2019 i-STET

Inter-religious dialogue has been implemented in Malaysia by various organizations, be it Muslim’s or Non-Muslim’s organizations as early as 1950s. Often being carried out in the format of intellectual discourse and forum, its accessibility to the non-academician, non-scholars and non-elite is uncertain. If the inter-religious dialogue programs could not reach the grassroots, its effectiveness in addressing inter-religious issues that affected the grassroots is also doubtful. International dialogue practitioners has begun to include number of theories in their dialogue designs to reach out broader range of community. One of the theories is Contact Theory proposed by Gordon Allport (1959) aims at addressing in-group/out-group bias. Therefore, this study attempts to examine the application of Contact Theory in two models of inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia (i.e. Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia (IKIM) and Inter-faith Spiritual Fellowship (INSaF)). Case study research design was employed in order to identify the design of interreligious dialogue and the presence of Contact Theory within the two models. Data obtained through interviews and document analysis were than analysed using within-case and cross-case analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The finding suggest that IKIM’s and INSaF’s inter-religious dialogue models did not include any special session that allowed a real dialogue or cooperative interaction (one of important elements in Contact Theory) to take place among the participants. Without cooperative interaction among the participants, it would be difficult for these two models to reap the benefit of Contact Theory. Future research should focus on developing inter-religious dialogue design that is more appropriate for the grassroots with the inclusion of Contact Theory.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) merupakan salah satu contoh platform pembelajaran yang telah dilaksanakan di universiti awam dan swasta di Malaysia. Platform ini menggunakan kaedah pembelajaran secara maya di mana interaksi serta perbincangan dilakukan di dalam atas talian. Aplikasi MOOC TITAS Versi 2.0 merupakan salah satu sumber pengajaran dan pembelajaran di universiti awam (UA) yang merangkumi model, metod dan pendekatan yang lebih efektif dan interaktif seiring dengan perkembangan Revolusi Industri 4.0. Justeru, makalah ini bertujuan untuk meneliti penerimaan pelajar UA terhadap aplikasi MOOC TITAS 2.0. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan kuantitatif dengan menggunakan teknik survei melalui pengedaran instrumen soal selidik secara google form. Seramai 1373 orang pelajar Semester 1, sesi 2018/2019 daripada lima zon yang merangkumi 19 UA terlibat sebagai responden kajian. Persampelan kajian adalah secara berkelompok dan rawak mudah. Nilai kebolehpercayaan cronbach alfa bagi bahagian penerimaan pelajar ialah 0.947. Data dianalisis menggunakan perisian SPSS 25.0 bagi mendapatkan analisis deskriptif. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan penerimaan pelajar terhadap aplikasi MOOC TITAS 2.0 berada pada tahap yang baik dengan min 4.04. Kajian mendapati kandungan MOOC TITAS 2.0 mempunyai elemen kemudahgunaan, kebolehgunaan, bersesuaian, sistematik dan memuaskan hati para penggunanya. Kajian merumuskan bahawa platform MOOC TITAS 2.0 merupakan salah satu contoh terbaik pelaksanaan e-learning sebagai sumber pengajaran dan pembelajaran aktif, informatif dan interaktif.