mariani nor | University of Malaya, Malaysia (original) (raw)

Papers by mariani nor

Asia-Pacific Journal of Information Technology and Multimedia

Early Mathematics is one of the critical subjects where the concept of learning needs to be intro... more Early Mathematics is one of the critical subjects where the concept of learning needs to be introduced to early-stage students so that there is no perception of this subject. In the 1970s, teaching methods for Mathematical concepts have traditionally been more on memorization. The purpose of this research was to increase students ?understanding of the topic of patterns in Early Mathematics by integrating Augmented Reality applications. The study of the development of this module was conducted using the TUP model (Technology, Usability, Pedagogy) from the Bednarik TUP Model was implemented to evaluate the technology, usability, and pedagogy to evaluate the effectiveness of the modules produced. The study found that students are more interested and show their interest in the class, parents are also involved in student learning, and teachers are able to implement teaching sessions based on discussion better when they are given more opportunities to be actively involved in the classroom...

Massification of Higher Education in Asia, 2018

Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries ... more Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries over the past years. We all know that these have been precipitated by the facilitation of global communications through technological advancements as well as socio-economic, political and environmental developments.

International Journal of Education, 2019

To enhance the will and the skills to express thoughts explicitly and effectively in early writin... more To enhance the will and the skills to express thoughts explicitly and effectively in early writing among preschool children, self-regulated learning (SRL) was suggested for preschool children as one of the effective learning approaches. This quasi-experimental study involved seventy-five preschool children (5-6 years old) from two public preschools in Selangor, Malaysia. This study investigated the effects of SRL strategies on early writing self-efficacy and early writing performance among preschool children. Interview data was engaged and supported the quantitative result to obtain a deep insight of the findings. Two-way Repeated Measure ANCOVA was employed and confirmed the effectiveness of self-regulated learning intervention with an interaction effect between the test and group for early writing self-efficacy being statistically significant (F(1, 72) = 12.665; p = 0.001, 2= 0.150), with Cohen’s d = 0.84; and early writing performance statistically significant (F(1, 72) = 110.8...

Attachment Theory is one of the most frequently used frameworks which revolutionised<br>the... more Attachment Theory is one of the most frequently used frameworks which revolutionised<br>the understanding of human behaviour, from early childhood to adulthood. Attachment<br>Theory's scholarly output was examined using a quantitative bibliometric approach, based<br>on rigorous facts extracted from the WoS databases from 1970 to 2017. Overall, 1,700<br>documents in the category "Psychology" with the topic "Attachment Theory" were analysed<br>to fnd trends of publications, networking coupling, keywords frequencies, top authors, and<br>highly cited papers. A qualitative content analysis of the top 20 documents with the highest<br>average citation per year was done to provide insight on document approaches. The results<br>show that the scientifc productivity in "attachment theory" is highly skewed. The authors<br>recommend publishing attachment theory related articles in an open access journal. Ther...

Trials, 2021

Background Despite the implementation of the preschool oral healthcare programme (POHP) for 5–6-y... more Background Despite the implementation of the preschool oral healthcare programme (POHP) for 5–6-year-old children over the past 3 decades in Malaysia, dental plaque and caries levels in this age group remain high. Among the child-level attributable factors are unhealthy self-care behaviours (poor oral hygiene and high sugary diet). In order to improve the children’s oral health, an improved programme called the ‘Senyuman Indah Milik Semua’ Programme (SIMSP) or ‘Beautiful Smile for All’ programme is introduced. In this programme, a triad of dental hygienist-teacher-parent works together to improve children’s oral hygiene levels compared with the existing POHP that involves dental hygienists only. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of the SIMSP versus the existing POHP on oral hygiene levels of 5–6-year-old children in the Kampar district, Perak state, Malaysia. Methods This study is a pragmatic, cluster-randomised, parallel-group, matched pair, controlled trial with blind...

Advanced Science Letters, 2018

The use of folktales as a medium for basic literacy learning is an effort to preserve culture and... more The use of folktales as a medium for basic literacy learning is an effort to preserve culture and identity of indigenous children. This study aimed to identify the suitability of folktales as the medium of basic literacy learning for Orang Asli children. A basic literacy learning module was developed based on the Homeschooling Model as proposed by Mohd Nazri Abdul Rahman (2014). The Fuzzy Delphi approach was used to identify the suitability of folktales as a medium of teaching and learning basic literacy for indigenous children in Sabah. Twelve (12) academic experts from various fields, namely children’s education, language learning, kindergarten education, Kadazan-Dusun language, and Orang Asli education were involved in the study. The findings indicate that folktales are ideal to be implemented as a basic literacy learning module, especially for LINUS children. Therefore, the researchers propose that the Basic Literacy Learning module, based on the use of the indigenous people fol...

