to reduce solid waste gener-
ation. However, although the government has taken the initiative to conduct
campaigns on recycling, waste generation increased problems are yet to overcome.
This is because the recognition of the importance of recycling is very thin in the
community. But, based on the database of Malaysia Developing a Solid Waste
Management Model for Penang in 2008, it shows that plastic and cardboard were
the highest waste composition which has been recycled in 2005 with the percentage
of 88.3% followed by metals (8.9%), plastics (2.6%) and glass (0.2%). Nowadays,
only five percent of waste is being recycled, but the government aims to have 22%
of the waste recycled by 2020 (Malaysia Environment-Geography-on line 2010).
Hence, this paper intended to study the level of awareness towards recycling among
Malaysian household residents at a housing area in the northern region, namely
Taman Sutera Prima specifically in Seberang Jaya, Pulau Pinang. This housing area
has been chosen as a case study area for data collection.
2 Methodology
Recycling Awareness
In this study, the primary data was obtained from the questionnaire distributed
among residents while the secondary data was obtained from the literature reviews.
The questionnaire was divided into three (3) sections, namely respondent’s
demographic, daily activities and recycling awareness. According to Salkind
(2003), the relevant sample size to be tested should be more than 30 samples.
Therefore, 35 houses which are 10% of the total housing unit at Taman Sutera
Prima were selected in order to determine the resident’s level of awareness towards
recycling.
Solid Waste Generation
35 houses have been selected at Taman Sutera Prima in order to determine the
pattern of solid waste generation. The amount of MSW was obtained by weighing
the waste on site using 10 kg weight machine. The data collection process was
continuously done for 7 weeks. For each week, the waste was collected and
weighted from only five houses. The waste from each house was separated
according to its types such as food, paper, glass, plastics, metal, textile, wood and
others. The data was analysed using Microsoft Excel version 2010 and the results
were tabulated in the form of pie chart and regression analysis chart.
In this study, 35 houses were selected randomly for the purpose of data collection.
The respondents consist of 60% Malay, 28% Chinese and 12% Indian. Figure 1
shows the demographic of the respondents from section A of the questionnaire.
Based on Fig. 1, it shows that 83% (29 persons) of the respondents were married
and 17% (6 persons) were single. The size of family among the residential was
Fig. 1 Respondent’s demographic at Taman Sutera Prima

classified into three groups; 1–3 peoples; 4–6 peoples; 7–10 peoples in the family.
10 families consist of 1–3 peoples, 17 families consist of 4–6 people and 8 families
consist of 7–10 people.
The salary among the respondents was categorized into three ranges, less than
RM2000, RM2000 to RM3000 and more than RM3000. About 63%, i.e. the
majority of the respondents earn more than RM3000 per month for their salaries.
There were 26% of respondents that have salary between RM2000 and RM3000 per
month. Only 11% of the randomly selected respondents have salary below than
RM2000. There were four persons (11%) of selected respondents who are in the
21–25 years old range. 10 persons (29%) of the respondents are in the 26–30 years
old age range and 21 persons (60%) are more than 31 years old.
Recycling Awareness among Respondents
In Section C of the questionnaire, the question is derived to determine the level
of recycling awareness among the respondents. Table 1 shows the list of question
and response gathered from the respondents.
Table 1 shows the result of recycling awareness amongst the respondents.
Question C1 was formulated to determine respondents’ level of understanding
towards recycling approach in Malaysia. The result indicates that the majority
(65.7%) of the respondents have moderate understanding of the concept of recy-
cling. Meanwhile, only 34.3% of the respondents are equipped with good under-
standing of the concept of recycle. Thus, it can be concluded that almost 100% of
the respondents understood and have knowledge on recycling. The respondents’
demographic background shows that more than 50% of respondents are 31 years
old and above. At this kind of age, they will be more exposed towards recycling
awareness due to their life experience and maturity. Thus, the result for the level of
recycling awareness was moderate due to their age factor. This is supported by the
statistics indicating that of 0% of the respondents have poor level of understanding
about the concept of recycle.
Moreover, Question C2 was used to identify respondents’ recycling practices on
their daily life routine. The result indicates that 27 respondents practice recycling as
Table 1 Respondent’s recycling awareness

Question Answer No of respondent (%)
C1. Your level of understanding Good 12 34.3
about recycles? Moderate 23 65.7
Poor None 0.0
C2. Do you practice recycling in your Yes 27 77.1
daily life routine? No 8 22.9
C3. Should recycle bins being located Yes 29 82.9
nearby your surrounding? No 4 11.4
Not sure 2 5.7
compared to only 8 respondents who do not practice recycling in their routine. In

