Social support was an important factor in minimizing the effect of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. This research aimed to study the role of online class participation and social media usage to link the social support available from family and friends to psychological resilience among pre-service special education teachers against the negative psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. A survey was conducted with 377 pre-service special needs education (SNE) teachers enrolled at universities in Pakistan. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied using Smart-PLS 3.2.8. Results revealed that social media and online class participation played a mediating role between social support and psychological resilience in the pre-service special needs education (SNE) teachers studied. Teacher education institutions can devise strategies to develop social media platforms for student socialization during an emergency to help build resilience against the negative psychological effects of social isolation. Future studies could be conducted to adapt instructions and curricula to social media environments for education in an emergency.

The development of health sciences researchers has immense significance during a pandemic to control, manage, and prevent future outbreaks of the disease. This study focused on the use of social media tools (SMT) among pre-service health sciences researchers to complement their research competencies (RCT) and research completion levels (RC) during COVID-19. This study used the Vitae research development framework (RDF) to measure research competencies as a mediator between the use of social media tools and research completion levels among post-graduate health sciences students. A cross-section survey research approach was adopted to collect data from the post-graduate students (n = 410) enrolled in health sciences departments at universities in Pakistan. The SmartPLS 3.3.8 software was used to analyze data through Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results revealed that different social media tools such as communication, information management, and multimedia have a direct influence on the research competencies of the pre-service researchers and have an indirect effect on the research completion levels. Health sciences institutions may devise social-media-based instructional strategies to develop post-graduate students’ research competencies, such as personal effectiveness, research governance, and research engagement, to help them compile their research and complete their degree program in time during an emergency.

Purpose – By studying the leadership role of management and faculty in a Pakistani University to find out gaps in the delivery of technology integrated services in enrolment and advisory capacity offered at the beginning of every new term at the University of Central Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan, this paper seeks to find the impact of the process of service delivery on customer loyalty and positive word of mouth, the key objectives for attaining quality. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed methods approach, comprising survey and interviews were used to investigate customer satisfaction. Factorial analysis and SEM modeling was applied to quantitative data, whereas coding and interpretive analysis were used for qualitative data. Findings – The results highlight the differences in leadership style adopted by management and faculty. The SEM model suggests that, as long as students lack autonomy and perceive a lack of empowerment of faculty, their satisfaction with the enrolment and advisory services will be affected negatively and will result in negative outcomes on word of mouth. Research limitations/implications – The small sample and contextual nature of study limit the scope of generalization. However, the analysis contributes toward improving the leadership approach of Pakistani management and faculty at private universities. Originality/value – The study identifies the challenges faced by the management in providing customer satisfaction with the services by approaching the problem from a different angle, i.e. leaders' use of their cognitive resources and their relationship focusing on customer satisfaction. It extends the research literature on leadership styles as being applicable to student services available.

A study was conducted to develop the research instrument for evaluating the Performance Appraisal System (PAS) at public higher secondary schools in Punjab. Data were collected from the three divisions total (N=900) male and female teachers of public schools using a multi-stage sampling technique. The questionnaire was founded on the factors elaborated in the Performance Evaluation Report (PER), National Professional Standards (NPS) for teachers. This scale is extended to evaluate the satisfaction of the teachers with the performance appraisal process. The factors taken from PER are classroom management, quality of teaching, motivation, teamwork, and punctuality, whereas Awareness, Satisfaction with PAS, Dissatisfaction with PAS, and Need for Improvement were added by the researchers to evaluate the PAS process. Performance Appraisal Scale for higher secondary school teachers (PAS-HSSTs) contained 57 items. The experts' opinion was sought to check for content validity, and a pilot study was performed with 300 teachers from public higher secondary schools. The reliability coefficient (Cronbach alpha) of the instrument was .866 for the pilot and .883 for final data. Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) was used for the validation of the instrument (PAS-HSSTs) using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The factor loadings of all items used in the scale were well above the threshold value 0.35. The SEM results indicated that Fit indices for PAS resulted in an acceptable model fit.

Einstein said that darkness is absence of light. It is assumed that absence of leadership or misappropriation of leadership characteristics and behaviors results in Dark leadership, and it is the system that produces a culture in which dark side of leadership becomes acceptable. In this chapter, I would be exploring the role of middle leadership (school heads, district education officers, and administrative officers) of school education department in Punjab. The chapter is based upon a qualitative study with in-service school teachers and school heads. The critical incident technique was used to collect data, and interpretive analysis was used to interpret data at various levels from coding to themes generation and interpretation of the phenomenon, dark side of leadership. Goleman’s Dark Triad comprising, authoritarian, narcissistic, and psychopathic, provide theoretical basis of the analysis. The results are shared in a story form progressively supplemented with the evidence generating discourse about the dark side of leadership in the educational settings of Punjab. The study acts like a mirror shedding lights into the deep and dark corners of leadership making them aware of their creepy existence and challenging them to create meaningful acceptance for themselves by coming into light and leaving the dark behind.