Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ perceptions of the levels of distributed leadership (DL) practices and the indicators of school effectiveness (SE) in Egypt and Oman. It also investigated the role of accreditation on these perceptions.

The study sampled 635 teachers in Egypt and Oman using the SE index (Hoy, 2009) and the DL scale (Özer and Beycioğlu, 2013).

The average score of the perceived level of DL practices of school principal and SE indicators showed was below the agreeableness level. DL was shown to be a positive and significant predictor of SE. The Omani teachers had a significantly higher perception of the availability of DL in their schools and of their schools’ effectiveness than the Egyptian teachers. The results also gave support to the belief that the school accreditation process is a way to increase DL in schools and also to increase the indicators of SE.

One implication of the findings is the need for training school principals on DL practices that can potentially enhance SE. Another implication is a wider adoption of accreditation practices.

This study provides empirical evidence about teachers’ perceptions of the availability of SE and DL in schools in two Middle Eastern countries, Egypt and Oman. It also adds support to the belief in the importance of the role of accreditation in increasing SE and DL practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the school‐based learning mentoring of a senior teacher of English in Oman, who was conducting action research into her mentoring practices while engaged in part‐time in‐service language teacher education. The senior teacher realized teachers in her school found post‐lesson discussions in English with inspectors challenging and, using video‐stimulated recall, tried to help them become more reflective.

Qualitative case study research methodology: semi‐structured interviews provide insights into the senior teacher's perceptions of her own development and professional knowledge of reflective practice and mentoring. They also provide oral accounts of her action research, written accounts of which are provided by reflective writing. Audio‐recordings and transcripts of post‐lesson discussions, triangulated with classroom observation, provide evidence of mentoring practices.

The senior teacher developed creative and flexible solutions to the challenges she faced, in the process gaining confidence and assuming mentor identity. Various factors helped, including a supportive environment, the in‐service teacher education course and engagement with video‐stimulated recall.

Despite methodological limitations, including limited observational data and use of self‐report, there are implications for socio‐cultural contexts where English has a semi‐official role in mentoring discussions and where there are moves towards reflective models of teacher development.

Video‐stimulated recall may be a particularly effective tool for supporting learning mentoring in contexts where loyalty to the “in‐group” encourages sharing. To facilitate learning mentoring, the creation and maintenance of supportive environments appears crucial.

Learning mentors seeking fresh ideas, teacher educators and school managers will find this useful.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what is the most important characteristic that leads to effective teaching in the general education schools in Oman, as perceived by the students.

Methodologically, this research is a survey in nature, using questionnaires for data collection. The sample size consists of 2,628 students from the General Education Schools in most of the regions in Oman. To ensure the reliability and construct validity, this research has applied the principal component analysis (PCA) to determine whether the relevant items have been accordingly loaded on their respective construct. For data analysis, the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) or the measurement model was employed to determine the indictors and factors as well as the predictor that can positively lead to effective teaching and teachers.

In terms of the findings, this research discovered that, the “community relationships” factor is the most important factor that leads to effective teaching and that it predicts an effective teacher in Oman. This indicates that to have effective teaching in Oman from the students' perspectives, the school must involve the society to participate and support the educational process, while an effective teacher should align his/her teaching service with society needs. Teaching strategies were found to be the second factor and predictor for teaching effectiveness.

This research is timely, as the Omani Ministry of Education is striving to achieve quality education. The study described in the paper is aligned with the Ministry's aims and objectives and will be of benefit to the Omani Ministry of education, educational policy‐makers and planners in terms of setting a standard for effective teaching and has provided a model to follow in becoming an effective teacher, according to General Education students in Oman. This paper has bridged gaps in the existing literature on providing characteristics for effective teaching and teachers in Oman. No other paper or research, based on researchers' best knowledge, has dealt with the issue of teaching effectiveness in Oman and presented criteria to follow in determining an effective teacher. Therefore, this research is unique and has taken a bold step to design a model which the Omani government can use as a standard for effective teaching and teachers in Oman.

