http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/127 Annual Research sessions held in the year 2016 Mon, 20 Apr 2026 02:34:54 GMT 2026-04-20T02:34:54Z http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/284 Annual Research Session – 2016 Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/284 2016-12-15T00:00:00Z http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/283 Motivation for Learning English among Science Undergraduates in Sri Lanka: An Investigation into the Second Language Learners’ Selves, Goals and Attitudes Prasangani, K.S.N; Nadarajan, Shanthi That English language education and university designed English courses need to be changed to address the learner needs, wants and lacks to meet the requirements of globalization is a known issue in Sri Lanka, but there is a very little empirical evidence to show the issue. The identification of learner needs, wants and lacks with relation to English learning motivation at the university level remains very important for the peace building and nation building process of Sri Lanka. The failure of addressing learners’ needs and wants (specially among rural youth) caused for the civil unrest of the country for decades. In fact, this thesis investigates the factors affecting on the English learning motivation of the Sri Lankan public university youth. This thesis uses an existing psychological construct of L2 Motivational Self System to investigate the factors affecting on the English learning motivation of the Sri Lankan science undergraduates. By utilizing the construct, the study aims to determine the primary factors that affect for the Sri Lankan science undergraduates’ English learning motivation, to analyse the differences in terms of factors affecting for L2 learner motivation based on the urban and rural needs and to evaluate the differences between factors according to war affected and non-war affected learner backgrounds. This study uses a quantitative approach to arrive at the major aims. Data were collected from 918 Sri Lankan university students through a questionnaire study. The two-part questionnaire looked at the motivated learning behaviour, ideal L2 self, ought to L2 self, social goals, mastery goals, performance goals, attitudes toward learning English and attitudes toward L2 community. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used as the major analytical tool for the identification of causative relationships between the factors and to develop the comparative models. The results of the study provided substantial support for the validity and usefulness of L2 Motivational Self System in the Sri Lanka context. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is the strongest contribution of the ideal L2 self in science undergraduates’ English learning motivation. It was also shown that the ideal L2 self is the strongest contributory factor of rural and war affected science undergraduates’ motivation compared the urban and non-war affected science undergraduates’ motivation. The second major finding was that the significant contribution of social goals to examine the Sri Lankan science undergraduates’ English learning motivation. In sum up the findings suggest the personal and contextual factors affecting for the English learning motivation of the Sri Lankan science undergraduates. These findings have important implications for the Sri Lankan universities, education policy and L2 motivation theory. Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/283 2016-12-15T00:00:00Z http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/280 Constructing an Index to Measure the Aggregate Capacity to Climate Change in Sri Lanka Thathsarani, U.S; Gunaratne, L.H.P Climate change is considered as the major threat to the human beings in the future. Vulnerability to the climate change refers to the potential of a system to be harmed by an external threat and it is a function of exposure, sensitivity to impacts and the ability or lack of ability to cope or adapt. Adaptive capacity represents the ability of a region or community to cope with and thrive in the face of change. Communities vary in their physical exposure to threats, and it is widely recognized that adaptation is place, culture, and issue specific. This means that strategies to facilitate and enhance adaptive capacity also must attend to context and recognize that capacities do not exist or are not developed uniformly across all communities. In this context, an attempt has been made to construct index to measure the adaptive capacity for the district level aggregate data. The data were obtained from Sri Lanka Household and Expenditure Survey results in 2009/2010, covering 25000 households. Constructing index raises several problems in the aggregation including the decision of assigning weights to the selected assets. One purpose of this research is to demonstrate a method of aggregating adaptive capacity indicators that result in a composite index. Weighted Principal Components Analysis (WPCA) is performed on assets and variables for the indicators in district level aggregation data. Constructed index shown in the analysis that the positive relationship between adaptive capacity and social assets are clearly followed by economic assets and physical assets, but human assets have been attributed a negative association. Batticaloa, Jaffna, Ampara, Moneragala, Trincomalee, Vavuniya and Puttlam districts had lower adaptive capacity, along with Colombo and Gampaha had a higher level of adaptive capacity. Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/280 2016-12-15T00:00:00Z http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/278 The Sinhalese Perspective of Old Age; a Sociological Analysis Welgama, Jayaprasad; de Silva, Amarasiri Sri Lanka is unique as the fastest aging nation in South Asia with its regionally unparalleled indicators of social development. Social gerontological theory proposes ageing as a socially constructed entity varying across cultures. Adopting the new paradigm of anthropology which posits culture as a totality actively constructed by the human actors, the study captured the socially constructed culturally specific experiences of Sinhalese old age. Dimensions of elderly experience analyzed in the study include elderly activity, religiosity, attitudes, coping and successful aging, elderly problems and issues of welfare. The study focused on the elderly experiences both in the spheres of family and work, and was sensitive to diversity of experiences across gender, age and cultural- ecological settings. This research employed a mixed method approach. The qualitative component of the study employed cultural domain analysis utilized the techniques of free listing and pile sorting (N= 100) aimed at capturing the cultural meaning of ‘being old’. In addition, sixty in-depth qualitative interviews were carried out in 5 selected communities. The quantitative data were collected in a survey of 400 elders (N=400) in households randomly selected from the five cultural geographical zones of urban, semi-urban, estate, rural/traditional villages and agricultural colonization schemes in the Districts of Colombo, Kalutara, and Rathnapura. Cultural domain analysis enabled finding 68 culturally meaningful traits and five elder types namely ‘family oriented positive’, ‘predominantly religious’, ‘active and integrated’ , ‘sick and disintegrated’ and ‘life style elders.’ Elderly experience pertaining to said fields of analysis is reflective of variations pertaining to gender, age and culturalecological zones. The patterns of engagement and disengagement varied across the living sectors. Majority of elders were active in their old age. Disengagement was a process in which activities were replaced and shadowed meaningfully. Majority of Sinhalese elders show a high level of religiosity with sector wise variations. Female elders were more religious and were more emotionally involved with the religion compared to male counterparts. Religion is one of the most prominent coping mechanism and key means of maintaining solidarity among elders. Elders show a vast attitudinal diversity as some elder attitudes changed on the basis of living sector and gender. This study strongly suggests that all elderly problems are closely bound with their living socio-cultural and physical environment, and whatever the approaches for resolution of elder-related problems should be sensitive to the ecological setting they live in. Clear majority of problems impact more on female elders. Elderly experience suggests that strengthening the family economy and, inter and intra- familial relations and community based welfare should be considered as an integral parts of Sinhalese culture based elderly welfare. The Sinhalese experience of aging stands in contrast to the Western model of ‘new ageing’ as the two models view embodiment of old age differently. The Sinhalese old age is a phenomenon highly integrated with family and community which is considerably distant to the ‘ageing’ in Western, modernized world. Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://repo.lib.sab.ac.lk:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/278 2016-12-15T00:00:00Z