As a result of the increasing interest of the Saudi government in developing its people by education, it has begun in its projects and vision statements to promote a culture of dialogue; hence educators are now expected to make dialogue a routine practice in their work, particularly in the religious education curricula at Saudi universities. The present research makes both a theoretical and an empirical contribution to understanding the Saudi understanding of the concept of dialogue and in relation to one particular context through studying understandings of dialogue and its practices in an Islamic community. Theoretical understandings of dialogue include a consideration of the writings of Buber, Bakhtin, and Freire, and how understandings of dialogue are refracted differently when understood within the context of an ongoing tradition of inquiry, through the writings of MacIntyre and specifically Islamic traditions of inquiry, as investigated by Asad. Within the Islamic tradition, the significance of dialogue is analysed through the works of al-Ghazali. This study also investigated the practices of dialogue in religious education courses at a university and their relation to Saudi educational policy, the aims of establishing a center for national dialogue, and the current understanding and present practices of dialogue within the Saudi community and between university teachers and their students. The empirical research applied a case study methodology and took a sociocultural approach: data were collected via interviews, classroom observations and textual analysis. The findings indicate that, while Islam and the Saudi government are obviously interested in dialogue – with some restrictions – those concerned are unclear about the concept of dialogue and its practicing. This implies that the Saudi people need enough spaces to practice dialogue. The findings illustrate the value of higher education, its teachers, classrooms and activities which need to be improved in order to increase opportunities to practice dialogue.

Economic, social, technological and educational factors have led to an increase in the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in education at all levels. Most research concerning this has focused on the way in which e-learning can be used to improve teaching and learning across the curriculum and has neglected the teaching of ICT as a subject (Hammond, 2004). In a 1999 Ofsted inspection, ICT was found to be the least well taught subject in primary schools. The present research considers how the teaching of ICT could be better supported in the UK and Saudi Arabia. In the first stage, an investigation was made of the teaching of ICT in UK primary schools to understand why its teaching had been rated unfavourably. It was discovered that teaching focused on technical aspects (i.e. how to use specific applications) whilst ignoring the communication and information parts. Although it has been argued widely that e-learning improves teaching and learning across the curriculum, observations showed that e-learning was not, in itself, used to support teaching of the ICT curriculum. Hence, this research explored the ways in which the teaching of the ICT curriculum (to 9-11 year olds) could be made more effective, particularly through the incorporation of e-learning material. It was hypothesized that the experience of teaching and learning could be enhanced if e-learning material was designed which specifically addressed the needs of the teachers and young learners. Evidence collected in the course of the research suggested that little material existed to support the ICT curriculum, and that e-learning material produced to support other subjects does not always suit the teachers’ needs. Therefore in the second stage of the research, a design approach that engaged end users (teachers and young students) was proposed which was tested and refined during the design of e-learning material to support the teaching of the Multimedia Unit of the ICT National Curriculum. The resulting e-learning material was evaluated in UK schools to determine the extent to which it satisfied user needs and its effectiveness in teaching the intended learning outcomes. The results in both cases were positive implying that such a method could lead to the production of useful supportive material. As a former Saudi Arabian computer teacher, one of my personal goals was to provide opportunities to improve the experience of teachers and children in my own country. As such I have been interested in how I can transfer my understanding of the UK educational system to my home country. Following the successful evaluation of the elearning material in the UK, a demonstration of how a child centred design approach can be used to design effective educational material. Unfortunately although such a process might produce more effective learning outcomes and pleasurable material, I also found that such an approach is considered incompatible with commercial design environments. In the last stage of the thesis strategies are discussed which could be used (particularly in Saudi Arabia) to encourage the producers of educational materials to engage in the design of more effective teaching and learning experiences, especially in relation to the primary ICT curriculum. One such strategy would be to train undergraduates in applying a more user centred design approach as an integral part of their practice. The resultant design approach has now been approved by the Director of the Graphic Design Department in Dar Al Hekma Collage (Jeddah – Saudi Arabia) to be taught as a design approach for designing e-learning material for children on the Information Design Course. Additionally, a set of recommendations was developed for the Saudi Ministry of Education addressing the sort of revisions needed to improve the ICT curriculum in Saudi Arabia.