The Malaysian National Oral Health Plan (2011-2020) recommends dentists advise their patients to ... more The Malaysian National Oral Health Plan (2011-2020) recommends dentists advise their patients to stop smoking. Dentists’ attitudes and behaviors can be influenced by variations in clinical practice, whether public or private. We evaluated public and private dentists’ knowledge, attitudes and capabilities for providing smoking cessation counselling in their practices and identify barriers to providing counselling. We conducted a cross sectional study using a selfadministered questionnaire among dentists registered in the Dental Practitioners’ Management Information System. Two hundred eighty-five dentists [158 public (53.6%) and 127 private (43.1%) dentists] completed the questionnaire. Significantly more (p<0.35) public (65.1%) than private (51.2%) dentists believed promoting tobacco abstinence is an important part of their professional duty. Significantly more (p<0.001) public dentists (62.0%) than private (37.8%) dentists believed that smoking cessation counselling is an eff...

Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries ... more Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries over the past years. We all know that these have been precipitated by the facilitation of global communications through technological advancements as well as socio-economic, political and environmental developments.

The paper focuses on the cultural content of online electronic materials developed primarily by C... more The paper focuses on the cultural content of online electronic materials developed primarily by Czech in-service teachers of mathematics for smartboards. The author presents an analysis of these materials with a focus on the cultural settings of word problems they contain. The paper builds on a poster presented on ECEL 2015 conference and a paper presented on ECEL 2016 conference. The question the author asks is how innovative electronic materials are as far as their cultural, non-mathematical content is concerned. Are these materials a mere conversion of problems from traditional hardcopy textbooks or have its authors gone further, introducing new motives, images and realities? Do they use the potential of the online environment that allows easy updates (unlike hardcopy textbooks that are used without any change for years, even decades)? The author builds on her research in the area of non-mathematical content of mathematics textbooks (Moraová, 2013) and of problems posed by teacher trainees (Moraová, 2014). The here presented research combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. The author analyses one hundred and seventeen online activities from the website www.veskole.cz. Word problems are classified according to their cultural content and the most frequent images are described and commented upon. The findings of this study are of interest to in-service mathematics teachers planning to develop an online teaching unit, mathematics educators but also policy makers as not much attention is paid to the cultural contents of mathematics teaching materials.

Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2021

ABSTRACT Child sexual abuse is a cross-cultural issue that can be found in all social institution... more ABSTRACT Child sexual abuse is a cross-cultural issue that can be found in all social institutions. There is increasing awareness of how this issue affects children in Malaysia. Issues pertaining to child sexual abuse can be addressed if children are empowered with preventive skills to avoid becoming victims of sexual crimes. In this paper, I examine how creative drama can be used to develop a child safety-related module with the goal of preventing sexual abuse. The use of the module has been found to help preschool children in mastering skills that may assist in the prevention of sexual abuse.

SAGE Open, 2018

This qualitative inquiry aims at identifying the main issues in Malaysian higher education (HE) s... more This qualitative inquiry aims at identifying the main issues in Malaysian higher education (HE) system and its sectors from the perspectives of Malaysian academic leaders. For this purpose, four open-ended questions were distributed among 2,786 academic leaders in 25 universities. More than 235 completed questionnaires were collected, containing nearly 4,500 records of priorities, values, challenges, and solutions. Through a quantitative content analysis approach, the records were categorized using the software package ATLAS.ti 7. This resulted to the emergence of 112 categories. Using SPSS 23, the top five categories with maximum frequencies of records were focused for further evaluation. The comparison of the issues in Malaysian HE and its sectors revealed that some of issues were common in all the sectors. In addition, the examination of these categories of data did result to the classification of them into five major categories namely Academic Core Activities, Change and Leadership, Management, Relationships, and Work Values.

Sains Malaysiana, 2018

The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the 5A's smoking cessation interve... more The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the 5A's smoking cessation intervention (5A's) to that of brief advice (BA) conducted by dentists. A single-blinded randomized controlled trial was designed to compare the effectiveness of the interventions. Six Dental Public Health specialists were recruited, randomized and trained to participate in this trial. Two hundred and fifty patients were required on both arms. The main outcome measures were biochemically validated self-reported abstinence and behaviour change at 6-months follow-up. The odd of quitters in 5A's intervention was 3.81 (95% CI: 1.87-7.76; p= 0.00) times higher compared to BA. After controlling other factors, the odds ratio for the 5A's was 1.90 (95% CI: 0.652-5.547; p=0.24) higher compared to BA. The 5A's was found to be more effective in initiating positive behaviour change compared to BA. However, after controlling other factors, there was no difference in the effectiveness although the odds ratio was slightly higher in 5A's.

