Florentina Halimi, Iqbal AlShammari and Cristina Navarro
This study examines the role of emotional intelligence on academic achievement among students at a private university in Kuwait.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the role of emotional intelligence on academic achievement among students at a private university in Kuwait.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were obtained through a questionnaire which elicits information on students' sociodemographic data and their overall college grade point average (GPA). The 16-item Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS, Wong and Law, 2002), was used to evaluate the level of emotional intelligence and explore the effect on academic performance in a sample of 480 Kuwaiti college students.
Findings
The results of the study indicate that academic success was strongly associated with self-emotion appraisal (SEA) and use of emotions (UOE). However, the results did not show direct correlations with age, high schooling system, gender and nationality. Additionally, results provide supporting evidence that the WLEIS scale has good psychometric properties and can be used as a reliable tool to assess the emotional intelligence skills among college students in Kuwait.
Research limitations/implications
The study has several limitations that require consideration when interpreting the findings. First, this research used a quantitative methodology, which can provide limited information about emotional intelligence, and further qualitative research is necessary to identify contributors and inhibitors of this construct. Second, as in any study using self-report measures, the results may have been influenced by participants' acquiescence and need for social desirability. Further studies should aim to include ways in which EI can be incorporated into academic curricula and qualification framework and barriers that may pertain to encourage emotional intelligence skills development in higher education and suggest solutions accordingly. In future studies it would be interesting to see educators' self-perception vs of students to include a multi-rated for the emotional intelligence. To this end, these areas of study could provide a more comprehensive understanding in the sense of integrating emotional intelligence theories and methods from multiple disciplines that constitute social, personality and psychological trait within higher education. This research has only considered samples from a private university in Kuwait. Extension of sampling scope to other universities around the country and in the Middle East may bring a better understanding of students' emotional intelligence level. In terms of EI components, the results of this study indicated that students score highest in self-emotional appraisal (SEA) and the use of emotions (UOA) and lowest on regulation of emotions (ROE). Additional studies can be conducted to see whether the same results apply on Arab students in the Middle East as a whole. The present study has provided more evidence of the need for cross-cultural comparison of an imported construct and its measurement by showing that the emotional intelligence construct, defined by the WLEIS (Wong and Law, 2002), may be understood differently in other cultures.
Practical implications
There are two key implications in this study, one concerning gender and the other relating to students' GPA. The results suggested differences between the way female and male students viewed EI skills in relation to their academic achievement. Considering that the instrument used to measure EI was the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS), a self-report measure, perhaps a degree of bias was introduced. Male students' EI scores as a whole (M = 5.56) were higher than the EI mean score for female students (M = 5.39). As Novinger (2001) proposed, emotional expressiveness in the Arab world is such that women are trained to be less demonstrative of their emotions than men.
Social implications
In addition, gender and cultural values may influence communication styles among Arab students during the teaching process. An awareness of gender and cultural difference related to EI could be beneficial to all parties (students, educators and administrators) in higher educational institutions. Educators' sensitivity to students' EI skills associated with culture can be manifested in a wide variety of teaching practices, ranging from educators' expectations toward students to their interpersonal interactions with students and from teaching styles to assessment methods. For example, an understanding of the possible impact of gender on EI skills may raise educators' levels of cultural sensitivity in dealing with students in the Middle East, particularly, in Kuwait. Even though this study did not show a significant relationship between the overall EI level and students’ GPA, an effect on EI components SEA and UOA was found. University administrators and educators wishing to increase students' academic achievement would do well to incorporate the use and recognition of emotions into their curricula. For instance, emotions can be used to channel the anxiety created by exams to motivate students to prepare more thoroughly and attain more higher standards.
Originality/value
Emotional intelligence skills are important predictors of academic success, and they play a key role in students' performance, and greater the emotional intelligence, the academic achievement will be higher. The results of this study support the research studies suggesting that students' emotional intelligence (EI) should be considered by curriculum designers to enable educators assist their students reach successful academic performance.
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Munirah Alajmi and Iqbal AlShammari
This study investigated public school principals’ perceptions of the policies and practices involved in their evaluation. The processes, impacts and challenges of the principals’…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated public school principals’ perceptions of the policies and practices involved in their evaluation. The processes, impacts and challenges of the principals’ evaluation practices were identified within the Kuwaiti context.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for this qualitative study were drawn from semi-structured interviews with 32 Kuwaiti government high school principals.