general, this reflects the total amount of solid waste generated by the respondents’
household. In this study, the total number of people from the 35 houses of
respondents is 159. By averaging the number of people per household, each house
consists of five persons in average. Thus, the average result for the solid waste
generation is 0.85 kg/day/person. The value is still in the range because it complies
with the current average solid waste generation per person in Malaysia that is
1.2 kg/day/person (Iwan et al. 2012). This indicates the respondents’ belief that by
practicing the recycling, it may contribute to many positive impacts on their life,
social practice and environment. Source reduction is the most desirable way to
avoid waste generation, while recycling is useful to conserve resources and prevent
materials from entering the waste stream (Bai and Sutanto 2002).
Besides, the aim of Question C3 was to determine the public’s demand towards
the need of having recycle bin around their housing area. Based on the result, it
shows that 82.9% stated their agreement to have the recycle bins facilities nearby
their surrounding housing area. There were only 11.4% of respondents who dis-
agree with the idea to locate the recycle bin within their housing area. Meanwhile,
5.7% of the respondents were not sure about having the facilities nearby their area.
This small group of respondents (17.1%) is predicted as the people who are not
practicing recycling in their daily routine. Other than age factor, the salary also
influences the resident’s recycling practise. According to Ahmad and Mayamin
(2013), it was found that RM3000 was the medium range of income and this group
has an issue of having no space at home to implement recycling and there is no
facility available for waste separation. While for the high-income group which is
more than RM12000, they have an issue of having no interest in recycling practise
due to lack of time. So, these situations showed that the residents in this area do
practise recycling but due to lack of facilities provided in their surroundings, some
of them practise recycling and some of them do not.
Overall, the result from Section C of the questionnaire shows that more than
60% of the respondents have at least basic knowledge and understanding about
recycling concept in their daily life. This is indicated by the result gathered from C2
which proved that majority (77.1%) of the respondents practice recycling.
Solid Waste Generation Among Respondents
The average number of members was approximately 4.54 per household by
dividing the total number of respondents including the number of members, which
is 159 persons with 35 houses. The average result for the solid waste generation was
0.85 kg/day/person. The value is still in range because it complies with the current
average solid waste generation per person in Malaysia that is 1.2 kg/day/person
(Iwan et al. 2012).
The RelaƟonship Between Number of Person Per

Household and Solid Waste GeneraƟon
6
NO. OF PERSON PER HOUSEHOLD
5 y = 0.6288x + 0.5092
R² = 0.7846
3
Series1
Linear (Series1)
2
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
AVERAGE OF SOLID WASTE IN KG
Fig. 2 The relationship between number of person per household and solid waste generation
The Relationship Between the Number of Person Per Household and Solid
Waste Generation
Based on the result obtained from the questionnaire, it showed that 83% of the
respondents are married and there are more than 1 people per household. Overall,
the average number of respondents’ household in this study is five persons. In
general, logically, the amount of solid waste generated increases with the increased
number of person in a household. Figure 2 shows the relationship between the
number of person per household and the rate of solid waste generation in kilo-
gramme (kg). From the regression analysis, the result shows that the value of R2
obtained from this study is 0.78458. The calculated R2 is closed to unity, 1.00
which indicates a good correlation. Thus, it can be concluded that the increment of
the number of person per household may increase the generation of solid waste. The
tolerance of R2 value which differ from the unity value 1.00 is 0.78458 may indicate
that although the relationship shows that many people per household generate more
solid waste, but the element of recycle has been practiced by the respondents and
this might not contribute to the linearity of R2 value.
4 Conclusion
Generally, the increase in the number of person per household will lead to the
increase of the solid waste generation. This can be justified by the regression graph
analysis which indicates that the value of R2 was 0.78458. From this study, it can be
concluded that most of the respondents have a basic understanding regarding
recycling. The total solid waste generated per person among the respondents was
0.85 kg/day/person which are still in the accepted range. This result showed that
even there was an increase in the number of person per household, the range of
solid waste generated was within the acceptance range which proved that the
respondents at Taman Sutera Prima understand the concept of recycling. Even
though the number of waste generation increased due to the increased number of
household, if the level of awareness is increasing, it might help to minimize the
waste disposal at the landfill in order to face the issue of limited landfill space. It is
found that the respondent is aware with the concept of recycling but not all of them
are practising it due to the restriction of facilities provided at the area. Thus,
improvement by locating the recycle bins at their surrounding area can help to
motivate all of them to practise recycling.
There are many approaches that have been done by the government and
authorities to promote the awareness regarding recycling among Malaysian. Current
practice by the authorities is to ensure all the waste disposed must be separated from
the sources. The idea of waste separation approach introduced by government is
good in order to teach and increase Malaysian awareness on recycling. Besides, in
order to improve and promote the awareness among Malaysian, publicity approach
can be used through social media such as via television, radio, newspaper, adver-
tisement, campaign and other platforms that are relevant hence can help to expose
more recycling knowledge among public. On the other hand, enforcement seems
good to be implemented for those who failed to practice recycling. In order to
impose the enforcement, at the first step, government or authorities must start by
ensuring the recycling awareness occurring among Malaysian. This is because by
enforcement, it does not make much sense if they are still not practicing recycling
concept. Thus, if the level of awareness among Malaysian is raised, they will have a
better understanding about their responsibility in order to keep the earth clean,
green and safe to live and treasured by the future generation.
References
Ahmad RO, Mayamin Y (2013) Awareness among terrace house residents in Shah Alam towards
domestic waste recycling. J Asian Behav Stud 3(11):13–26
Bai R, Sutanto M (2002) The practice and challenges of solid waste management in Singapore.
Waste Manage 22:557–567
Davis ML, Cornwell DA (2008) Introduction to environmental engineering, 4th edn. International
editions. McGraw-Hill, Singapore
Diaz LF, Savage GM, Eggrth LL, Golueke CG (1993) Composting and recycling municipal solid
waste. Lewis Pubisher, USA
Iwan B, Chamhuri S, Hassan B (2012) Current status of municipal solid waste generation in
Malaysia. Int J Adv Sci Eng Inf Technol 2(2):129–134
Malaysia Environment-Geography-on line (2010)
Murad MW, Siwar C (2007) Waste management and recycling practices at the urban poor: a case
study in Kuala Lumpur city, Malaysia. Waste Manage Res 25:3–13
Need to act on rubbish now (2003) New Straits Times, Aug 27, p 4
Pitchel J (2005) Waste management practices, municipal, hazardous, and industrial. Taylor &
Francis, USA
Salkind NJ (2003) Exploring research, 5th edn. Prentice Hall, New Jersey
Tchobanoglous G, Theisen H, Vigil SA (1993) Integrated solid waste management engineering
principle and management issue. International editions. McGraw-Hill, Singapore
Teik KH (2005) Heading towards zero waste in solid waste management. The Penang experience
professional training programme on solid waste management in SEA cities, 4–5 July, Siem
Reap, Cambodia. Online at: http://www.SouthEastAsia/UrbandEnvironmentalmanagement/
ApplicationsProject.htm
Yaacob S, Talib AS (2010) Sustainable municipal solid waste management through household
waste minimization and integrated SWM model—a case study in Putrajaya
Chapter 54
Sustainable Management of Setiu
Wetlands Ecosystem Services: The
Attitude and Perception Analysis
of Mangrove Forest Conservation
from Non-users Perspective
Wan Noorwatie W. Ibrahim, Roseliza Mat Alipiah

