Learning style preference and critical thinking perception among engineering students

Engineering education plays a vital role towards modernization of world. Therefore, engineering students need to be nurture with multiple skills like learning preferences and critical thinking skills. This study has been conducted to identify the learning style preferences and critical thinking perception of the engineering students from three programs electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and civil engineering at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Johor. Survey research design was applied in this study. The quantitative data was collected by two questionnaires Index of Learning Styles (ILS) that is based on Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model (FSLSM) and Critical Thinking Skills (CTS) questionnaire which consists of analysis, evaluation, induction and deduction in terms of problem solving and decision making. A total of 315 final year engineering students were participated in this study. Data was analyzed in descriptive and inferential statistics involving tests Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Pearson Correlation and linear regression. The study discovered that engineering students are preferred to be visual learners (83.80%). Visual learning style denotes FSLSM input dimension and visual learners learn best by diagrams, charts, maps and graphical presentations. This study also found that engineering students possess critical thinking perception in all dimensions. However, there is no statistical significant difference of learning style found among engineering programs as “p” value found 0.357. Whereas, there is statistical significant critical thinking difference found among engineering programs as “p” value found 0.006. Lastly, findings revealed that there is no significant relationship found between learning styles and critical thinking skills. The study findings suggested that providing preferred learning style (visual learning style) in classroom will enhance students’ academic achievement and increase their cognitive level. This study might serve as a guideline for educators to facilitate learners to enhance their learning and thinking for better outcomes in academia as well as in workplace

Emirati-Accented Speaker Identification in each of Neutral and Shouted Talking Environments

This work is devoted to capturing Emirati-accented speech database (Arabic United Arab Emirates database) in each of neutral and shouted talking environments in order to study and enhance text-independent Emirati-accented speaker identification performance in shouted environment based on each of First-Order Circular Suprasegmental Hidden Markov Models (CSPHMM1s), Second-Order Circular Suprasegmental Hidden Markov Models (CSPHMM2s), and Third-Order Circular Suprasegmental Hidden Markov Models (CSPHMM3s) as classifiers. In this research, our database was collected from fifty Emirati native speakers (twenty five per gender) uttering eight common Emirati sentences in each of neutral and shouted talking environments. The extracted features of our collected database are called Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs). Our results show that average Emirati-accented speaker identification performance in neutral environment is 94.0%, 95.2%, and 95.9% based on CSPHMM1s, CSPHMM2s, and CSPHMM3s, respectively. On the other hand, the average performance in shouted environment is 51.3%, 55.5%, and 59.3% based, respectively, on CSPHMM1s, CSPHMM2s, and CSPHMM3s. The achieved average speaker identification performance in shouted environment based on CSPHMM3s is very similar to that obtained in subjective assessment by human listeners.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1707.0068

Menghidupkan semula semangat nusantara melalui pengajian sejarah maritim di Alam Melayu

IKHTISAR: Sejarah telah membuktikan bahawa laut di kepulauan Asia Tenggara telah memainkan peranan yang cukup penting dalam pembinaan peradaban di Alam Melayu ini, seperti yang pernah dibuktikan oleh kerajaan Srivijaya dan Majapahit di Indonesia; Kesultanan Melayu Melaka di Malaysia; Kesultanan Brunei di Negara Brunei Darussalam; dan Kesultanan Sulu di Filipina. Untuk merealisasikan misi dan visi penyatuan nasion di rantau Asia Tenggara atau Alam Melayu ini, maka satu anjakan paradigma dalam polisi pemerintah dan minda rakyat perlu dilakukan terlebih dahulu, melalui proses penyelidikan dan pendidikan, yakni melihat laut sebagai penyatu bukan pemisah. Dalam kerangka yang lebih besar pula, semua nasion di rantau ini perlu memupuk satu semangat dan kesedaran bahawa sejarah dan budaya maritim di kepulauan Alam Melayu adalah milik dan warisan bersama. Ini bertujuan untuk menghidupkan semula perkongsian warisan sejarah, kebudayaan, dan kesenian maritim; menyedarkan rakyat di rantau ini bahawa laut pada hakikatnya mampu mempersatukan nasion; dan memperlihatkan kepada dunia akan intim dan kuatnya hubungan baik antara negara-bangsa di rantau Asia Tenggara atau Alam Melayu ini

