:: A blessed 'Eid ul Fitr to all ::

Its really sad that Ramadhan has come to its end, we never know whether or not we will meet the next year's Ramadhan, let us pray that this is not our last Ramadhan, insyaAllaah, ameen.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish every muslim and especially to all reader of this blog, may you had a blessed Eid ul Fitr this year, may Allah accept all our good deeds, insyaAllaah. Most importantly, I would like to seek forgiveness from all of you if I have done anything wrong, that might hurt you, by words, or actions, please forgive me, please forgive me.. thank you.

Raya wish from Jajai

Family Jajai, my anak sedara :-) Thank you jai, selamat hari raya to you too...

Wishing you a blessed Ramadhon

Alhamdulillah, Ramadhon here you come again. From the City of Sails, I wish every Muslim a happy and blessed Ramadhon, may Allah accept our effort and good deeds, insya'Allaah. Let us strive to seek for HIS pleasure in this holy month, a month wherein lies a night better than a thousands months.

Big Bear Award from Jajai

Better late than never.. hehehe sorri yer jajai achik ker orang terakhir amik award nih.. ekekek belum expired kan

Puisi untuk tanahair ku tercinta

Di Bumi Malaysia aku dilahirkan
Dibesarkan hingga aku dewasa
Hingga aku kenal erti hidup
Hingga aku ditinggalkan
bersama makna hidup yg sementara

Aku merantau jauh menggarap sebuah harapan
Menggalas si sang tanggungjawab
Tanpa lelah
Tanpa lesu
Tanpa jemu dan putus asa

Aku teruskan langkah hidup
Demi langkah
Kadang-kadang teratur
Kadang-kadang tidak
Itulah ketetapan Ilahi
Kerana aku bukan lama di sini

Aku akan pulang ke sisimu tanahairku tercinta
Rindu pada semua yg kutinggalkan
Aku perlukan doa
Jangan aku dilupakan dalam doa-doa mu
Tuhan kan sentiasa mendengar
permintaan hamba-hambaNya
Maka berdoalah
Berdoalah siang dan malam
Pagi dan petang
Hingga ke hembusan hayat terakhir

Tuhan,
Berikanlah kami kejayaan
Dalam perjuangan ini
Janganlah jauhkan kami dari sisi rahmatMU
Yang tak bertepi
Jangan jua jauhkan kami dari kasih sayangMU
Kerana itulah kekuatan yg kami miliki
Buat bekal hingga kami kembali kepadaMU
Amen.

10.16am, 30 Sha’ban 1429H

Meta-Analysis :: Aktiviti Perkongsian Ilmu ;-)

I did mentioned about meta-analysis once in my blog entry last year. While it is still fresh in my mind, I would like to share about this. I have recently completed two meta-analysis of pair programming (PP) effectiveness for the PP studies conducted in higher education settings. First of all, you need to know what is meta-analysis, what is it for, and whether you need to do it or not. Once you understand the major purpose of doing a meta-analysis, you should then identify how to carry it out. Well, here is a brief explanation about meta-analysis (refer to references for further info):

• What is a meta-analysis

In the simplest way, meta-analysis can be defined as a method or approach to combine findings from several independent (but homogeneous) studies for the purpose to estimate which intervention is more effective. Meta-analysis has been used extensively for research in medicine to confirm about the effectiveness of certain healthcare intervention normally thru several randomised controlled trials. As for my case, I am studying about how effective has PP been within a higher education setting. In particular, how effective has PP been in helping students achieving better scores in their assignments and final exams, compared with solo programming.

Meta-analysis (MA) involves 3 major steps:

1. Decides which studies to be included in the MA.
2. Estimate an effect size for each an individual study.
3. Combine the effect size from the individual studies

So, another terminology that you must understand: effect size. Here is the definition from the Wikepedia: In statistics, effect size is a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables. In scientific experiments, it is often useful to know not only whether an experiment has a statistically significant effect, but also the size of any observed effects. In practical situations, effect sizes are helpful for making decisions. Effect size measures are the common currency of meta-analysis studies that summarize the findings from a specific area of research.
The effect size can be measured in two ways:

1. by a standardized difference (if the study has comparison) OR
   
2. by a measure of association (i.e. correlation coefficient)

The choice of an indicator of effect size depends on the type of studies included in your MA. For my case, I am using the standardized difference of means to calculate the effect size because I'm having two different group of studies: experimental group (PP) Vs Controlled group (solo).

Using the Cohen's formula, effect size can be calculated as:
d = M₁ - M₂ / s

where s = Ö[å(X - M)² / N]

where X is the raw score, M is the mean, and N is the number of cases.

While using Hedges formula, Hedges g = M₁ - M₂ / S_pooled

where S = Ö[å(X - M)² / N-1]

and, S_pooled = ÖMSwithin

No worries about this, as long as you know which calculation of effect size is relevant to your case. Usually MA software have the abilities to generate the effect size and what more important is you must be able to interpret the overall effect size produced by the software :-)

• So, what software can I use?

From my little knowledge and observation, there are several MA software available out there, some of which are publicly accessible :-D and surely some are commercial ($$$ maah)

The one that I'm using now is MIX version 1.7, a MA software developed by Lion Bax and his fellows at Kitasato Clinical Research Center, Kitasato University, Japan. I highly recommend the use of MIX, not only because it is FREE :-), I found that it was easier to be used when compared with other software. Other available MA software (commercial use) : Comprehensive Meta Analysis 2.0, MetAnalysis, MetaWin, WEasyMA. Others open source MA sofware: EpiMeta, Meta-Stat, RevMan etc.

• Results of our MA

The following forest plot was generated using MIX1.7. The interpretation of the graph is available in my paper, which is still in the writing stage. I will share the write up of the results when I finish with the paper. insya'Allaah.



References:
[1] http://www.cemcentre.org/renderpage.asp?linkID=30325015
[2] L.M. Pickard et al. "Combining Empirical Results in Software Engineering", Information & Software Technology, vol. 40, pp. 811-821, 1998.
[3] http://wilderdom.com/research/effectsizes.html
[4] http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2048970
[5] http://www.mix-for-meta-analysis.info/index.html

Headache me?

I am having a strange headache today, actually since Yesterday. I am sure that I had enough sleep, or sometimes even terlebih sleep.. ahaha.. I don't need to be pathetic about this. I know exactly what was the reason. I am overwork?? ahah.. Yes, yes, you got it rite! Recent meeting with my sup. gave me another pile of work to do. I've to complete the SR cycle for the period between August and December 2007..Oh letihnya.......................! Courage...I need it, I need it very much! If not because of the TSE, I'll never bother to do it.

Reader pls, if you don't understand what the blogger is mumbling, that's orait.. pray for me, pls. that's more than enuf..