Regardless of the importance of accreditation and the role faculty play in a such process, not much attention was given to those in dental colleges This study aimed to explore faculty perceptions of accreditation in the College of Dental Medicine and its impact, the challenges that hinder their involvement in accreditation, and countermeasures to mitigate these barriers using a convergent mixed methods approach. The interviewees were faculty who hold administrative positions (purposeful sample). The remaining faculty were invited for the survey using convenience sampling. Quantitative data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests at 0.05 significance. A consensus was achieved on the positive impact of accreditation with an emphasis on the collective responsibility of faculty for the entire process. Yet their involvement was not duly recognized in teaching load, promotion, and incentives. Quality Improvement and Sustainability Tools and Benchmarking were identified as common themes for the value of accreditation to institutions and faculty. Global ranking and credibility as well as seamless service were key themes for institutional accreditation, while education tools and guidance or unifying tools were central themes for faculty. Regarding the challenges, five themes were recognized: Lack of Resources, Rigorous Process, Communication Lapse, Overwhelming Workload, and Leadership Style and Working Environment. To mitigate these challenges, Providing Enough Resources and Leadership Style and Working Environment were the identified themes. This research endeavors to achieve a better understanding of faculty perceptions to ease a process that requires commitment, resources, and readiness to change.
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) crimes by rogue fisheries companies are rife in the sea waters of Riau Province. However, this issue is rarely reported by those provincial journalists in the online media where they work. In fact, in Riau, there are 163 online media companies and 600 competent journalists; 200 of them live in capture fisheries center areas. Apart from the journalist competency factor, the decision to make IUU fishing news can also be influenced by the fisheries company intervention that committed the crime. Besides, the policy role of media leaders—editors, editors-in-chief, and media owners—also determines journalists’ decisions to make those news stories. This research aims to analyze the influence of journalist competence and fishing company intervention on the decision to make IUU fishing news, as well as the role of media leader policy as mediators in these influences. This survey involved 100 competent journalists as respondents. Data collection was carried out through a questionnaire containing a number of closed statements measured on a 5-point Likert scale, which was distributed to respondents. The data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method. The research results show that the fishing company intervention has a negative and significant influence on the decision to make IUU fishing news in Riau, while journalist competence does not. Additionally, media leader policy was found to play a significant role in mediating the influence of fisheries company intervention and journalist competence on the decision to make IUU fishing news. The leader policy could prevent journalists from making IUU fishing news if fisheries companies, who are responsible for those crimes, intervene and request it. Those actions of media leaders need to be questioned because they can hamper the media’s function as a means of disseminating information, educating the public, and implementing social control, especially those related to combating IUU fishing crimes.
Low enrollment intention threatens the funding pools of rural insurance schemes in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate how social capital enhances the enrollment of health insurance among rural middle-aged and elderly. We propose that social capital directly increases health insurance enrollment, while indirectly influences health insurance through health risk avoidance. We used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (wave 4) dating the year of 2018, instrumental variable estimation was introduced to deal with the endogeneity problem, and the mediation analysis was used to examine the mechanism of social capital on insurance enrollment. The results show that social capital is positively related to social health insurance enrollment, and the relationship between social capital and social health insurance enrollment is mediated by health risk avoidance.
This study, through the method of canonical correlation analysis, revealed significant correlations between various dimensions of learning attitudes of students and various dimensions of teacher knowledge. An analysis of data from a group of 221 high school students showed that teacher knowledge of teaching content, theoretical knowledge, and teaching practice and classroom management significantly impact learning attitudes of students. Specifically, teacher knowledge of teaching content plays a crucial role in promoting students' behavioral inclination to learn chemistry, teachers' theoretical knowledge significantly enhances students' liking for chemistry laboratory courses, while teachers' teaching practice and classroom management have a suppressive effect on students' evaluative beliefs about school chemistry. The results of this study provide effective guidance for both the theory and practice of high school chemistry education.
Given the eclectic and localized nature of environmental risks, planning for sustainability requires solutions that integrate local knowledge and systems while acknowledging the need for continuous re-evaluation. Social-ecological complexity, increasing climate volatility and uncertainty, and rapid technological innovation underscore the need for flexible and adaptive planning. Thus, rules should not be universally applied but should instead be place-based and adaptive. To demonstrate these key concepts, we present a case study of water planning in Texas, whose rapid growth and extreme weather make it a bellwether example. We review historic use and compare the 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2022 Texas State Water Plans to examine how planning outcomes evolve across time and space. Though imperfect, water planning in Texas is a concrete example of place-based and adaptive sustainability. Urban regions throughout the state exhibit a diversity of strategies that, through the repeated 5-year cycles, are ever responding to evolving trends and emerging technologies. Regional planning institutions play a crucial role, constituting an important soft infrastructure that links state capacity and processes with local agents. As opposed to “top-down” or “bottom-up”, we frame this governance as “middle-out” and discuss how such a structure might extend beyond the water sector.
In response to the increasing youth unemployment rate and the demand for future-oriented career development, university student entrepreneurship has emerged as a critical domain in both economic policy and education. This study conducts a comprehensive literature review to examine the interrelationships between entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial competency, and entrepreneurial intention among university students, with an emphasis on the Human Resource Development (HRD) perspective. The review reveals that entrepreneurial mindset significantly influences students’ intention to start a business, while entrepreneurship education contributes both directly and indirectly through the development of entrepreneurial competencies. Entrepreneurial competencies serve as a practical foundation for translating intention into action and are integral to HRD’s goal of competency-based talent development. The study further highlights that entrepreneurship education aligned with HRD principles—such as experiential learning, self-directed development, and learning organization frameworks—can foster employability and self-employment capacity. This integrative analysis suggests that university entrepreneurship programs should not be seen merely as policy instruments, but rather as strategic HRD initiatives for developing future-ready, opportunity-creating human capital. Implications for educational design, policy development, and future empirical research are discussed.
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