Social Sciences

This study has made an attempt to investigate the significant determinants of private investment in Pakistan during the time span of 43 years, from 1973 to 2013, by using ARDL technique. It has been observed in this study that real gross domestic product, real exchange rate, public investment and credit to private sector are the significant determinants of private investment and the enhancements in these variables has increased private investment in Pakistan.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of behavioural activation (BA) in reducing depression symptoms in a sample of 186 children and adolescents from selected children’s homes in Kajiado County. This study was quasi-experimental and used the operant conditioning theory. This theory was ideal because children and adolescents are subject to various positive consequences that subtly shape their behaviour. The participants were purposively sampled and were between ages 9-17 both males and females with a mean age of 13. Participants with scores of 11 or higher on the depression subscale were randomly assigned into either experimental or control arms. The experimental arm received 10 sessions of BA with the control arm receiving treatment as usual (TAU). The participants completed a demographic questionnaire as well as CDI to assess for depression symptoms. Multiple linear regression analysis using SPSS Version 20 was used to identify factors independently associated with levels of depression symptoms. The mean score for the levels of depression was 18.6 (±5.6SD). The CDI scores reduction among the participants was significantly associated with time of follow-up (Estimate= -5.86; 95% CI: -8.91 to -2.81; p<0.001) and the intervention (Estimate= -1.86; 95% CI: -3.22 to -0.50; p=0.012). Based on these findings, BA is recommended for children and adolescents presenting with symptoms of depression. Further, this study will help curriculum developers to integrate mental health into the school curriculum. This will help in arresting the symptoms of depression among children and adolescents appropriately and timely.

The Kenyan government developed the policy of the re-entry of the teenage mothers to school in 2001. The policy allows teenage mothers to re-enter schools after delivery. Despite the policy being in place, very few teenage mothers have been returning to school. This study sought to assess the implementation strategies of the re-entry policy of teenage mothers to school in Bungoma County. The main objective of the study was to assess the implementation strategies of the re-entry policy of teenage mother to schools in Bungoma County. The critical theory by Habernes was adopted as the theoretical framework. The convergent parallel mixed method research design was used. The research population comprised of teenage mothers, student girls, head teachers, principals, Guiding and Counselling teachers, Sub County Quality Assurance and Standards Officers. The main data collection instruments were Questionnaires and Interview schedules. Questionnaires were administered to the Teenage mothers, school girls, Guidance and counselling teachers, while the interview schedule were administered to Sub County Quality Assurance and Standards Officers and head teachers. Pilot study was carried out in Trans Nzoia County. Reliability index of 0.79 was obtained. Quantitative data was coded and presented using tables and analyzed through frequency distribution and percentages. Qualitative data was organized and broken into themes synthesized to search for patterns and meaning. This study was significant for it identified various strategies that are used in implementation of the re-entry policy. The study revealed that there are a number of strategies that are used in articulating the policy, support that are given to the teenage mothers and the enforcement of the policy. There is need to harmonise the implementation strategies so that the various stakeholders are reading form the same script.

This treatise is envisaged to draw attention to a pertinent stratum of enacting the research problems of philosophy of education. This discourse elaborates the general perception of the concept research in academic disciplines, and then delineates the essence of research in philosophy of education. The purpose of this treatise is to enhance the meeting point between philosophy itself and education as two distinct academic disciplines. In this regard it is fundamentally necessary to accentuate what is relatively positive and constructive in creating a reasonable connection between philosophy and education exclusive of probable partiality to any. As such, the process of teaching and learning or rather education itself and by extension pedagogy occupies a larger space than the theories, principles, and methods as reflected in epistemology, axiology, metaphysics, and logic as the principal components of philosophy as a distinct discipline.

This study is an attempt to investigate empirical justification for selection and number of components used in evaluation criteria based on which scoring scales are developed and score is assigned; a need which is felt by many scholars. Following the literature eight evaluation criteria was selected and a scoring scale was developed. 124 scripts (totally 248) for each task of letter writing and argumentation were scored analytically with the selected eight components. Then the scores were tested through a number of statistical procedures (Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis) to empirically examine the underlying components of writing against which quality of writing was assessed. The results indicate that it is possible to have a standard to empirically justify the selection and number of components. However, this finding is not conclusive and there are still some uncertainties which warrant further studies.

