The Role of Family Life and the Influence of Peer Pressure on Delinquency: Qualitative Evidence from Malaysia.

Juvenile delinquency is always seen as a public health problem which needs intervention at various levels. Identifying which factors may lead juveniles to delinquency is a long-standing question among criminologists. This remains the case in Malaysia. There are studies that have explored the impact of problem-solving skills, low socioeconomic status, and gender differences in predicting the delinquent behavior of youth in Malaysia. However, very few studies have aimed to find an in-depth understanding of the effects of family roles and peer pressure on delinquency in Malaysia. The present qualitative research was designed to fill this gap in the literature. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 young male prisoners (juvenile delinquents) in Malaysia to explore the influences of family life and peer pressure on delinquency. The current study showed that parental un-involvement, parent separation, peer pressure, criminal gang membership, and parents' involvement in crime were the important factors for involvement in delinquency. The findings revealed the importance of guidance and counseling for parents and adolescents, to help them cope with life challenges and to build their social and emotional skills, as well as the necessity of appointing school psychologists and public health experts to help the youths become valuable individuals.

Smartphone Addiction and Sleep Quality on Academic Performance of University Students: An Exploratory Research.

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between smartphone addiction, sleep quality, and academic performance. The study presented quantitative research on 323 students in a public university in Sabah to explore the relationship between smartphone addiction, sleep quality, and academic performance. A simple random sampling was used in the study. The Smartphone Addiction Scale Short Version (SAS-SV) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used in this study. SPSS was used as a tool of analysis for descriptive and inferential analysis. Pearson correlation was involved to test the hypothesis of the study. The result indicated that the greater the smartphone addiction, the lower the academic performance of university students. The finding also proved that students with poor sleep quality might exhibit low academic performance. Smartphone addiction was found to be associated with sleep quality where overusing smartphones was related to poor sleep quality in university students. On this basis, the problem of smartphone addiction and sleep quality should be tackled in order to improve the academic performance of university students and their overall health.