Rana Abuzaid’s research while affiliated with University of Malaya and other places

Interactions between teachers and students occur rapidly in and out of a classroom. A good teacher-student relationship motivates and enhances the teaching and learning process. One of the most significant factors is teacher communication behaviour. This conceptual paper purports to investigate the multidimensional aspect of teacher communication behaviour and its effect on student’s motivation towards science learning. Based on a thorough review of existing literature, The Teacher Communication Behaviour Questionnaire (TCBQ) and Student’s Motivation Towards Learning Science (SMTSL) Questionnaire could be used to explore the factors of teacher’s communication behaviours and its relationship to students’ motivation in learning science among primary school students. From the result results it will be of possible benefit specifically for school administrators and teacher preparation programs. Teachers, however, may also use the teacher communication behaviour to evaluate an indicator of their communication skills Keywords: teacher communication, student motivation, science education, primary school

The teaching of critical and creative thinking skills in Malaysian schools became more prominent after the implementation of the new standard currikulum or Kurikulum Baru Sekolah Rendah (KBSR) in 1982. In line with the Malaysia Educational Philosophy (1988) which stresses on the development of individual student’s potential, the teaching of critical and creative thinking skills is given much emphasis today. Critical and creative thinking are important metacognitive skills. More importantly, these skills are fundamental in the area of education especially among students in the English Language classroom. Apart from the decline in English Language proficiency among Malaysian students over recent years, the emergence of students who are passive learners and lacking problem solving skills have raised tremendous concern. Therefore, it is important that the English Language classroom play an important role in imparting critical and creative thinking skills in English to enable students to become not only proficient in English Language but also efficient users of their cognitive skills.

According to both recent studies and previous ones, there seems to be a consensus by employers and recruiters that college graduates lack certain professional and career skills. There are some key skills that workers should posses to be able to enter the labor market as argued by some employers as well as government agencies. Previous studies have reported that business practitioners perceive college graduates lack creativity, people skills, aptitude for teamwork, and the ability to speak and write clearly. The common conclusion that these conducted studies share comes down to the fact that the skills typically sought by employers are totally different from the skills students believe employers want. Accordingly, that in return reflects the miscommunication between the different stakeholders or at least that the communication with each other is not efficient enough.

This study explored the preference for learning styles of ICT students in university of Malaya. Two separate questionnaires were used in the study in order to list down the students’ learning styles preferences and their technology preferences to explore the technology preferences for different learning style categories. Through a analysis of the data, students preferred integrated technology were highlighted. The study emphasizes the importance of students being actively involved in the teaching-learning process by highlighting their preferred mood of technology involved in teaching. This may enhance teacher's ability to integrate technology with their teaching based on their class majority.