Menstrual Hygiene and Management is an issue that is insufficiently acknowledged and has not received adequate attention in Reproductive Health and water sanitation and Hygiene in most of the developing countries including India. Its relationship with and impact on achieving many Millennium Development Goals is rarely acknowledged. It is clear that measure to adequately address menstrual hygiene and management will directly contribute to MDG-7 on Environment Sustainability and indirectly to MDG-2 on universal education and MDG-3 on gender equality and women empowerment(Water Aid Publication,2009).However the attention on this issue is far from sufficient. Adolescence in girls has been recognized as a special period in their life cycle that requires specific and special attention. In Tamilnadu the adolescents constitute nearly 19.5 percent of the total population of the state. Among the female population the adolescent girls constitute more than 19.3 percent. The rural adolescent girls constitute nearly 56.8 percent to the total adolescent girls to Tamilnadu. With the above background this study was undertaken with the objectives of assessing the knowledge of girls about menstruation and menstrual hygiene practices and health issues and challenges faced by adolescent school girls during menstruation. The present study was undertaken among the adolescent school girls in the rural settings of Cuddalore district in Tamilnadu. Five Government Higher Secondary Schools situated in villages of C.Mutlur, Keerapalayam, Kodipallam, Kavarapattu, and Thandavarayan Cholagan Pettai situated at Chidambaram Taluk, were selected for this study. The findings obtained through different methods and tools used in the study have been organized and presented under the four themes of Knowledge and beliefs, Experience during Menstruation, Restrictions and Absenteeism and Hygienic Practices.

This treatise presents evidence that education theory and practice is a process that integrates the knower, the known, and the process of knowing. It is an activity of integrating what is taught and learner’s experience to the existing curricula of pedagogy in learning institutions. The purpose of this discourse is to divulge the connectivity of the knower, or learner; the known, or subject matter; and the processes of knowing. The initial section presents a collocation of what is taught with the learner’s awareness in education practice. The second part analyzes the nature of the knower, the known, and the process of knowing. It suggests that the deficiencies in education practice as reflected in the systems of education emanate from the limited correlation of these three mandatory facets in objective knowledge. The relativity of correlation of the facets of knowledge is a requisite means of solving the issues facing pedagogical activity as well as proposing an apt guide for the theory and practice within the systems of education. In conclusion, this article highlight that this negation can be contracted by stabilizing the connection between the knower’s awareness, full potentiality of the mind, and substance of knowledge.

Menopause is nothing but the complete freedom for a woman from delivering the baby. Women attain menopause at different ages depending upon their health conditions. Menopause has been understood differently in different cultures depending upon its importance and understanding. Women’s reproductive life begins with puberty and end up with menopause. In between this woman will undergo series of reproductive hazards and this cannot be revealed publically. In this paper an attempt has been made to understand ‘menopause’ in a rural setting keeping in view the farm women labourers, who are by and large illiterate and superstitious in nature.

The [Persian] Gulf cooperation council (GCC) was funded on May 25, 1981 by six littoral Persian Gulf states just two years after the occurrence of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. This article explains the interaction between Islamic Republic of Iran and the GCC member states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain). In the first part this article is going to summarize the main reasons of founding the GCC since 1981 and explains the interaction between Iran and the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council and the influence of the decisions of GCC on Iran’s security policies during the past thirty years; and in third part, we will evaluate the workbook of the GCC conservative states regarding to Iran and influences of struggle between Iran and the GCC states. At the end, according to the results of the research, writers will recommend some new parameters that must be considered to maintain peace and security in the Persian Gulf region.

The present study endeavors to investigate teachers’ and students’ expectations toward corrective feedback, focusing on delivering agent, timing, types and techniques of error treatment in communicative-oriented English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms in the context of Iran. It also reveals how teachers provide corrective feedback to EFL learners and the frequency of corrective feedback techniques they use in the classroom. To fulfill the purpose of this study a total number of five class observations were carried out and followed by five interviews with the teachers of the same classes. Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis procedures the results show that both students and teachers prefer to receive or give corrective feedback to infrequent errors more than to frequent ones which is completely against what part of the literature suggests. It also shows that the preferences of both groups of participants do not greatly differ from each other except in few ways such as timing. Also, the findings show that recast is the most frequently-used technique employed by Iranian teachers in their classes.