Attitude Towards Science: A Case Study of Higher Secondary Level Students of Sindh Province

This research is conducted, in order to perceive the attitude of higher secondary level students of Sindh towards science. Students (Male = 448, Female = 648) belonging to higher-secondary level (Class-XI & XII) from Hyderabad division were surveyed. Students were divided in Urban (N=455) and Rural (N=641) groups accordingly. “Test of Science Related Attitudes” known as TOSRA, initially developed by (Fraser, 1978) was adapted and translated in Urdu as well, was used as the attitude measurement instrument. Internalk consistancey was checked with Cronbach’s alpha reliability test. After pilot study the test was administrated. Significant difference of the attitude towards science across the students was noticed based on their gender and their locale. The results show that, with small effect size, male students significantly scored higher on almost all of the attitude sub-scales of TOSRA as compared to female students. Interestingly, students belonging to rural areas significantly scored higher with medium effect size on all the attitude sub-scale towards science as compare to students from urban areas.

Reducing the Incidence of Workplace Bullying and Mitigating its Impact on Employee Performance

Motivating work environment enhances performance of human resources whereas workplace hurdles, stressors and hazards result in a decline in their performance. Workplace bullying is a major workplace hazard that results in low employee performance. Hence, its incidence must be controlled and impact on employee performance must be mitigated. The current study was conducted to analyze the workplace bullying phenomenon, reduce its incidence by implementing antibullying interventions and mitigating its impact on employee performance by enhancing the level of emotional intelligence of the victims through emotional intelligence training interventions in health care sector of Pakistan. This study was carried in three stages: (i) Pretest stage, (ii) Treatment of Bully Group and Victim Group, (iii) posttest stage. In Pretest Stage, bullying incidence was reported and groups of bullies and victims were identified. There were 25 bullies who were lacking personality trait of agreeableness and 126 victims who had personality trait of agreeableness. In Stage 2: Treatment of Bully Group, anti-bullying interventions developed through The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) to change bullies’ behavior were applied to 22 bullies who agreed to be the part of TTM anti-bullying interventions. Moreover, in Stage 2: Treatment of Victim Group was carried out where employee performance and emotional intelligence level of 101 identified victims were assessed. By providing an informed consent, 36 victims with low level of emotional intelligence became the part of EI training interventions. In stage 3: posttest data was collected and analyzed. Results of Wilcoxon Signed Ranked test revealed significant decrease in bullying incidence and paired sample T-Test showed significant increase in emotional intelligence. Results of moderation analysis revealed that EI had significantly moderated relationship between workplace bullying and employee performance. Significant decrease in negative effect of workplace bullying incidence on employee performance was found when the level of emotional intelligence was enhanced. Similar results were reported in both pre and post-EI-interventions implementation stages. However, negative effect in post-EI-interventions implementation stage was relatively lower as a resultant higher level of emotional intelligence. Current study also discussed limitations or directions for future research and various important implications for theory, research and practice.