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A Study on the Effectiveness of Teaching Philosophy of Knowledge Course in East Coast Universities of Pen Malaysia

Thana Abdullah, Nawi @ Mohd Nawi Ismail, and Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal
Centre for Language Studies and Generic Development, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan

Abstract—This study aims to achieve two objectives namely; first, to investigate the effectiveness of teaching Philosophy of Knowledge course in public universities in East Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia. Second, to explore the perceptions on the Philosophy of Knowledge course through the teaching delivered to the students in universities East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Three public universities (IPTA) were selected for this study; UNISZA, UM Nilam Puri and UMK. Interviews and surveys have been conducted. The findings provide clear evidence that UMK is the only IPTA in East Coast region which offers the Philosophy of Knowledge course as a compulsory course for undergraduates. Most of the respondents in this study agreed that the course should be made compulsory to all undergraduates not only in UMK but also in all universities in East Coast region. This course also contributed to the ethnics solidarity in Malaysia as the contents are not offensive to any other religions in Malaysia. They also claimed that the teaching approaches applied by lecturers to deliver the course were very effective. Besides, this course succeeded in empowering the students with high intellectual values as well as encouraged them to be more creative and innovative. This course is believed to be able to give positive impacts on students as it encourages the students to use higher order of thinking skills and therefore it should be remained as a compulsory subject in universities.  

Index Terms—philosophy of knowledge, higher learning institutions, east coast universities

Cite: Thana Abdullah, Nawi @ Mohd Nawi Ismail, and Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal, "A Study on the Effectiveness of Teaching Philosophy of Knowledge Course in East Coast Universities of Pen Malaysia," International Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 16-21, June 2015. doi: 10.18178/ijlt.1.1.16-21