Findings
These findings point to inefficient evaluation policies and practices that do not determine the level of effectiveness of school principals. In addition, the results identify limited awareness of the system of principals’ evaluations among school districts.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to the perceptions of government school principals in Kuwait, and the results are based on semi-structured interviews with school principals.
Practical implications
This study presents implications for policymakers and school principals to improve principals’ evaluation processes and impacts, especially in educationally centralized systems.
Originality/value
The novelty and significance of the present study reside in the scarcity of research undertaken on the evaluation of school principals despite the importance of their position. Furthermore, there is a tendency to prioritize the assessment of learners and teachers while disregarding the evaluation and methodologies used to evaluate school principals. Hence, the objective of this study is to address this gap, specifically within a centralized educational framework.
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Fractional Fokker-Planck equation (FFPE) and time fractional coupled Boussinesq-Burger equations (TFCBBEs) play important roles in the fields of solute transport, fluid dynamics…
Abstract
Purpose
Fractional Fokker-Planck equation (FFPE) and time fractional coupled Boussinesq-Burger equations (TFCBBEs) play important roles in the fields of solute transport, fluid dynamics, respectively. Although there are many methods for solving the approximate solution, simple and effective methods are more preferred. This paper aims to utilize Laplace Adomian decomposition method (LADM) to construct approximate solutions for these two types of equations and gives some examples of numerical calculations, which can prove the validity of LADM by comparing the error between the calculated results and the exact solution.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyzes and investigates the time-space fractional partial differential equations based on the LADM method in the sense of Caputo fractional derivative, which is a combination of the Laplace transform and the Adomian decomposition method. LADM method was first proposed by Khuri in 2001. Many partial differential equations which can describe the physical phenomena are solved by applying LADM and it has been used extensively to solve approximate solutions of partial differential and fractional partial differential equations.
Findings
This paper obtained an approximate solution to the FFPE and TFCBBEs by using the LADM. A number of numerical examples and graphs are used to compare the errors between the results and the exact solutions. The results show that LADM is a simple and effective mathematical technique to construct the approximate solutions of nonlinear time-space fractional equations in this work.
Originality/value
This paper verifies the effectiveness of this method by using the LADM to solve the FFPE and TFCBBEs. In addition, these two equations are very meaningful, and this paper will be helpful in the study of atmospheric diffusion, shallow water waves and other areas. And this paper also generalizes the drift and diffusion terms of the FFPE equation to the general form, which provides a great convenience for our future studies.
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Purpose: In this study, monolith analysis methods, microservice identification, and decomposition methods proposed for the transition to microservice architectures that enable the…
Abstract
Purpose: In this study, monolith analysis methods, microservice identification, and decomposition methods proposed for the transition to microservice architectures that enable the development of appropriate solutions by adapting to the complex demands that will shape the technological infrastructure of the future are evaluated.
Need for the study: Decomposition from monolithic architectures to microservices has become a popular approach in organizations and companies with Industry 5.0. This transformation of Industry 5.0 enables businesses to gain a competitive advantage and can provide a quick solution to personalized problems such as personal service systems.
Methodology: The study, decomposition from monolith to microservice, initially includes monolith analysis, followed by microservice decomposition review. Various classification methods have been proposed for microservice identification and decomposition and are aligned with Industry 5.0 principles, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI)-based approaches, especially human-centered AI.
Findings: Four analysis methods (domain, static, dynamic, and version) are identified for monolith analysis, with static and dynamic being the most common. Version analysis is not typically used alone. In the decomposition phase, clustering-based methods are prevalent due to the uncertain dimensions of microservices. Rule-based and unsupervised methods are identified for decomposition, with AI algorithms like affinity propagation, Kmeans clustering, hierarchical clustering, Hungarian algorithm, genetic algorithm, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), and minimum spanning tree (MST) being employed.
Practical implications: Microservice architecture enables flexibility, scalability, and resilience compared to monolithic structures. Decomposing large-scale monolith projects into microservices is challenging, requiring selection of appropriate monolith analysis methods based on project details (e.g., domain analysis for detailed Unified Modelling Language (UML) diagrams) before proceeding with decomposition. This transformation improves deployment, maintenance, fault isolation, and scalability, while allowing for diverse service-specific databases and programming languages.
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Muhammad Nadeem, Mohamed Sharaf and Saipunidzam Mahamad
This paper aims to present a numerical investigation for two-dimensional fractional Helmholtz equation using the Aboodh integral homotopy perturbation transform scheme (AIHPTS).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a numerical investigation for two-dimensional fractional Helmholtz equation using the Aboodh integral homotopy perturbation transform scheme (AIHPTS).