Advanced Science Letters, 2017

A key issue in evaluating the response of structural systems to fire effects is the representatio... more A key issue in evaluating the response of structural systems to fire effects is the representation of material behavior at elevated temperatures. In addition to stress-strain behavior, modeling of fracture is required to capture failure modes such as tear out in connection plates and bolt shear. Fracture can be simulated in explicit finite element analysis using element erosion, in which elements are removed from the analysis when specified failure criteria are satisfied. However, the basis for determining and implementing material failure criteria at elevated temperatures is not well-established in the literature. A finite element material modeling methodology is presented for structural steels and structural bolts at elevated temperatures that incorporates erosion-based modeling of fracture. Temperature-dependent stress-strain relationships for structural steel and structural bolts were combined with a plastic strain-based failure criterion for element erosion to enable modeling of fracture in analysis of structural connections and assemblies. The failure criterion was calibrated against high-temperature experimental data on elongation of tensile coupons at fracture, and its dependence on temperature and mesh size was investigated.

Advanced Science Letters, 2017

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2017

Islamic Education Curriculum has existed since early 1970s and has been adapted into education sy... more Islamic Education Curriculum has existed since early 1970s and has been adapted into education system formally worldwide. In Malaysia, Islamic education curriculum for primary and secondary level was started with the drafting of National Education Philosophy and Islamic Education Philosophy in 1987. So, there is a need to introduce homeschooling for early childhood Islamic education. Early childhood Islamic education is a process of introducing the children of Tamyiz age with the principles of faith and the Islamic way of life. This study aims to examine which homeschooling for early childhood Islamic education design is suitable to be developed as teaching and learning medium. The objective of the study is to gather expert views on the teaching and learning design of the homeschooling early childhood Islamic education. Fuzzy Delphi technique (FDM) was applied to obtain experts' consensus by distributing instruments to fifteen experts chosen from various fields and backgrounds. The instrument consisted of five themes of teaching and learning:

International Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 2012

Asia-Pacific Journal of Information Technology and Multimedia

Early Mathematics is one of the critical subjects where the concept of learning needs to be intro... more Early Mathematics is one of the critical subjects where the concept of learning needs to be introduced to early-stage students so that there is no perception of this subject. In the 1970s, teaching methods for Mathematical concepts have traditionally been more on memorization. The purpose of this research was to increase students ?understanding of the topic of patterns in Early Mathematics by integrating Augmented Reality applications. The study of the development of this module was conducted using the TUP model (Technology, Usability, Pedagogy) from the Bednarik TUP Model was implemented to evaluate the technology, usability, and pedagogy to evaluate the effectiveness of the modules produced. The study found that students are more interested and show their interest in the class, parents are also involved in student learning, and teachers are able to implement teaching sessions based on discussion better when they are given more opportunities to be actively involved in the classroom...

Massification of Higher Education in Asia, 2018

Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries ... more Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries over the past years. We all know that these have been precipitated by the facilitation of global communications through technological advancements as well as socio-economic, political and environmental developments.

International Journal of Education, 2019

To enhance the will and the skills to express thoughts explicitly and effectively in early writin... more To enhance the will and the skills to express thoughts explicitly and effectively in early writing among preschool children, self-regulated learning (SRL) was suggested for preschool children as one of the effective learning approaches. This quasi-experimental study involved seventy-five preschool children (5-6 years old) from two public preschools in Selangor, Malaysia. This study investigated the effects of SRL strategies on early writing self-efficacy and early writing performance among preschool children. Interview data was engaged and supported the quantitative result to obtain a deep insight of the findings. Two-way Repeated Measure ANCOVA was employed and confirmed the effectiveness of self-regulated learning intervention with an interaction effect between the test and group for early writing self-efficacy being statistically significant (F(1, 72) = 12.665; p = 0.001, 2= 0.150), with Cohen’s d = 0.84; and early writing performance statistically significant (F(1, 72) = 110.8...