and Nik Fuad Nik Mohd Kamil
Abstract The mangroves in Setiu Wetlands (SW) are valuable not only ecologi-
cally but also in terms of its rich biodiversity. It is a habitat for many species of
invertebrates including tiger shrimp, fish and crabs and other benthic organisms.
Hence, maintaining the ecosystem functions and services of Setiu Wetlands is
extremely important. Human beings assess ecosystem services in terms of benefits
to themselves. They tend to convert these ecosystems to other activities purely on
economic ground. Understanding the importance of the ecological function of
mangroves should be the basis for converting mangroves to alternative uses. The
impact on all stakeholders should be considered. This chapter provides information
gathered from stakeholders on the importance of the functions and services pro-
vided by SW. The aim is to prevent the depreciation of natural products and
ecological services generated by the system. The results of interviews carried out in
four districts in Terengganu showed that the respondents understand the importance
of mangroves function and stated that the mangrove forest in SW should be
conserved.
Keywords Ecosystems Mangroves Setiu Wetlands
W. N. W. Ibrahim (&)
Faculty of Economic and Management, University College Bestari,
Setiu, Terengganu, Malaysia
e-mail: noorwatie13@gmail.com
R. M. Alipiah N. F. N. M. Kamil
School of Social and Economic Development, University Malaysia
Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia
e-mail: roseliza@umt.edu.my
N. F. N. M. Kamil
e-mail: nikfuad2017@gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9_54
588 W. N. W. Ibrahim et al.
1 Introduction
The importance of mangrove forests for the environment and coastal communities
has inspired many parties, whether governmental or non-governmental organiza-
tions, to take action to hold programs to increase awareness on the conservation of
mangrove trees. It is a part of corporate social responsibility that can benefit the
people and wildlife that depend on mangrove ecosystems. Mangrove forests and
ecosystems which are increasingly threatened have an impact on local residents
who depend on these resources. Although public awareness on the importance of
conservation of natural resources has increased, their understanding of the benefits
of conserving the natural ecosystem is still low (Ahmad 2009).
The benefits that people obtain from ecosystems are defined as ecosystem ser-
vices, derived from the utilization of ecosystem functions by human. This concept
is categorized as ecology–economics interface represented by a connection between
ecology and economics aspects. It was mainstreamed by the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment (MEA 2005) by distinguishing into provisioning, regulating, cultural
and supporting services to illustrate the diverse ways in which wetland ecosystems
contribute to human welfare. In economic aspects, the benefits that people obtain
can be assessed as economic value either directly (e.g. consumption of food and
fresh water) which is categorized as direct use values; or indirectly (e.g. protection
from storm and flood by mangroves) as indirect use values. Indeed, people can also
get benefits without utilizing these services (non-use values), for example, the
benefits associated with the appreciation of species existence or cultural uniqueness
(existence values) and aspiration to preserve species diversity or historical sites
(bequest values). The importance of these wetland functions is reflected in the
valuable ecosystem services which they deliver to different groups of wetland
stakeholders.
The benefits listed will not be useful if it is not appreciated by humans. The
extent to which human beings values anything depends on the level of their
behavior. In social psychology, the stated of behavior is considered to be a
behavioral intention that is partially influenced by attitudes (Harris et al. 1989).
According to Ajzen (1991) in his theory, there are two major factors that determine
behavioral intention: attitudinal and social factors. Attitude is the tendency to
consistently express pleasant or unpleasant impression towards an object. So,
attitude reflects the personality and determines individual behavior. Therefore, what
is disclosed by humans in the choices of answers to a question exemplifies the
personality of a person. How far of the people assess everything they get is based
on their natural attitude. Therefore, the objectives of this chapter are to identify the
respondent attitude and perception on the importance of mangrove forest in Setiu
Wetlands.
54 Sustainable Management of Setiu Wetlands Ecosystem Services … 589
2 Method
Study Area
Setiu Wetlands (SW), which is situated on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia,
70 km from Kuala Terengganu covers an area of 1025 km2 or 102,500 ha (ECER
2013). Of the total, 880 ha is watery surface area (Nakisah and Fauziah 2003). The
existence of the lagoon around the river mouth caused a lot of activities that can be
carried out. The mangrove forest forms a lagoon starting from Kampung Beting
Lintang parallel to the coast of South China Sea. The distance is about 13 km from
Kampung Mangkuk (05036.830′N, 102048.320′E) in south heading to north
Kampung Beting Lintang (05043.968′N, 102039.839′E). It is a unique wetland
ecosystem that consists of nine interconnected major habitats: sea, beach, mudflat,
lagoon, estuary, river, islands, coastal forest and mangrove forest. The lagoon
ecosystem components provide services that directly or indirectly contribute to
human well-being. It is important to local communities in providing food i.e. wild
fish and cultured fish, supports aquaculture activity and supplies clean and fresh
water for consumption by local households, agriculture, aquaculture, small-scale
industries. It also prevents flooding downstream, supports a diversity of aquatic
animals and benthic organisms and offers recreational and educational opportuni-
ties. The complex relationships and interactions among Setiu’s ecological compo-
nents include biotic elements; flora (mangrove forest, peat swamp forest, seagrasses
and seaweeds, etc.) and fauna (mammals, reptiles, fish, macrofauna, etc.) and
abiotic elements; (sea, lagoon, temperature, rainfall, salinity, etc.) which combine to
produce the ecological functions of the wetlands.
The Setiu Wetlands Mangrove Ecosystem Function and Services
Mangrove forest ecosystems generally are represented by the integration of four
fundamental concepts underpinned by key ecological and economic components;
ecosystem structures, ecosystem processes, ecosystem functions and ecosystem
services. In order to manage the wetland wisely and sustainably, it is important to
clearly distinguish the difference between these four concepts as they are highly
related to one another and, under certain circumstances, may be used to represent
one another. De Groot et al. (2002) defined ecosystem functions as ‘the capacity of
natural processes and components to provide goods and services that satisfy human
needs, directly or indirectly’. He suggests that it is convenient to group ecosystem
functions into four primary categories as shown in Table 1.
Survey Instrument
The questionnaire was divided into four parts. Part one was related to the overall
attitude of the individuals with respect to the importance of mangrove for the whole.
Part two contained questions relating to the economic value for conservation of the
ecosystem which is not the purpose of this chapter. Part three, the questionnaire
tried to reveal the attitudes of individuals on the importance of the Setiu Wetlands
Table 1 Setiu wetlands ecosystem and services