Dramatic economic, political, and societal changes at local, national, and global levels, along with commitments to achieve Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (UNESCO, 2000), are prompting national education leaders around the world to restructure and reenvision their education systems (OECD, 2008; Olson, 2008). Decentralization is one of the key structural changes governments are using to promote greater efficiency and to increase local participation in education related to decision making, finances, and accountability in schools. As the Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Sultanate of Oman makes the shift to a decentralized structure, it recognizes that its school administrators require new leadership skills in order to make the necessary changes. Implementing decentralization requires a shift in principals' work and thus their professional identity. “By building the leadership capacity of principals as leaders at the school level, (Oman's) MOE officials hope to strengthen the principals' ability to implement school reforms for the 21st century” (Seward International, Inc., 2008, p. 6).

This paper aims to explore and analyze the various consumer socialization agents for the young Omani Arab children, who play a key role in the family purchase process.

A mixed method research approach was adopted in the form of a survey and short interviews for the study. The study was performed on the children in the age group of 7-14 years, enrolled in Omani schools. The socialization factors were grouped through the exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis was conducted to assess the impact of the factors on the purchase of various product categories. Finally, short personal interviews with the children were made to validate the results.

A model was proposed incorporating the four different socialization patterns of Omani children involving parents, friends, television and internet. The model was tested with the purchase of different product categories through multiple regression analysis. The results supported the parents, television and friends while rejected the internet as a means of socialization of Omani children. The qualitative analysis also revealed the same results, further incorporating the role of other family members in the socialization of the children.

A research gap exists in the consumer literature related to the Arab child socialization as the previous scholars had contributed mainly in the developed Western context, hence, demanding further research studies in the young Arab consumers’ perspective.

Being the first of its type in the regional context, the research is important for the researchers who wish to understand the socialization process and its agents for the Omani Arab children. The research provides insights about the psychology of Omani children towards the products, which can aid the marketers to design appropriate marketing programmes targeting the growing child segment in the Arab world.

A significant research gap exists and suggests a research study on the patterns of socialization of the Arab children as no similar research had been previously conducted related to this context on child socialization. This research will serve as a base for future research studies in the socialization and purchase behavior of the Arab children.

This paper examines how politeness strategies are used in Omani schools and professional development classrooms. It is a qualitative study following an interactional sociolinguistic analysis approach. The study adopts Brown and Levinson (1987) model to analyse the use of politeness and the notion of face in two different contexts.

This is a qualitative study because it includes descriptive findings. It will follow an interactional sociolinguistic analysis approach and adopts Brown and Levinson (1987) model to analyse the use of politeness and the notion of face in two different contexts. It aims at studying student–teacher interaction in two different groups: Omani private school and Professional development Academy. Two classes will be attended in the school and two classes in the Academy. A mix of female and male teachers from both groups will be observed. The first age group is young learners of grades 7 and 9 and the age range of the second group is adult learners aged between 25 and 40 years old.

The results are as follows: young learners want to be perceived with their positive face while adult learners with negative face. More face saving acts (FSA) are performed by teachers than face threatening acts (FTAs). More FTAs are performed by young students than adult students. More FSAs are performed than FTAs by female teachers than their counterparts. All teachers agreed that when their face is put into threat, they will save it even if it meant putting the student's face in threat. These results imply that there is a big awareness of politeness and face in the modern day Omani classroom in different contexts and that teachers are actually using it and trying to help students to be aware of it.

The findings of this study will reverberate throughout the field of education and pedagogical techniques since before this study, there has not been sufficient investigation exploring politeness strategies or FSAs of adults in this age group in Oman. In fact, there have not been sufficient studies conducted in this area in Oman within all age groups. To this purpose, this paper will contribute to the existing literature in this field by examining how politeness strategies are used and factors that directly affect their use in the classroom in a new context, Oman. Moreover, the analysis that is presented in this study conveys valuable information for future research exploring this topic but within a broader age range and a bigger sample.

Explains that the Sultanate of Oman is the only country in the world, other than the UK, to have adopted the national vocational qualification (NVQ) as its national system for vocational training. Assesses the extent to which centres in Oman have been successful in implementing the NVQ, and the extent to which the NVQ has contributed towards achievement of the Omani Government’s objective of omanisation (replacing expatriate labour with Omani nationals). Discusses feedback from centres, which should be of interest to the Omani Government, the UK awarding bodies and others with an interest in the implementation of competence‐based training. Concludes that the NVQ has been fairly successful in Oman, although local culture and context have not been adequately considered and catered for, and that the generally low competence of candidates in English is hindering their learning and skills development.

