Relationship between Principals' Leadership Styles and Teachers' Behavior.

An effective leader follows a style that helps maintain good relations with his staff. A school leader should use a style best suited to his teachers' behavior. This research investigates the association between four leadership styles (instructional, democratic, transformational, and laissez-faire) and teachers' behavior in Malaysia. This study applied a quantitative research method using a survey technique by administering questionnaires. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Multiple regression and ANOVA were used to study the strength of the relationship between variables. The research found average care of the principals towards teachers' emotional behavior. Democratic leadership style showed significant relationships that explain 28.5% of the variation in the emotional behavior of the teachers. Leaders with a democratic leadership style were more aware of and responded positively to teachers' psychometric behavior. School principals with transformational leadership styles responded positively to teachers' pro-social behavior, although the relationship was weak. These results indicate that a democratic leadership style addresses the issues of teachers' emotional behavior, while instructional leadership, which is the most perceived leadership style, does not. The result of this study can guide Malaysian school principals in choosing the appropriate leadership style best suited to teachers' behavior.

Mental Health Status of Teachers During the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Web-Based Study in Bangladesh.

Background: Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Bangladesh implemented strict non-therapeutic measures, i.e., "social distancing," "lockdown," "work from home," in the first quarter of 2020. Like other professionals, teachers at schools, colleges and universities were confined within households. However, the introduction of online education imposed an additional burden on teachers along with growing household responsibilities, thus, affecting their psychological state. Aims: This study was aimed to explore the prevalence of mental health problems among teachers in Bangladesh and to identify the associated risk factors. Methods: This web-based cross-sectional study was conducted during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. Data were collected from 381 teachers working at schools, colleges, and universities between 01 August and 29 August 2021 by administering a self-reported e-questionnaire using Google Form, where the mental health of teachers was assessed by depression, anxiety, and stress scale. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics (Version 26) and STATA Version 16, and multiple linear regression was executed to predict mental health problems among teachers. Results: The findings indicate that the overall prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress among teachers was 35.4%, 43.7%, and 6.6%, respectively. The prevalence was higher among male and older teachers than among their female and younger colleagues. The findings further showed that place of residence, institution, self-reported health, usage of social and electronic media, and fear of COVID-19 significantly influenced the mental health status of teachers. Conclusion: It is strongly recommended that the government and policymakers provide proper mental health services to teachers in order to reduce mental health problems and thus sustain the quality of education during and after the pandemic.

An Islamic Microfinance Approach to Scaling up the Economic Life of Vulnerable People with HIV/AIDS in the Muslim Society.

People with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) commonly pose problems to their family as well as to society because of their vulnerable health and economic conditions. Contrarily, PLWHA encounter social discrimination and adverse realities while finding it difficult to continue in their jobs. These complex phenomena interact to push them into a low economic status. A microfinance program can hopefully assist poor patients to cope with the negative economic consequences of this disease. But the conventional market-oriented microfinance institutions show reluctance to serve this group of people due to the possibilities of having credit risk. In this paper, we propose an alternative microfinancing technique that can provide a better economic life of the PLWHA while absorbing the credit risks. A comprehensive model is designed using specific Islamic financial instruments in conjugation with household economic portfolio theory. Critical realism method was adopted to construct this model. We concluded that the application of Islamic microfinance can enhance income of HIV patients while reducing the productivity-loss. This model can be useful to the microfinance practitioners and policymakers for addressing a different market segment, diversifying products, and formulating policy.

Relationships between parents' academic backgrounds and incomes and building students' healthy eating habits.