Ecosystem functions Ecosystem services
Production functions Provisioning services
Relates to the role of biotic resources (plants Setiu Wetlands provides diverse natural
and animals) to convert abiotic resources resources such as food, raw materials, genetic
(solar energy, carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, resources, medicinal resources and
nutrients, etc.) into carbohydrate structures ornamental resources which can be utilized
through ecosystem processes, eventually by society, directly or indirectly
creating a variety of living biomass
Regulation functions Regulating services
The role and capacity of wetlands to regulate Setiu Wetlands offers direct or indirect
and maintain essential ecological processes benefits to the local community with regards
and life support systems locally, regionally or to its ecosystem regulation functions such as
globally, depending on site-specific improving human health, protecting human
characteristics and structures of the life and properties, increasing crop
ecosystem productivity, maintaining a healthy
ecosystem, etc
Information functions Cultural services
Refers to the function of the wetland The nonmaterial benefits that people obtain
ecosystem as a source of inspiration for through aesthetic enjoyment, recreational
science, culture and art; and in providing experiences, cultural diversity, spiritual
opportunities for spiritual enrichment, mental enrichment and cognitive development
development and leisure
Habitat functions Supporting services
Wetland ecosystems provide suitable living Indirect benefits that people obtain from Setiu
space for wild plants and animals (refugium Wetlands ecosystems provide habitats for
function) and provide suitable habitat for resident or transient species and help to
reproduction (nursery function) maintain biological diversity and stocks of
commercially harvested species (fish and
shellfish)
Soil formationa
Sediment retention and accumulation of
organic matter helps farmers to maintain crop
productivity
Nutrient cyclinga
Nutrient cycling activities such as nutrient
storage, recycling, processing and acquisition
produce healthy and productive soils and are
also important for supporting key processes
in other regulation functions (gas, climate and
water regulation functions)
a
Soil formation and nutrient cycling functions are categorized in regulation functions by de Groot
et al. (2002) whilst MEA (2005) categorized soil formation and nutrient cycling as supporting
services
Source Adaptation from De Groot et al. (2002), MEA (2005) and Roseliza (2010)
mangrove functions and services. Finally, part four contained questions relating to
socio-demographic backgrounds of the respondents. This was to account the
characteristics of the respondents who were the stakeholders of the study area.
Sampling
Three study areas were selected, Besut, Kuala Terengganu and Kuala Nerus.
Besut is the nearest district to Setiu Wetlands which is located in Setiu. However,
most of the population is not a user. Kuala Terengganu is the smallest district in
Terengganu but highest in population, located 75 km from Setiu Wetlands. Another
area is Kuala Nerus district which is the newest district after being separated from
Kuala Terengganu in 2014. It also has high population due to two public univer-
sities there. The distance is only 60 km from Setiu Wetlands. Almost all respon-
dents from three regions had seen and heard about mangroves, but only a few who
have visited the mangrove forests in Setiu Wetlands. All of them are defined as a
non-user population. A total of 329 sets of questionnaires were obtained from
respondents for contributing data to this study. The data obtained were analyzed
using IBM SPSS Statistics software version 22 with a descriptive statistic to dis-
cover the respondent attitude towards Setiu Wetlands.
Socio-demographic and Economic Profile

