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Volume 3 Number 5 May 2017

Teachers? Perception of Online Professional Development: A Case of Chinese High School Teachers in Ningxia


Authors: Ling-di Kong ; Mohd Kasri B. Saidon ; Khaliza binti Saidin
Pages: 48-51
Abstract
The importance of utilizing the Internet to alleviate a range of training problems has been proved and accepted by teachers and educators. However, Chinese researchers found that less than 50% teachers eager to participate in online courses for their professional development. Therefore, research objective of this study was to identify Chinese high school teachers’ perception toward usefulness and ease of use of online professional development (OPD). The participants consist of 120 teachers from 3 high schools in Ningxia. The instrument for data collection was 12-item questionnaire. The researchers adopted the Cronbach Alpha method to determine the reliability of the instrument. A reliability index of 0.84 was obtained. Two research questions were structured and data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Findings revealed that there was significant positive effect on the usefulness and ease of use of OPD among Chinese high school teachers. It was also recommended that to stimulate Chinese high school teachers’ positive attitude toward OPD, the quality of OPD courses should be emphasized more by online educators.

Iran and Energy Security in the Persian Gulf Region


Authors: Yusuf Ibrahim Gamawa
Pages: 41-47
Abstract
The Persian Gulf region has been a region of contention and interest not only between the Gulf states, but to outside extra regional powers, owing mainly to its strategic location and its linkage with the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Mediterranean sea, as well as its enormous gas and oil resources which has made the region highly important in global political affairs. Energy is at the heart of the global political economy, and is of importance to global security. These have combined to make the politics of energy within the region highly complicated, and has left the region volatile for quite some time. This paper examines the security of energy within the region, focusing on the struggle for control and influence within the region among the Gulf states and extra regional powers, including the United states, Russia, India, China, the EU states and Turkey who are seen as big players , as a result of which the region has become unstable. The paper argues that no security arrangement would succeed in the region without the cooperation and involvement of Iran.