Phonological memory problems are magnified in children from language minority homes when predicting reading disability

Factors Affecting the Adoption of IoT-Based Smart Campus: An Investigation Using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP)

The advancement of technology is making university campuses smarter every single day. Despite the benefits of these advanced technologies, the literature concerning the adoption of smart campuses is significantly lacking increased knowledge to provide effective smart campus solutions. This study aims to prioritize the adoption factors of an IoT-based smart campus. The study applied an analytical hierarchical process (AHP) on 25 factors drawn from the literature. The factors were classified into technology specific factors (TSF), organizational specific factors (OSF), environmental specific factors (ESF), and end-user specific factors (USF). Based on the results obtained, the most significant contributing factors were government support, privacy concerns, social influence, facilitating conditions, and service collaboration, whereas the least significant contributing factors were enjoyment, availability, reliability, mobility, and compatibility. Moreover, based on the global ranking computation, 12 factors from the OSF, ESF, and USF categories appeared to be more significant than TSF. The findings of this study could help university administrators, manufacturers, and policy-makers to understand the critical factors of smart campuses in order to improve the adoption and utilization of these solutions effectively.

An Early Reading Assessment Battery for Multilingual Learners in Malaysia

The aim of the study was to develop a new comprehensive reading assessment battery for multi-ethnic and multilingual learners in Malaysia. Using this assessment battery, we examined the reliability, validity, and dimensionality of the factors associated with reading difficulties/disabilities in the Malay language, a highly transparent alphabetic orthography. In order to further evaluate the reading assessment battery, we compared results from the assessment battery with those obtained from the Malaysian national screening instrument. In the study, 866 Grade 1 children from multi-ethnic and multilingual backgrounds from 11 government primary schools participated. The reading assessment battery comprised 13 assessments, namely, reading comprehension, spelling, listening comprehension, letter name knowledge, letter name fluency, rapid automatized naming, word reading accuracy, word reading efficiency, oral reading fluency, expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, elision, and phonological memory. High reliability and validity were found for the assessments. An exploratory factor analysis yielded three main constructs: phonological-decoding, sublexical-fluency, and vocabulary-memory. Phonological-decoding was found to be the most reliable construct that distinguished between at-risk and non-at-risk children. Identifying these underlying factors will be useful for detecting children at-risk for developing reading difficulties in the Malay language. In addition, these results highlight the importance of including a range of reading and reading-related measures for the early diagnosis of reading difficulties in this highly transparent orthography.