The characteristics of the sample non-user respondent are given in Table 2. From
the total of 550 questionnaires distributed, 528 were valid. 329 respondents were
non-users and the rest were the users of Setiu Wetlands. Respondents from Besut
were 118 (35.87%), Kuala Terengganu approximately 125 people (59.24%) and
Kuala Nerus was 86 people (40.76%). From the total of 329, male respondents
formed 44% and female formed 56%. The average age is 37, while income was
RM3597.00 monthly. Respondents with income in range of RM4000 monthly and
below are the highest with 66%. Respondents’ marital status showed that 64% of
the respondents are married while 34% are single and 2.1% are divorced. Most of
the respondents work in the public sector (45%). The rest are those who work in the
private sector (22.5%) and do their own business (11%). Fewer respondents in three
regions are farmers and fishermen or fish farmers (5.4%). The majority of the
respondents (59%) hold a diploma and above from universities and colleges.
Demographic factors such as employment, education and household incomes are
expected to affect the tendency of respondents’ attitudes.
Respondents Attitude on Setiu Wetlands Mangroves
Table 3 shows the attitude from the three areas of mangrove forest in SW. The
questions need the respondents to establish their thoughts through all the questions
asked in the survey in the form of respondent’s opinion, knowledge and assessment.
A structured survey was conducted on 329 respondents in three selected regions,
which is more than 50 km away from the study location. Most of them (60%) do
not know the health status of the mangroves forest in Setiu Wetlands. Most of the
Table 2 Demographics and Variable Respondent

economic profile of
respondents (N = 329) Gender Male 44.4
Female 55.6
Age Average 36.95
Marital status Single 34.0
Married 63.8
Divorced/widow 2.10
Occupation Government services 45.0
Private sector 22.5
Business 11.2
Farmer 3.6
Fishermen/fish farmers 1.8
Others 12.8
Education Primary school 5.1
Completed form 3 4.9
Completed form 5/6 31.0
Diploma 23.4
Degree and above 35.6
Household income 2000 41.6
2001–4000 24.3
4001–6000 16.1
6001–8000 8.5
8001–10,000 6.7
10,001 2.7
Mean RM3697.00
Source Survey, 2016
respondents had never visited the area so they did not know the existence of Setiu
Wetlands. They also did not know the importance of Setiu Wetlands to the envi-
ronment, wildlife and human life that depend on it. However, respondents who live
near the study area, mainly in Besut, will go there to look for fresh fish that are sold
there. Some of them (16%) admitted that Setiu Wetlands now have experienced a
reduction or deterioration in the condition of the natural environment. This is
demonstrated by the destruction of mangroves and nipa, which aimed to develop
fish rearing ponds. But, other respondents (15%) said that the conditions of Setiu
Wetlands are improving.
Survey showed that 60% respondents in all three regions admitted that the
mangrove forest in SW is one of the most important ecosystems for wildlife
habitats, marine life, the source of charcoal and poles as well as supporting the lives
of the fishermen in that area. Almost 100% of respondents believe that the con-
servation of mangroves SW is a good idea even though most of them had never
visited the area.
Table 3 Respondent attitude Response Respondent (%)