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed scheme combines the Aboodh integral transform and the homotopy perturbation scheme (HPS). This strategy is based on an updated form of Taylor’s series that yields a convergent series solution. This study analyzes the fractional derivatives in the context of Caputo.
Findings
This study illustrates two numerical examples and calculates their approximate results using AIHPTS. The derived findings are also presented in tabular form and graphical representations.
Research limitations/implications
In addition, He’s polynomials are calculated using HPS, so the minimal computational outcome is a defining feature of this method and gives a competitive advantage over other series solution techniques.
Originality/value
Numerical data and graphical illustrations for different fractional order levels confirm the proposed method’s successful performance. The results show that the proposed approach is speedy and straightforward to execute on fractional-ordered models.
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Saqib Muneer, Awwad Saad AlShammari, Khalid Mhasan O. Alshammary and Muhammad Waris
Financial market sustainability is gaining attention as investors and stakeholders become more aware of environmental, social and governance issues, pushing demand for responsible…
Abstract
Purpose
Financial market sustainability is gaining attention as investors and stakeholders become more aware of environmental, social and governance issues, pushing demand for responsible and ethical investment practices. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of carbon (CO2) emissions from three sources, oil, gas and coal, on the stock market sustainability via effective government policies.
Design/methodology/approach
The eight countries belong to two different regions of world: Asian economies such as Pakistan, India, Malaysia and China, and OECD economies such as Germany, France, the UK and the USA are selected as a sample of the study. The 22-year data from 2000 to 2022 are collected from the DataStream and the World Bank data portal for the specified countries. The generalized methods of movement (GMM) and wavelet are used as the econometric tool for the analysis.
Findings
Our findings show that the CO2 emission from coal and gas significantly negatively impacts stock market sustainability, but CO2 emission from oil positively impacts stock market sustainability. Moreover, all the emerging Asian economies’ CO2 emissions from coal and gas have a much greater significant negative impact on the stock market sustainability than the OECD countries due to the critical situation. However, the government’s effective policies have a positive significant moderating impact between them, reducing the effect of CO2 emission on the stock market.
Research limitations/implications
This study advocated strong implications for policymakers, governments and investors.
Practical implications
Effective government policies can protect the environment and make business operations suitable, leading to market financial stability. This study advocated strong implications for policymakers, governments and investors.
Originality/value
This study provides fresh evidence of the government’s effective role to control the carbon environment that provide the sustainability to the organizations with respect to OECD and emerging economy.
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Gorden Wofuma, Rehema Namono, Williams Munobe and Emmanuel Isiagi
Takaful insurance is gaining increasing popularity worldwide. However, the takaful industry is relatively new in Uganda and its research is still in embryonic stages. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
Takaful insurance is gaining increasing popularity worldwide. However, the takaful industry is relatively new in Uganda and its research is still in embryonic stages. This study aimed at exploring the contextual determinants for the uptake of takaful insurance in Uganda, a minority Muslim country.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a sequential exploratory mixed research design using qualitative and quantitative approaches and drawing data from the managers of insurance companies and a section of potential customers of takaful products in Uganda. The qualitative data were analysed using content analysis to determine the emerging themes, whereas quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics.
Findings
The findings revealed that informational, individual personality and demographic factors influences the customer’s choice to select takaful products in Uganda. The authors concluded that focusing on informational besides, individual personality and demographic factors would enhance the uptake of takaful insurance in a minority Muslim country like Uganda.
Research limitations/implications
This study was limited to establishing and classifying the contextual determinants of takaful insurance without establishing the degree by which each of the determinants especially informational, demographic and individual personality explains the penetration of takaful insurance. Hence, future studies can examine the causal relationship between each of the three highlighted determinants on the penetration of takaful insurance in the context of minority Muslim countries.
Practical implications
The study contributes to the insurance industry players and the insurance regulator in understanding the respective customers needs for them to subscribe to takaful products.
Originality/value
This study presents an opportunity to understand the takaful or Islamic insurance market in Uganda by exploring the factors that can determine the subscription of takaful products in the country.
