Relationship Between Level of Educational Attainment and Employee Performance: Mediating Role of Individual Religious Affiliation

Purpose: This study empirically investigates the relation between education level and employees’ performance working in public sector universities from the viewpoint of Islamic religiosity when religious affiliations play mediating role. It has been experienced that more educated people are found to be more involved in performing tasks related to the religious affiliations. Due to the fact that people with higher education found less time to complete their religious obligations, they are more involved in alternative arrangements like charity and donations to fulfill the hunger of religious attainments. Therefore, in order to satisfy themselves religiously, they are more involved in religious affiliations. This high involvement in fulfilling religious arrangements impacts their individual job performance which is necessary to explore. Research Methodology: Data was gathered from the public sector university employees of Pakistan. Out of 900 distributed questionnaires, 520 were received with response rate of 73.65%. Regression analysis is performed in order to determine the association between level of education and individual performance. Further, in order to determine the mediating role of religious affiliations, the Barren and Kerry (1984) model is applied. Findings: Using questionnaire survey the results of the study showed that level of education significantly impacts the religious affiliations in positive manner and high religious affiliations increase the individual job performance. The results at this point indicated that an unobservable indicator, like propensity for logical rationale induces individuals for higher education and ultimately high religious affiliations. Recommendations: Based upon the results, it is recommended that religiosity and ethical values in management set up are need to be escorted by public reforms to let the identification of employees to their work values and their obligation to the performance of work-related tasks. Originality: This study would be a clear contribution in the field of human behavior towards making alternative arrangements in order to fulfill religious obligations and at the same time identifying the mediating role of religious attainments in determining their individual performance.

A Comparative Study of the Genotype Mtbdrplus® Assay Against a Standard Culture Method for Diagnosis and Drug Susceptibility Testing of Tuberculosis

Background: Nearly one-third of the global population, i.e. two billion people, is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is at risk of developing the disease. More than eight million people develop active tuberculosis (TB) every year, with about two million dying from the disease annually. Diagnosis of tuberculosis inKenya remains dependent on smear microscopy. New methods of TB diagnosis are needed which have better accuracy and are still cost effective. Molecular methods of TB diagnosis have come under investigation in a lot of studies recently. However, they have their own limitations including the inability to differentiate between active organisms and dead bacilli in specimens. Aim: To determine the sensitivity and specificity of the Genotype® MTBDRplus assay in the detection of resistance to Isoniazid and Rifampicin in mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates. Materials and methods: This is a descriptive and comparative study in which the performance of a new laboratory assay will be compared to the existing (reference) method. All sputum specimens submitted for TB culture and sensitivity to the Aga Khan University Hospital Laboratory microbiology section during the period from August 2008 – April 2009 were included in the study. All sputum specimens submitted underwent smear microscopy, culture and sensitivity testing by the MGIT 960 system and DNA extraction and Genotype MTBDRplus assay for both the direct specimen as well the positive culture tube. Results: 202 sputum specimens were included in the study. Valid phenotypic DST results were obtained for 135 cultures (68%). The number of strains resistant toRIF and INH was 4.5%, 14% respectively. Valid GenoType® MTBDRplus assay results were obtained for 116 DNA extracts (86%). Sensitivity and specificity of the test for the detection of Isoniazid resistance were 0.68 (95% CI: 0.43 - 0.87) and 0.99 (95% CI: 0.95 - 0.99) respectively. Sensitivity and specificity of the test for the detection Rifampicin resistance was 0.78 (95% CI: 0.40 - 0.97) and 0.99 (95% CI: 0.96 - 1.00) respectively. Comparative analysis demonstrated scientifically acceptable overall agreement between molecular (sputum specimens) and phenotypic DST results as shown below (Cohen’s Kappa = 0.76 (95% CI: 0.59 - 0.93) for Isoniazid resistance and Cohen’s Kappa = 0.81 (95% CI: 0.60 - 1.02) for Rifampicin resistance Conclusions: The Genotype MTBDRplus assay demonstrated acceptable sensitivity and specificity for use in laboratory diagnosis of Tuberculosis and the detection of drug resistance.