on Setiu Wetlands mangroves (N = 329)
Status of SW mangrove forests
Reduction or deterioration 16.4
Improve 14.6
Unchanged 8.8
Do not know 60.2
SW mangrove forest ecosystem is important for wildlife
habitat, marine life and the lives of fishermen
Yes 68.7
No 31.3
Conservation of mangrove forest in SW is a good idea
Yes 96.7
No 3.3
Your tendency if development projects to be implemented in
SW
Support conservation 40.7
Support the development 4.0
Support conservation and development 55.3
Threats on SW
Yes 71.4
No 28.6
The degree of importance of mangrove forest ecosystems
Very important 57.4
Quite important 25.3
Important 15.8
Less important 0.6
Not important 0.9
The respondents also gave positive response to the question ‘if they heard about
the projects proposed in Setiu Wetlands where there is a conflict between devel-
opment and the environment’. Respondents are more likely to make two choices.
55% respondents support if the government wants to conserve and develop the
forest simultaneously and 41% respondents support if the government only wants to
conserve. Although the development is to be carried out, people still want a greener
environment. And to stakeholders who want to conserve Setiu Wetlands, they want
to see Setiu Wetlands exist as naturally preserved.
Over 70% of respondents agreed that Setiu Wetlands is now facing multiple
threats. The threats come from either the hands of human or natural threats such as
the presence of large waves or high tides which can cause natural erosion and
changes in Setiu Wetlands structure. The presence of large waves will erode the
sandbar that stretches between the sea and the lagoon. This situation will lead to the
salty seawater flowing into brackish lagoon environment. This phenomena changes
the lagoon water salinity levels and led to the death of marine life. The threat of
human hands also comes from development or construction of fish ponds that
destroyed most of the mangrove forests.
Almost 100% of non-user respondents in three regions noted that mangrove
ecosystems are important to humans and the environment. Over 57% of respon-
dents admitted that it is very important, 25% says quite important and 16%
respondent said that mangrove ecosystems are important. Only 1.5% of respondents
do not agree about their importance to ecosystems.
Respondent Perception on Importance of Setiu Wetlands Mangroves
In this part, respondents are required to give their views on the reasons why
mangroves should be conserved as forest conservation over the functions that have
been listed. Respondents will express their views on these functions by the use of
five Likert scales. In this way, the study will elicit the extent of the importance of
mangrove forests in Setiu Wetlands desired by the public. The results will be
obtained in the form of average importance score for each function and standard
deviation as showed in Table 4.
Table 4 reports the mean value for the regulation, production, habitat and
information function. The result showed that three of the functions are almost
equivalent, which is the mean value of 4.29 for regulation function, 4.12 and 4.22
for the habitat function and information function, respectively with a standard
deviation between 0.681 and 0.750. These results indicate that respondents put
mangroves in Setiu Wetlands as ‘important’ to carry out the functions listed. Mean
for the production function is 3.999, slightly lower than the mean for the other
functions. These values have almost the same implications as well as other
functions.
Attitude and Perception Matrix
Findings from two stakeholders’ behavior analysis can form a matrix of the
relationship between attitude and perception to explain the need for conservation of
mangrove ecosystems in Setiu Wetlands as shown in Fig. 1. This matrix can reflect
the needs and desires of stakeholders on a policy to be applied. Analysis of the
respondents’ attitudes can be concluded that the respondents have a high priority
attitude towards Setiu Wetlands mangrove forest conservation. Similarly, results of
respondents’ perception on the importance of mangrove forests showed that the
Table 4 The mean score respondent on the importance of Setiu Wetlands mangroves
Importance of Setiu Wetlands mangroves Mean Std. deviation
Regulation function 4.288 0.719
Production function 3.999 0.750
Habitat function 4.116 0.714
Information function 4.222 0.681
Note 1 = Not important, 2 = Less important, 3 = Not sure, 4 = Important, 5 = Very important
Fig. 1 Matrix attitude and High

perception on Setiu Wetlands
mangroves conservation
Moderate High
Conservation Conservation
Attitude
Low Moderate
Conservation Conservation
Low High
Perception
importance of mangrove forests do have high function. Putting together two find-
ings from the analysis, when the preferences in attitude towards conservation in
Setiu Wetlands is high, associated with high perception in importance of Setiu
Wetlands mangrove by respondents, and then we can conclude that the respondents
want high conservation of that area. This can be shown by the matrix box below
where the respondents put their preference for Setiu Wetlands mangrove conser-
vation in the dark box that reflects the high conservation of Setiu Wetlands. This
score indicates that most respondents understand the function and importance of
mangroves to life. It also illustrates that a very high-value ecosystem services to
stakeholders.
4 Conclusion
Overall, all of the respondents in three regions have expressed opinions, knowledge
and provide their assessment of the Setiu Wetlands ecosystem. The findings can
produce a stand representing the stakeholder population. Generally, the results
showed a tendency of stakeholders for ecosystem conservation in Setiu Wetlands.
Although progress is desirable, the desire to preserve the natural environment
remains a priority to them. Just depends on how the authorities deal with this
conflict. Respondents are very appreciative of this invaluable ecosystem. The
development programme is not expected to interfere with the functions and services
provided by ecosystems Setiu Wetlands.
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21(2):81–87
Ajzen I (1991) The theory of planned behavior. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 50(2):179–211
de Groot RS, Wilson MA, Boumans RMJ (2002) A typology for the classification, description and
valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services. Ecol Econ 41(3):393–408
ECER (2013) Kajian pelan pembangunan bersepadu pesisir pantai Kampung Penarik & taman
negeri Setiu Wetlands. In: Bengkel Pewartaan Tanak Bencah Setiu Sebagai Taman Negeri,
Kuala Terengganu
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psychological perspective. J Environ Econ Manage 17(3):213–229
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Institute, Washington, DC
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Wetlands, Terengganu. University of York, Malaysia
Author Index
A Aziz, Noorhafizah Abdul, 269