The culture of outrigger boat in the Malay Archipelago: a maritime perspective

Many discussions by the Western scholars on the history of traditional boats in the Malay archipelago focus on one specific territory or country. Apparently, there has been no effort in doing a total review on these discussions. Vague facts on the prehistoric history of maritime in the Malay archipelago, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as the blind passion of the countries in Southeast Asia in promoting their great historical “bahari” culture have made it difficult for us to solve the question on the actual origin of boats and outriggers that are still being used and become a proud maritime heritage of some countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Oceania Islands. Therefore, the objective of this article is to review the history of the early origin and culture of boat and outrigger in the Malay archipelago before the 15th century during the reign of traditional governments and before the coming of Western powers such as Portuguese, Dutch, English and Spanish. According to archeological records and traditional maritime of the Malay archipelago, boats and outriggers were first used by sailors and traders in the Malay archipelago sea in order to carry various goods, mainly spices to be traded in other territories in the Malay archipelago as well as Madagascar and west coastal Africa

PENERAPANMODEL PEMBELAJARAN CHILDREN LEARNING IN SCIENCE (CLIS)BERBANTUAN MULTIMEDIA UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KETERAMPILAN PROSES SAINS DAN PENGUASAAN KONSEP SISWAPADA POKOK BAHASAN FLUIDA

Keterlibatan siswa secara aktif dalam proses pembelajaran merupakan hal yang utama,akan tetapi keadaan di lapangan menunjukkan hal yang berbeda. Siswa cenderung pasif dan hanya menerima informasi yang disampaikan sehingga siswa kurang menggali informasi yang diterimanya. Akibatnya,keterampilan proses sains dan penguasaan konsepfisikasiswasangatlah rendah.Untuk itu, diperlukan suatu model pembelajaran yang tepat dan sesuai.Model Pembelajaran Children Learning In Science (CLIS)dapat menjadi salah satu alternatif model pembelajaran yang diterapkan, karena dalam model pembelajaran CLIS, siswa dituntut untuk aktif dan kreatif membangun pengetahuannya. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui peningkatanpenguasaan konsep dan keterampilan proses sains siswa sebelum dan setelah diterapkan model pembelajaranCLISberbantuan multimedia pada pokok bahasan fluida statis. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain penelitian randomized control group Pretest-Potstest designdengan sampel eksperimen kelas XIdisalah satuSMAdiKabupaten Bekasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwapenguasaan konsep dan keterampilan proses sains setelah diterapkan model pembelajaran CLIS meningkatsecara signifikan dilihat dari nilai gainnya. Berdasarkan hasil analisis data menggunakan SPSS statistik 17 diperoleh rata-rata N-gain keterampilan proses sains 0,57 untuk kelas eksperimen dan 0,49 untuk kelas kontrol, penguasaan konsep0,63 untuk kelas eksperimen dan 0,52 untuk kelas kontrol. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa model pembelajaran CLISdapat lebih meningkatkan keterampilan proses sains dan penguasaan konsep siswa di bandingkan dengan pembelajaran konvensional berbantuan multimedia. Kata Kunci: model pembelajaran Children Learning In Science (CLIS), penguasaan konsep, keterampilan proses sains

The effect of masonry infill walls on the reinforced concrete frames behavior under lateral load

The reinforced concrete structures with masonry infill walls are widely used to construct buildings in Algeria, as in many parts of the world. According to earthquake analysis, this type of construction can undergo serious damage under seismic load. The interaction between the infill wall and the surrounding reinforced concrete structure is considered a key parameter, which could trigger damage and even collapse in self-stable frame buildings. To study the behavior of this type of structures and the wall–frame interaction, four half-scale single-storey, single-bay reinforced concrete unfilled and unfilled frames were constructed and tested under in-plane lateral load. Furthermore, the experimental results were analyzed using the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique giving a detailed analysis of displacement and strain fields. The wall–frame interaction was evaluated in terms of displacement field evolution and interface slip in the contact contour. The masonry infill wall demonstrated a significant influence on the in-plane lateral response of this type of structure. The analysis of the results of the experiment are discussed in this paper