BACKGROUND: Building healthy eating habit is essential for all people. School and family are the prime institutions to instill this habit during early age. This study is aimed at understanding the impact of family such as parents' educations and incomes on building students' healthy eating habits. METHODS: A survey on building students' eating habits was conducted among primary school students of grade 4 (11 years) and 5 (12 years) from Kulim district, Malaysia. Data from 318 respondents were analysed. Descriptive statistics were used to find the present scenario of their knowledge, attitude and practices towards their eating habits while one-way ANOVA and independent sample t-test were used to find the differences between their practices based on students' gender, parents' educations and incomes. RESULTS: The study finds that the students have a good knowledge of types of healthy food but yet their preferences are towards the unhealthy food. Though the students' gender and parents' educations are not found significantly related to students' knowledge, attitude and practices towards healthy eating habits, parents' incomes have significant influence on promoting the healthy eating habit. DISCUSSION: Findings of this study can be useful to guide parents in healthy food choices and suggest them to be models to their children in building healthy eating habits.

Building healthy eating habits in childhood: a study of the attitudes, knowledge and dietary habits of schoolchildren in Malaysia.

BACKGROUND: Overweight and obesity have increased rapidly in incidence to become a global issue today. Overweight and obesity problems are significantly linked to unhealthy dietary patterns, physical inactivity and misperception of body image. This study aimed to determine whether Malaysian children build healthy eating habits from childhood. METHODS: A survey on eating habits was conducted among primary school students in standards 4 to 6 in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. The findings of the study were reported in the form of descriptive statistics involving frequencies and percentages. Data from 400 respondents were analyzed. RESULTS: Our findings showed that the students understood the definition of healthy food and the types of food that are considered healthy. Although the students knew that food such as deep-fried drumsticks and hamburgers contain a high amount of saturated fat and cholesterol, these foods were still consumed by them. There was also a high consumption of foods that are fried and contain sugar, salt and saturated fat. In choosing food, two major factors contributed to the students' decisions: cleanliness (65.8%) and the preference of their parents (12.3%). DISCUSSION: Our findings indicate that by implementing the Integrated School Health Program (ISHP) properly, students' eating habits can be improved by creating a school with a healthy environment.

Job satisfaction and intention to quit: an empirical analysis of nurses in Turkey.

The aim of this study was to identify the facets influencing job satisfaction and intention to quit of nurses employed in Turkey. Using a non-probability sampling technique, 417 nurses from six large private hospitals were surveyed from March 2014 to June 2014. The nurses' demographic data, their job-related satisfaction and turnover intentions were recorded through a self-administered questionnaire. In this study, descriptive and bivariate analyses were used to explore data, and multivariate analysis was performed using logistic regression. Nurses' job satisfaction was found at a moderate level with 61% of the nurses intended to quit. Nevertheless, nurses reported a high satisfaction level with work environment, supervisor support, and co-workers among the selected nine facets of job satisfaction. They also reported a low satisfaction level with contingent reward, fringe benefits, and pay. The impact of demographic characteristics on job satisfaction and intention to quit was also examined. The study revealed a negative relationship between job satisfaction and intention to quit the existing employment. Moreover, satisfaction with supervisor support was the only facet that significantly explained turnover intent when controlling for gender, age, marital status, education, and experience. The implications for nurse management were also described for increasing nurses' job satisfaction and retention. This study is beneficial for hospital management to ensure proper nursing care that would lead to a better quality healthcare service.

Domestic Banks in Bangladesh Could Ensure Efficiency by Improving Human Resource Management Practices.

The paper aims to examine the influence of human resource management (HRM) practices on bank efficiency using Malmquist index of total factor productivity. The model comprises HRM index that represents the quality of HRM practices. The results are decomposed into three efficiency scores, namely, technical efficiency, pure efficiency, and scale efficiency. In this study, panel data for 44 banks in Bangladesh are used for the period 2008-2013. This paper reveals that foreign banks are ahead in converting the influence of HRM practices into efficiency scores (0.946>0.833). On the other hand, domestic banks performed better than foreign banks in terms of pure efficiency and scale efficiency. But, in terms of technical efficiency, the domestic banks are regressed by 6.7% annually whereas foreign banks are progressed with a yearly value of 5.8%. The results are robust, because the Mann-Whitney test and Kruskall-Wallis test (non-parametric tests) also confirm the same results. This study emphasizes HRM practices in the banking industry to ensure efficiency in the long-term scenario. Domestic banks are suggested to ensure continuous development in HRM practices in order to compete with foreign banks.