Abd Aziz, Nurul Aien, 281 Azman, Megat Fadzil Megat Khairi, 391
Abd Rashid, Norazimah, 81 Azmi, Fauzi, 443
Abdullah, Aliyah, 507
Abdullah, Azizah, 269 B
Abdullah Effendi, Azura, 361 Baharuddin, Nor Fariza, 39
Abdullah, Johari, 101 Bakar, Afi Roshezry Abu, 81
Abdullah, Mohammad Nasir, 175 Bakar, Amina Syarfina Abu, 27
Abdullah, Nur Hidayah Masni, 135 Bakar, Sulaila, 415
Abdul Rahim, Intan Noorazlina, 555
Abdul Rahim, Muhammad Almu’izz, 291 D
Abdurahman, Abg Zainoren Abg, 101 Draman, Nik Zunaidi, 577
Abu Hashim, Anis Hasliza, 163 de Mello, Geraldine, 431
Ahmad Mustafa, Mimi Sofiah, 507
Ahmad, Rohayu, 255 E
Ahmad, Salimah, 135 Ebrahim, Zarina Begum, 381, 391
Ahmad, Wan Azmi Wan, 565 Erlen Joni, Ekmil Krisnawati, 507
Ahmad, Zuraidah, 291
Aisyah, Aznur, 455 F
A. Latif, Ruziah, 291 Faisalmein, Syafiqah Nasuha, 531
Ali, Roslina, 223
Ali, Zuraina, 237 G
Alias, Aidah, 39, 47 Ghani, Puzziawati Ab, 339
Alias, Asmidar, 125, 163
Alipiah, Roseliza Mat, 587 H
Aman, Idris, 455 Hamzah, Norahimah Hj, 187
Aminullah, Rosita, 415 Harun, Azahar, 27
Anas, Norazmi, 555 Harun, Nik Ismail, 415
Anuardin, Aini Andria Shirin, 431 Hasan, Asmawati Che, 577
Ariffin, Kamisah, 125, 163, 431 Hashim, Hasnizawati, 115
Ariffin, Siti Norakmal Md, 203 Hassan, Mohammad Yusof, 565
Awang Kader, Mohd Aidil Riduan, 223 Hassan, Ramraini Ali, 101
Azahari, Mustaffa Halabi, 47 Hassan, Siti Asishah, 517
Azemi, Siti Noorul Ain Nor, 339 Hilmi, Zulkifli Ab Ghani, 339
Aziz, Muhd Eizan Shafiq Abd, 349 Hitam, Jarinah, 281

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0203-9
598 Author Index
Hu, Chuan, 91 Mohamed, Nafsiah, 269

Huang, Jiao, 91 Mohamed Noh, Abd. Munir, 555
Husin, Misyana Susanti, 431 Mohamed, Suhana, 281, 291
Hussin, Adibah, 115 Mohamed Yousop, Nur Liyana, 291
Hussin, Rohayati, 477, 489 Mohammed Rosli, Nor Ez-Zatul Hanani, 81
Mohd Burhan, Norhapizah, 565
I Mohd. Ghazali, Zulkifli, 555
Ibrahim, Anura, 331 Mohd Hasan Abdullah, Norhasniza, 291
Ibrahim, Wan Noorwatie W., 587 Mohd Noor, Mohd. Syukri, 555
Idris, Aminatul Solehah, 135 Mohd Noor, Nur Asmaliza, 125, 163
Ismail, Abdul Ghafar, 15 Mohd Rosli, Hartini, 555
Ismail, Herda Balqis, 577 Mohd, Thuraiya, 175
Ismail, Ida Rosnita, 57, 495 Mohd Zaki, Suhanom, 223
Ismail, Iza Nurhidayah, 213 Mokhtar, Noorzalyla, 381, 391
Ismail, Marina, 203 Muhamed, Mohd Faizal Azrul Azwan, 223
Ismail, Nur’Ain, 175 Muhammad, Nurul Nadia, 237
Musahar, Roselina, 443
J Musahar, Saiful Johari, 443
Jaafar, Abu Bakar, 15 Mustafa, Lily Mazlifa, 3
Jabar, Faizan Abd, 247 Mustafa, Mimi Sofiah Ahmad, 467
Jamal, Mohammad Hazizi, 577 Mustakim, Nurul Ain, 381, 391
Jamaluddin, Sabariah, 3 Mustapa, Muhammad Khawari, 381
Jelani, Ahmad Nazri, 213 Mustapha, Musramaini, 247
John, Audrey Anak, 81
Joni, Ekmil Krisnawati Erlen, 467 N
Jusoh, Mohd Kamal Azman, 565 Najid, Nurul Afzan, 269
Nasrudin, Nur Hasni, 175
K Nassir, Asyura Abd, 135, 155
Kadir, Nor Aziah Abd, 115 Nayan, Liana Mat, 81
Kamaruddin, Norfadilah, 47 Nikman, Khairunisa, 213
Kamil, Nik Fuad Nik Mohd, 587 Noor, Mohd Yusri Mohamad, 541
Khairani, Ahmad Zamri, 145 Nor Rashidah, Mohammed, 255
Khan, Mohd Noor Azli Ali, 403
Khor, Hooi Ching, 361 O
Koe, Wei-Loon, 69 Omar, Nur Hidayatulshima, 431
Kolandaisamy, Raenu, 303 Osman, Suhaila, 255
Kumar, Sameer, 91 Othman, Nor A’aini, 175
Othman, Yuhanza, 467, 507
M
Madon, Dona Lowii, 39 P
Mahat, Ida Rahayu, 467, 507 Phong, Soo Yew, 421
Marmaya, Najihah Hanisah, 467
Martin, Juliana, 577 R
Mat Min, Ruhani, 331 Rahman, Hayati Abd, 187
Mat, Mustafa Kamal, 223 Rahman, Muhammad Zahran Abd, 247
Mat Yatim, Nurul Huda, 255 Ramdhan, Nur ’Asyiqin, 291
Mazlan, Nurul Farhana, 281 Rashid, Rusnadewi Abdul, 477, 489, 517
Meng, Bok Check, 421 Rashid, Saharani Abdul, 339
Mimiko, Nezu, 455 Raus, Mohd. Ikhsan Md., 349
Mohamad, Liza Marziana, 541 Razak, Fadli Abdul, 47
Mohamad Bhkari, Norshariza, 125 Razak, Mohamed Razeef Abd, 27
Mohamad, Zakaria, 331 Razak, Mohd Rizal, 339
Mohamed Ariff, Mohamed Imran, 555 Razali, Azlini, 415
Mohamed, Asjad, 565 Romli, Nurulashikin, 291
Author Index 599
Roslan, Shashazrina, 291 Talip, Adrina Rosseira Abu, 577