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Abi Huraira Rifas, Asmak Ab Rahman, Ahmad Hidayat Buang and Muzalwana Abdul Talib
This study aims to investigate the factors affecting micro, small and medium entrepreneurs’ (MSMEs) behavioural intention to participate in takaful schemes in Sri Lanka.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the factors affecting micro, small and medium entrepreneurs’ (MSMEs) behavioural intention to participate in takaful schemes in Sri Lanka.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adopted a quantitative approach using primary data from a questionnaire. Out of 470 questionnaires, 432 were collected (91.91%) from MSMEs in Kalmunai business region in Sri Lanka. The data obtained were analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling.
Findings
This study revealed that the extension model of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) can be effectively applied to behavioural intentions towards a takaful scheme by MSMEs. Out of eight hypotheses, seven were significant, including: attitude towards behavioural intention; subjective norm; perceived behavioural control; knowledge; religiosity; income; trust in takaful as a significant influence. However, awareness of intention was not found to be significant.
Practical implications
This study suggests advantages for takaful providers in Sri Lanka, especially marketing departments, for enhancing sale of products, refurbishing marketing strategies and understanding the purchasing motivation of business entrepreneurs. This study guides takaful companies as to where they should concentrate to enhance market penetration.
Originality/value
Previous studies have concentrated on only three factors which comprise TPB. This paper’s main contribution is on the uniqueness of the Muslim minority context in a pluralistic context, providing a marketing model for takaful operators based on the different relevant dimensions.
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Muhammad Rabiu Danlami, Muhamad Abduh and Lutfi Abdul Razak
This study aims to examine the nexus between CAMELS, risk-sharing financial performance and Islamic banks' stability. It also attempts to assess the conditioning effects of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the nexus between CAMELS, risk-sharing financial performance and Islamic banks' stability. It also attempts to assess the conditioning effects of institutional quality in the relationship between risk-sharing contracts and the stability of Islamic banks.
Design/methodology/approach
The quantitative research design was employed using secondary data from 20 Islamic banks in six countries over the period 2007–2019. The study utilized the feasible generalized least squares method for the analysis.
Findings
The results indicate that not all CAMELS variables support the stability of Islamic banks. The musharakah contract induced stability of the banks, whereas mudarabah financing reduced it. The interaction between risk-sharing finance and the quality of institutions suggested that the mudarabah contract via institutional quality raises the stability of Islamic banks. On the other hand, the quality of institutions encourages the banks to offer more musharakah, but it leads to an increase in their risk-taking. We show the impact of changes in risk-sharing variables on stability amplified by institutional quality. The results were robust when alternative measures of stability were used.
Practical implications
Various stakeholders in banking activities could learn from the results of this study. Islamic banks could improve their positions in terms of screening for risk-sharing financing. They could also leverage more on musharakah, as it promotes stability and could generate more returns for the banks. The mudarabah financing can be improved if there is a proper evaluation of entrepreneurs. Policymakers would learn more about the importance of institutional quality, as it provides a friendly environment for both mudarabah and musharakah businesses to thrive. This could increase the participation of Islamic banks in the real economy.
Originality/value
Previous studies concentrated on the effects of CAMELS on the profitability of Islamic banks. This study shows that CAMELS alone might not necessarily capture the financial performance of Islamic banks. Therefore, the risk-sharing financing variables are included alongside CAMELS to determine their effects on stability. Second, unlike the past research, this study used the quality of institutions to moderate the nexus between risk-sharing financing and the stability of Islamic banks.
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E.N. Maraj, Noreen Sher Akbar, Nabeela Kousar, Iffat Zehra and Taseer Muhammad
This paper aims to study the fluid flow and heat transfer within the Casson nanofluid confined between disk and cone both rotating with distinct velocities. For a comprehensive…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the fluid flow and heat transfer within the Casson nanofluid confined between disk and cone both rotating with distinct velocities. For a comprehensive investigation, two distinct nano-size particles, namely, silicon dioxide and silicon carbide, are submerged in ethanol taken as the base fluid.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper explores the disk and cone contraption mostly encountered for viscosity measurement in various industrial applications such as lubrication industry, hydraulic brakes, pharmaceutical industry, petroleum and gas industry and chemical industry.
Findings
It is worth mentioning here that the radially varying temperature profile at the disk surface is taken into the account. The effect of prominent emerging parameters on velocity fields and temperature distribution are studied graphically, while bar graphs are drawn to examine the physical quantities of industrial interest such as surface drag force and heat transfer rate at disk and cone.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study in literature exists that discusses the thermal enhancement of nano-fluidic transport confined between disk and cone both rotating with distinct angular velocities with heat transfer.