This paper sheds light on one of the educational projects that was launched by Ministry of Education (MOE) in Oman in the academic year 2007–2008. The project, which is called the “Cognitive Development Program for Students in Science, Mathematics, and Concepts of Environmental Geography”, was introduced in 741 government schools in response to the low national score in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2007. Hence, the main aim of the program is to develop the students’ science and mathematics capabilities in order to improve their levels in mathematics and science and to give further emphasis to these skills that form the basis of the rapidly changing world. This paper endeavors to acquaint the Gulf Cooperation Council countries with the nature of this program. It also focuses on the impact this program has on mathematics and science teachers’ and on students’ achievements in mathematics, science, and concepts of environmental geography. To achieve this goal, two questionnaires – one for teachers and the other for students – are conducted to measure the effectiveness of the Cognitive Development Program from teachers’ and students’ perspectives. The results of the questionnaires showed that the program has remarkably affected both teachers and students. One of the positive effects of this program was that it has encouraged the teachers to be always updated about what is new in these subject areas and the students are exposed to questions that test their synthesis. However, there are a number of drawbacks to this program from teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Constructive feedback for the program developers and supervisors in the MOE to base improvement is provided.

The purpose of the current study is to assess Omani teachers’ performance on tasks related to the stages of engineering design. To achieve this, data from an engineering design test was used, and demographic variables that are correlated with this performance were identified.

This descriptive study employed a cross-sectional design and the collection of quantitative data. A sample of preservice science teachers from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) (n = 70) participated in this study.

Findings showed low and moderate levels of proficiency related to the stages of engineering design. Differences between males and females in terms of performance on engineering design tasks were found, with females scoring higher overall on the assessment. Biology preservice teachers scored higher than teachers from the other two majors (physics and chemistry) in two subscales. There were also differences between teachers studying in the Bachelor of Science (BSc) program and the teacher qualification diploma (TQD) program.

This study provides an overview, in an Arab setting, of preservice science teachers’ proficiency with engineering design process (EDP) tasks. It is hoped that the results may lead to improved instruction in science teacher training programs in similar contexts. Additionally, this research demonstrates how EDP competency relates to preservice teacher gender, major and preparation program. Findings from this study will contribute to the growing body of research investigating the strengths and shortcomings of teacher education programs in relation to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

The accreditation process of academic programs is being used more to recognize program quality and identify areas for improvement based on rigorous standards. This study aims to use the standards of the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) as a theoretical and analytical framework to examine the effectiveness and areas for improvement of the teacher education program at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman.

A multiple case-study design is used to investigate the cases of 16 novice program completers. Data is collected using nonparticipant observation and semistructured interviews with 48 key stakeholders: program completers, their educational supervisors and school principals.

Results show that, overall, the program is effective in preparing future teachers to enter the teaching profession, especially in the subject and pedagogical content knowledge, and that stakeholders are generally satisfied with the program. However, about a third believe the program lacks relevance to the responsibilities teachers face on the job and some “technical” skills needed in practice.

First, the findings are limited by the small number of completers’ cases from one teacher education program. Therefore, the authors recommend that future studies should include larger samples of novice teachers graduating from different teacher education programs. Second, the study is limited by focusing only on stakeholders’ perspectives, and teacher observation through CAEP informed categories related to standards 1, 4 and 5. So future research can tell more to the story by uncovering other CAEP standards to provide a more comprehensive view.

The findings of this study are expected to contribute to the existing pool of knowledge on the utility of using international accreditation frameworks, not only as a means to measure the effectiveness of teacher education programs but also to develop such programs according to an internationally recognized set of quality standards. The results may also contribute to the discourse on whether the Madonlization of CAEP standards is a useless business for Arabic-speaking countries.

As elsewhere in the Arab region, education has been placed at the core of the Oman 2040 vision, which prioritizes the improvement of educational outcomes as Oman’s gateway to becoming a developed country. Therefore, it has become clear that teacher education programs need to be subject to scrutiny to ensure that they produce highly qualified teachers. While reform initiatives have raised concerns about the quality of teacher performance in Omani schools, little attention has been given to the effectiveness of teacher education programs in the country.

These results are discussed through three main themes related to the role of teacher preparation programs in the Arab region from a standards-based perspective: they need to be viewed as a rite of passage for all teachers to provide them with only the threshold competence to commence the professional teaching performance, there is a need for more authentic and safe learning experiences in these programs, and finally, there is a need for continuous adjustment of courses in these programs to perfect the “potion” that makes them more effective and relevant.