Attachment Theory is one of the most frequently used frameworks which revolutionised<br>the... more Attachment Theory is one of the most frequently used frameworks which revolutionised<br>the understanding of human behaviour, from early childhood to adulthood. Attachment<br>Theory's scholarly output was examined using a quantitative bibliometric approach, based<br>on rigorous facts extracted from the WoS databases from 1970 to 2017. Overall, 1,700<br>documents in the category "Psychology" with the topic "Attachment Theory" were analysed<br>to fnd trends of publications, networking coupling, keywords frequencies, top authors, and<br>highly cited papers. A qualitative content analysis of the top 20 documents with the highest<br>average citation per year was done to provide insight on document approaches. The results<br>show that the scientifc productivity in "attachment theory" is highly skewed. The authors<br>recommend publishing attachment theory related articles in an open access journal. Ther...

Trials, 2021

Background Despite the implementation of the preschool oral healthcare programme (POHP) for 5–6-y... more Background Despite the implementation of the preschool oral healthcare programme (POHP) for 5–6-year-old children over the past 3 decades in Malaysia, dental plaque and caries levels in this age group remain high. Among the child-level attributable factors are unhealthy self-care behaviours (poor oral hygiene and high sugary diet). In order to improve the children’s oral health, an improved programme called the ‘Senyuman Indah Milik Semua’ Programme (SIMSP) or ‘Beautiful Smile for All’ programme is introduced. In this programme, a triad of dental hygienist-teacher-parent works together to improve children’s oral hygiene levels compared with the existing POHP that involves dental hygienists only. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of the SIMSP versus the existing POHP on oral hygiene levels of 5–6-year-old children in the Kampar district, Perak state, Malaysia. Methods This study is a pragmatic, cluster-randomised, parallel-group, matched pair, controlled trial with blind...

Advanced Science Letters, 2018

The use of folktales as a medium for basic literacy learning is an effort to preserve culture and... more The use of folktales as a medium for basic literacy learning is an effort to preserve culture and identity of indigenous children. This study aimed to identify the suitability of folktales as the medium of basic literacy learning for Orang Asli children. A basic literacy learning module was developed based on the Homeschooling Model as proposed by Mohd Nazri Abdul Rahman (2014). The Fuzzy Delphi approach was used to identify the suitability of folktales as a medium of teaching and learning basic literacy for indigenous children in Sabah. Twelve (12) academic experts from various fields, namely children’s education, language learning, kindergarten education, Kadazan-Dusun language, and Orang Asli education were involved in the study. The findings indicate that folktales are ideal to be implemented as a basic literacy learning module, especially for LINUS children. Therefore, the researchers propose that the Basic Literacy Learning module, based on the use of the indigenous people fol...

The Malaysian National Oral Health Plan (2011-2020) recommends dentists advise their patients to ... more The Malaysian National Oral Health Plan (2011-2020) recommends dentists advise their patients to stop smoking. Dentists’ attitudes and behaviors can be influenced by variations in clinical practice, whether public or private. We evaluated public and private dentists’ knowledge, attitudes and capabilities for providing smoking cessation counselling in their practices and identify barriers to providing counselling. We conducted a cross sectional study using a selfadministered questionnaire among dentists registered in the Dental Practitioners’ Management Information System. Two hundred eighty-five dentists [158 public (53.6%) and 127 private (43.1%) dentists] completed the questionnaire. Significantly more (p<0.35) public (65.1%) than private (51.2%) dentists believed promoting tobacco abstinence is an important part of their professional duty. Significantly more (p<0.001) public dentists (62.0%) than private (37.8%) dentists believed that smoking cessation counselling is an eff...

Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries ... more Globalization and internationalization are and have been permeating through developing countries over the past years. We all know that these have been precipitated by the facilitation of global communications through technological advancements as well as socio-economic, political and environmental developments.

The paper focuses on the cultural content of online electronic materials developed primarily by C... more The paper focuses on the cultural content of online electronic materials developed primarily by Czech in-service teachers of mathematics for smartboards. The author presents an analysis of these materials with a focus on the cultural settings of word problems they contain. The paper builds on a poster presented on ECEL 2015 conference and a paper presented on ECEL 2016 conference. The question the author asks is how innovative electronic materials are as far as their cultural, non-mathematical content is concerned. Are these materials a mere conversion of problems from traditional hardcopy textbooks or have its authors gone further, introducing new motives, images and realities? Do they use the potential of the online environment that allows easy updates (unlike hardcopy textbooks that are used without any change for years, even decades)? The author builds on her research in the area of non-mathematical content of mathematics textbooks (Moraová, 2013) and of problems posed by teacher trainees (Moraová, 2014). The here presented research combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. The author analyses one hundred and seventeen online activities from the website www.veskole.cz. Word problems are classified according to their cultural content and the most frequent images are described and commented upon. The findings of this study are of interest to in-service mathematics teachers planning to develop an online teaching unit, mathematics educators but also policy makers as not much attention is paid to the cultural contents of mathematics teaching materials.

Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2021

ABSTRACT Child sexual abuse is a cross-cultural issue that can be found in all social institution... more ABSTRACT Child sexual abuse is a cross-cultural issue that can be found in all social institutions. There is increasing awareness of how this issue affects children in Malaysia. Issues pertaining to child sexual abuse can be addressed if children are empowered with preventive skills to avoid becoming victims of sexual crimes. In this paper, I examine how creative drama can be used to develop a child safety-related module with the goal of preventing sexual abuse. The use of the module has been found to help preschool children in mastering skills that may assist in the prevention of sexual abuse.

SAGE Open, 2018

This qualitative inquiry aims at identifying the main issues in Malaysian higher education (HE) s... more This qualitative inquiry aims at identifying the main issues in Malaysian higher education (HE) system and its sectors from the perspectives of Malaysian academic leaders. For this purpose, four open-ended questions were distributed among 2,786 academic leaders in 25 universities. More than 235 completed questionnaires were collected, containing nearly 4,500 records of priorities, values, challenges, and solutions. Through a quantitative content analysis approach, the records were categorized using the software package ATLAS.ti 7. This resulted to the emergence of 112 categories. Using SPSS 23, the top five categories with maximum frequencies of records were focused for further evaluation. The comparison of the issues in Malaysian HE and its sectors revealed that some of issues were common in all the sectors. In addition, the examination of these categories of data did result to the classification of them into five major categories namely Academic Core Activities, Change and Leadership, Management, Relationships, and Work Values.

Sains Malaysiana, 2018

The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the 5A's smoking cessation interve... more The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the 5A's smoking cessation intervention (5A's) to that of brief advice (BA) conducted by dentists. A single-blinded randomized controlled trial was designed to compare the effectiveness of the interventions. Six Dental Public Health specialists were recruited, randomized and trained to participate in this trial. Two hundred and fifty patients were required on both arms. The main outcome measures were biochemically validated self-reported abstinence and behaviour change at 6-months follow-up. The odd of quitters in 5A's intervention was 3.81 (95% CI: 1.87-7.76; p= 0.00) times higher compared to BA. After controlling other factors, the odds ratio for the 5A's was 1.90 (95% CI: 0.652-5.547; p=0.24) higher compared to BA. The 5A's was found to be more effective in initiating positive behaviour change compared to BA. However, after controlling other factors, there was no difference in the effectiveness although the odds ratio was slightly higher in 5A's.

Advanced Science Letters, 2017

A key issue in evaluating the response of structural systems to fire effects is the representatio... more A key issue in evaluating the response of structural systems to fire effects is the representation of material behavior at elevated temperatures. In addition to stress-strain behavior, modeling of fracture is required to capture failure modes such as tear out in connection plates and bolt shear. Fracture can be simulated in explicit finite element analysis using element erosion, in which elements are removed from the analysis when specified failure criteria are satisfied. However, the basis for determining and implementing material failure criteria at elevated temperatures is not well-established in the literature. A finite element material modeling methodology is presented for structural steels and structural bolts at elevated temperatures that incorporates erosion-based modeling of fracture. Temperature-dependent stress-strain relationships for structural steel and structural bolts were combined with a plastic strain-based failure criterion for element erosion to enable modeling of fracture in analysis of structural connections and assemblies. The failure criterion was calibrated against high-temperature experimental data on elongation of tensile coupons at fracture, and its dependence on temperature and mesh size was investigated.

Advanced Science Letters, 2017

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2017

Islamic Education Curriculum has existed since early 1970s and has been adapted into education sy... more Islamic Education Curriculum has existed since early 1970s and has been adapted into education system formally worldwide. In Malaysia, Islamic education curriculum for primary and secondary level was started with the drafting of National Education Philosophy and Islamic Education Philosophy in 1987. So, there is a need to introduce homeschooling for early childhood Islamic education. Early childhood Islamic education is a process of introducing the children of Tamyiz age with the principles of faith and the Islamic way of life. This study aims to examine which homeschooling for early childhood Islamic education design is suitable to be developed as teaching and learning medium. The objective of the study is to gather expert views on the teaching and learning design of the homeschooling early childhood Islamic education. Fuzzy Delphi technique (FDM) was applied to obtain experts' consensus by distributing instruments to fifteen experts chosen from various fields and backgrounds. The instrument consisted of five themes of teaching and learning:

International Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 2012