(1809) THE ISLAMIC SPIRITUAL ELEMENT OF AL-TAFAKKUR IN CRITICAL THINKING AMONG MUSLIM ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATES IN MALAYSIA

摘要

In this era of globalization, engineering undergraduates need to find intersections between spiritualityand higher education to recapture the sense of values and purpose that brought them to their variousroles and responsibilities in creating a future sustainable society. The main objective of this study wasto examine and analyze the perception of Muslim engineering students in Malaysian higher educationinstitutions towards the spirituality concept of al-tafakkur as an essential element of Islamic criticalthinking. The study employed the triangulation method involving data collection of both quantitativedata from the survey feedback and qualitative information from interviewees' responses that wouldsupport each other in analyzing the perception. A total of 557 Muslim engineering undergraduatesfrom six Malaysian universities participated in the study. The survey data collected were analyzedusing descriptive statistics to explain the characteristics of the variables by using the symbols such asmean, standard deviation, percentage, and normal distribution. In the analysis of the qualitative data,the responses were assessed according to the emerging common themes that can validate, justifyand elaborate some aspects of the survey result. The study has generally indicated that Muslimengineering undergraduates in Malaysian higher learning institutions have a rather goodcomprehension and consciousness of the concept of al-tafakkur. Nonetheless a few items on theconcept have obtained a comparatively low perception, hence raising some concerns and these needto be further explored.KTafakkur, Islamic critical thinking, perception, engineering tertiary education.(1810)METHODS OF OBSERVATION IN CLASSROOM RESEARCHCigdem FidanAd?yaman University (TURKEY)AWhy do not we use observation methods to create bettered classroom environments for Englishlanguage learners? In this paper, how four different kinds of observation methods;;Open & Focused,Structured & Systematic, can be applied in our language classrooms during our English languageteaching process is signified. Whether a well-prepared observation method helps us not only discover,but also solve our English language classroom problems or not, will be discussed. As modern-daylanguage teaching world needs solutions for classroom problems to have more humanistic andauthentic classroom environments for learners of English as second language, observation methodsare effective tools for teachers to take the right steps in the process of researching their ownclassroom environments. So, in this paper we can get information about the significance of using fourdifferent kinds of observation methods in our classrooms while teaching English as a secondlanguage.