Papers by GOPALA KRISHNAN
English Language Teaching, 2009
Asian Social Science, 2012
Reading has always been an important skill for university students in order for them to gain acce... more Reading has always been an important skill for university students in order for them to gain access to knowledge in the academic books. Despite this, many students who view reading in English as important do not actually engage themselves in English reading activities outside class hours. Reading for pleasure allows learners to acquire certain language skills. Therefore, an experimental study using reading for pleasure was conducted. The experimental group was exposed to reading for pleasure for 5 weeks, while the other group was not. However, the control group showed better improvement of comprehension skills in the post test. Whereas, the pre-test scores results were nearly the same. The reasons for this are explained in the discussion that follows. From questionnaires distributed, a substantial number of subjects (79%) said that reading for pleasure would help them to understand the text better and they would pursue reading for pleasure. It is hoped that this small-scale study would highlight the effect of reading for pleasure in improving the students' reading comprehension skills. Future researchers should cover an experimental study which is of longer duration. A period of six months is suggested.
Asian Social Science, 2012
This study investigated the computer literacy and Internet usage levels in a semi-urban school in... more This study investigated the computer literacy and Internet usage levels in a semi-urban school in the East Coast of Terengganu. The study also investigates whether if there existed a significant relationship between computer literacy level and Internet usage skills. Further, the researcher also found out whether SES level and gender have a bearing on the computer literacy level of the sample. The instrument distributed to the students was found to have a strong reliability. Both the computer literacy and Internet usage levels of the sample were found to be satisfactorily high as indicated by the respective means. Correlation analysis was done to find out if there existed a significant relationship between computer literacy and Internet usage skills. It was found that a significant positive relationship exists between computer literacy and Internet usage (r = 0.003, p<0.05). Lastly the researcher used the comparison of means and t-testing to find out if income group or gender has a bearing on computer literacy of the sample. No significant difference in the literacy level was found between the two genders or between the income groups. This sample comes from a rural area, future researchers should replicate this study using an urban sample.
Asian Social Science, 2014
In tandem with educational best practices the world over, School-based assessments (SBAs) were in... more In tandem with educational best practices the world over, School-based assessments (SBAs) were introduced in Malaysia in 2012 for secondary one students. This study investigated quantitatively and qualitatively matters such as the teachers' knowledge of SBAs and the issues faced when implementing SBAs. Whereas the factors contributing to the problems of SBA implementation was investigated only qualitatively. A sample of 60 English teachers in the district of Dungun, Terengganu, who were involved in SBAs from the beginning was used, out of this, 20 teachers were interviewed to obtain qualitative findings. It was found that teachers had satisfactory knowledge of planning an SBA tailored lesson. They also showed satisfactory knowledge of developing SBAs but appeared to have difficulty in the psychometrics of test analysis. As for issues faced by teachers, they were not indifferent to SBA implementation but team work and collaboration among SBA teachers needs to be improved. Teachers faced problems in SBA implementation but overall had a positive attitude towards SBA. Teachers voiced concerns over the lack of adequate staff numbers, lack of uniformity and a possible element of biasness in grading. Teachers also faced time constraints, lack of effective materials and methodologies and poor ICT facilities in schools. They also feared cheating by students in SBAs. Future researchers should investigate the success of SBA implementation after a few years.
Asian Social Science, 2012
The general populace may not always have a good impression of the police force. It is essential t... more The general populace may not always have a good impression of the police force. It is essential that the public should have a positive perception of the police force so that the force may be able to count on public cooperation in their efforts to combat crime and maintain public order. This paper investigated the factors that influenced the public opinion of the police such as police effectiveness in combating crime, corruption, brutality and personal links between police and the public. It is a qualitative study comprising 30 respondents from Terengganu and 30 from Penang. It was found that most of the educated members were not happy with the police as they felt that the police could be more effective in combating crime. In addition, respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the prevalence of corruption and brutality in the police force. They also felt that the actions taken by the police to curb these ills are inadequate. The police should further reduce crime and seen to be acting sternly against corruption and brutality in order to regain public confidence and win their cooperation in combating crime. Further research should be carried out on a quantitative basis using a much larger sample.
Asian Social Science, 2012
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Papers by GOPALA KRISHNAN