Research identifying adults’ mental health during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic relies solely on demographic predictors without examining adults’ health condition as a potential predictor. This study aims to examine individuals’ perception of health conditions and test availability as potential predictors of mental health—insomnia, anxiety, depression, and distress—during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey of 669 adults in Malaysia was conducted during 2–8 May 2020, six weeks after the Movement Control Order (MCO) was issued. We found adults’ perception of health conditions had curvilinear relationships (horizontally reversed J-shaped) with insomnia, anxiety, depression, and distress. Perceived test availability for COVID-19 also had curvilinear relationships (horizontally reversed J-shaped) with anxiety and depression. Younger adults reported worse mental health, but people from various religions and ethnic groups did not differ significantly in reported mental health. The results indicated that adults with worse health conditions had more mental health problems, and the worse degree deepened for unhealthy people. Perceived test availability negatively predicted anxiety and depression, especially for adults perceiving COVID-19 test unavailability. The significant predictions of perceived health condition and perceived COVID-19 test availability suggest a new direction for the literature to identify the psychiatric risk factors directly from health-related variables during a pandemic.

Purpose: This study aims to examine the status of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Malaysia and entrepreneurship education programmes (EEPs) offered by Malaysian public and private higher education institutions (HEIs), against the backdrop of macro-level context of Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approach: This study replicates and extends the research by Maritz et al. (2015, 2019). The study expands a nascent archetype regarding an iterative and systematic open-ended emergent enquiry, together with data collection from Malaysian HEIs.Findings: The findings suggest significant emergence of EE (programmes and research) in Malaysia, despite EEPs being sparsely distributed across HEIs in the bottom half of Table 1. The top ten HEIs (12% of all HEIs in Table 1) accounted for 35% of all EEPs. This study highlights the significant influence of Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship on EE and EEPs.Research limitations/implications: The findings are subject to the availability and accuracy of information and documents available on official websites of HEIs. This limitation has been mitigated with telephone and email inquiries and other sources of information.Practical implications: The findings provide critical grounding and inferences on the status of EE and EEPs in Malaysia for researchers, practitioners, HEIs, governments and other stakeholders.Originality/value: This study is first of its kind on emergent enquiry into the status of EE in Malaysia and EEPs offered by 19 public HEIs and 67 private HEIs in Malaysia. Moreover, this study links macro-level context of the Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship with micro-level context of EE and EEPs.

Background: The available evidence suggests that women were more likely to wear face masks as a precaution during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, few studies have explicated this gender disparity in wearing face masks. This study investigates associations of demographic factors with wearing face masks in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic, then explicates gender disparity in wearing face masks from the lens of the Protection Motivation Theory. Methods: The first part of this study employed a structured online survey of 708 Malaysian adult participants. Data collected were quantitatively analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multiple linear regression. The second part of this study was conducted among 28 women to better understand gender disparity in protection motivations from the perspectives of women. Results: Gender has the strongest positive association with wearing face masks (p-value < .001), followed by age (p-value = .028). The Protection Motivation Theory adequately explicated the gender disparity in wearing face masks. Additionally, women were motivated to wear face masks beyond protection from the SARS-CoV-2. Conclusion: Understanding the underlying motivations for wearing face masks informs design of gender-based public health messages to increase compliance with public health regulations and reduce morbidity and mortality for present and future public health crises.

Research on new venture creation is often criticised for its deficits of theoretical sophistication and methodological rigour. This paper develops a framework by combining the values theory and the intention theory and validates it by conducting a rigorous structural equation modelling analysis based on responses obtained from 355 Malaysian entrepreneurship undergraduates. The individualistic values of openness to change as the salient motivational factor of entrepreneurship undergraduates’ entrepreneurial intention over and above the demographic control variables suggested by extant body of literature contributes to a cumulative knowledge about motivations for entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, in the context of Malaysia, ethnicity does not moderate the relationship from openness to change to entrepreneurial intention. A clearer understanding of the salient dimension of individualistic values on entrepreneurship undergraduates’ entrepreneurial intentions allows various entrepreneurship stakeholders to distinguish potential future entrepreneurs prior to their emergence. This valuable insight has the potential to inform substantive entrepreneurship knowledge and practice, entrepreneurship education and public policy to promote entrepreneurship among undergraduates at the pre-nascent stage of entrepreneurship.

The sudden switch to emergency remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic posed many challenges for learners, but it also provided the opportunity to research these challenges. This study empirically examines the relationships of the contextual challenges of emergency remote learning with future preference for e-learning, as well as moderating effects of learning outcomes on future preference for e-learning of undergraduates during the closure of Higher Education Institutions. Participants were drawn from two universities in Malaysia practising emergency remote learning during the survey period. Underpinned by the literature, the challenges of emergency remote learning and future preference for e-learning were operationalised into items reflective of each factor. In total, 352 valid responses were collected via a self-administered questionnaire hosted on Google Forms, and responses were analysed with Eviews statistical software. In this study, the significant challenges associated with future preference for e-learning, in descending order, were disadvantages (negative), learning outcomes, and advantages. Additionally, the interaction between learning outcomes and disadvantages has a positive relationship, reversing the original negative relationship of disadvantages with future preference for e-learning. Sustainability of higher education in times of crisis is critical. This study provides valuable insights concerning the importance of achieving learning outcomes in order to support sustainable higher education using emergency remote learning during similar future crises.

Purpose: This study identified salient challenges related to future preference for e-learning of undergraduates during closure of institutions of higher learning due to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and put forth suggestions to overcome challenges of e-learning for present and future crises.Design/methodology/approach: Undergraduates were drawn from two universities in Malaysia who normally attend conventional classroom learning. Underpinned by the literature, the challenges and future preference for e-learning were operationalised into statements. Data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire hosted on Google Forms and were analysed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and STATA statistical software.Findings: The hierarchical multiple linear regression results showed that the salient challenges related to undergraduates' future preference for e-learning, in descending order, were learning outcomes, followed by disadvantages (negatively) and discipline. Moreover, there were nuanced gender differences on the relative importance of salient challenges related to future preference for e-learning.Research limitations/implications: Because the literature on e-learning during the closure of institutions of learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic is evolving, some salient challenges may not be captured in this study. Next, this survey was carried out in July 2020 when all courses were conducted using one hundred per cent e-learning for the first time. Hence, future replication studies may produce different results. Lastly, findings are not generalisable to other contexts as the salient challenges may be unique to the Malaysian context.Practical implications: Concerted efforts by all stakeholders to address these salient challenges will shift e-learning in higher education closer to a panacea during present and future crises.Originality/value: The sudden and involuntary switch from face-to-face learning to e-learning during the closure of institutions of higher learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic provided opportunity to research the salient challenges encountered by undergraduates and to overcome these salient challenges.