Rozaini, Nurul Afiqah, 403 Tarmuji, Nor Habibah, 135, 155
S W
Sahidol, Jun Nirlawati Mohd, 415 Wahab, Samsudin, 531
Salehuddin, Khazriyati, 455 Wahid, Sharifah Norhuda Syed, 247, 339
Salleh, Salmiah, 507
Sauid, Muna Kameelah, 381, 391, 255 Y
Sayuti, Nazura Mohamad, 101 Yacob, Noor Hasimah M., 3
Shaari, Nazrul Azha Mohamed, 187 Yaakub, Noor Inayah, 477
Shah, Muhamad Fairos bin Mohamad, 531 Yasin, Ruhizan Mohammad, 455
Sham, Amiruldin Md, 565 Yunus, Nor Khairunnisa Mat, 57
Shamsuddin, Hasni, 145 Yusob, Khairul Firhan, 155, 213
Shariff, S. Sarifah Radiah, 317 Yusop, Yuzainizam, 3
Sharif, Tengku Intan Suzila Tengku, 541 Yusof, Norhidayah Md, 213
Sipon, Zuraidah, 291
Soon, Goh Ying, 421 Z
Subaramaniam, Kasthuri, 303 Zahari, Farihan, 39, 47
Sulaiman, Shaharin, 39 Zakaria, Muhammad Zaidi, 443
Sultana, A. M., 371 Zaki, Suhanom Mohd, 247
Supian, Suzaini Harmiruslin, 349 Zakuan, Zeti Zuryani Mohd, 495
Zolkefley, Mohd Khairul Ikhwan Bin, 349
T Zulkipli, Shahril Nizam, 555
Tajuddin, Norulhuda, 57 Zulrofli, Fandi, 317
Talib, Husna, 443

Polysemy in Quraan

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Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor

Badli Esham Ahmad

Proceedings of the Regional

Badli Esham Ahmad Mohd Amli Abdullah Baharum

Mohd Rozaidi Ismail

ISBN 978-981-13-0202-2 ISBN 978-981-13-0203-9 (eBook)

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

Printed on acid-free paper

Pahang, Malaysia Mohd Yusri Mohamad Noor

Part II Art & Design

Part III Business

7 Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation and Perceived

16 Facilitating Learning via AMIT (Aplikasi Mudah Istilah

Part VII Finance/Banking/e-Commerce

Part VIII General Papers

Part IX Human Resource

34 Cultural Adjustment and Work Productivity Among Migrant

Part XI Information Management

Part XII Language/Linguistic

42 Eliciting Elements of Higher Order Thinking Skills in the Higher

Part XIII Law

Part XIV Marketing

Part XV Natural Heritage

Part XVI Religious Studies

Part XVII Sustainable Development

Sabariah Jamaluddin, Noor Hasimah M. Yacob, Lily Mazlifa Mustafa

S. Jamaluddin (&) N. H. M. Yacob L. M. Mustafa Y. Yusop

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 3

Keywords Annual report Graphical information GLCs Voluntary disclosure

Prior researches documented numerous beneﬁts of using graphical information

monitoring system to encourage management to provide greater disclosures so as to

This study focuses on the voluntary disclosure in annual reports of GLCs in

Table 1 List of items analysed

4 Results and Discussion

4.1 The Disclosure of Graphical Information in the Years

In general, the disclosure of graphical information in the annual report shows an

4.2 The Disclosure of Information According to the Types

Table 2 General overview of graphical information of GLC

Table 3 Types of graphs Types of 2013 2014 2015

4.3 Analysis According to the Items

Table 4 Mean for each item in the disclosure index

the existing compulsory numerical and narrative disclosure is sufﬁcient.

4.4 Discussion on Key Financial Variable (KFV)

Table 5 Key ﬁnancial variable (KFV) and types of graphs used

distortion, quality of graph disclosure and presentational formats in order to get

Alhazaimeh A, Palaniappan R, Almsaﬁr M (2014) The impact of corporate governance and

Abu Bakar Jaafar and Abdul Ghafar Ismail

Abstract The debate on Ricardian Equivalence has been discussed by many

Taxation occupies a prominent position in David Ricardo’s writings. According to

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 15

2.1 How Far the Study on Ricardian Equivalence

2.2 What is Ricardian Equivalence Theorem?

Ricardian Equivalence, sometimes called Barro-Ricardo Equivalence, is a

3.1 Is Ricardian Equivalence Theorem always true?

Several studies on Ricardian Equivalence Theorem give us the different answer

The understanding of the impact of tax on consumption could complement the

Amina Syarﬁna Abu Bakar, Azahar Harun

Keywords Branding design Corporate rebranding Restructuring

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 27

Branding is a primary vehicle for communicating complex ideas in a clear, easily

2 Background of the Study

Rayani Air is the ﬁrst Malaysia’s Syariah-compliant airline that is based in

compensation or assistance to affected passengers. The consumer complaints were