In 2004, the Saudi Higher Education Supreme Council (HESC) established the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA). According to the Secretary General of the NCAAA, introducing this system at the national level was essential for economic and social development in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the NCAAA represents the central focus of this thesis, specifically in relation to the NCAAA’s role in improving the educational process in Saudi higher education institutions (HEIs). The overarching objective was to explore and describe the present engagement within Saudi higher education with the recommendations made by the NCAAA directed towards the enhancement of the quality of student learning, with the intention of identifying whether the attributes of the Saudi higher education system were consistent with these recommendations. This overarching objective was further divided into the following three more specific objectives: a) To explore administrators’ (i.e. faculty deans’) perceptions of the extent to which the recommendations made by the NCAAA have been adopted in two public Saudi universities. b) To explore teachers’ perceptions of their practice, considering comparisons between the two institutions. c) To explore the students’ experiences, again considering comparisons between the two institutions. The above objectives drove the data collection process, and these data constituted the empirical base of the study. The research was conducted in two public universities located in two geographically distinct provinces of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from three groups of stakeholders, including senior administrators, teachers and students. This was done by means of individual interviews with 11 senior administrators and the collection of survey data from 78 teachers and 430 students, who were recruited from 11 faculties across the two institutions. Semi-structured interviews with senior administrators focused on their personal views and opinions of the educational process with respect to student learning, in order to identify the extent to which their faculty/unit was engaged with the NCAAA recommendations. The questions in the teacher and student surveys were derived from the recommendations published by the NCAAA with regard to the improvement of the educational process, and focused on their teaching practice and learning experiences respectively. The qualitative analysis of the administrators’ data suggested some differences in terms of how the two institutions engaged with the NCAAA’s recommendations and thus I adopted a comparative approach to the analysis of the teachers’ and students’ responses. A factor analysis was carried out to further clarify the themes present in the surveys from the perspectives of both teachers and students, and descriptive analyses were then used to explore the extent of resonance with the recommendations of the NCAAA. Inferential statistics were applied to investigate any differences between the two institutions against the outlined themes. The administrators’ responses at both institutions indicated that there was room for improvement in adopting the NCAAA’s recommendations. While the perceptions of teachers at both institutions seemed to suggest compliance with these recommendations, the statements of the students were more congruent with those of the administrators. The findings of the study indicate that there is yet some way to go towards the realisation of the aspirations of the NCAAA. They further suggest the desirability of a greater degree of student involvement in the evaluation of the quality of the educational process. Finally, the transformation of a series of recommendations for quality enhancement into a culture of quality within an individual institution is a process that can be expected to take some time. The study, while indicating a degree of commitment to, and espousal of, the recommendations of the NCAAA, suggests that there is some considerable way to go before this will be seen to impact directly and significantly on the student experience.

The mass media nowadays hold a high position in the educational world, / and have a strong influence over societies. They influence and shape people's thoughts and behaviour. They have been used for a long time in many western countries in drug prevention campaigns, both successfully and unsuccessfully, Drug abuse has recently become a serious problem in Saudi Arabia . At first the Government tried to tackle the problem only by using the police force and without any publications . However, recently the Government has tried to utilize the advantage of the widespread mass media in teaching the population about the dangers of drug abuse. It started to publish a large amount of information about drugs in the mass media. This study is an evaluative research to assess the Saudi Arabian mass media coverage of the drugs issue in two respects. First is a study of the content of the coverage with regard to its presentation, style, and appeal. The second part concentrates on the effect of that coverage on the target audience: Saudi Arabian pupils, their knowledge and attitudes toward drugs, and whether those publications have benefitted them or not. This study has adopted the information-processing model as a theoretical framework. According to that model the first step in the change process is exposure to the message with a certain level of attention, that will lead to increase in knowledge and that automatically will lead to attitude change. The respondents' exposure to the newspaper messages about drugs has been measured and the result indicates that the majority of the respondents received the messages and are interested, like and believe them. Statistical tests indicate that their knowledge about drugs has been increased. Their attitudes have been assessed and the results indicate that most Saudi Arabian pupils aged from 12 to 25 years old have negative attitudes towards drugs. The results indicate that the newspaper coverage of the drugs issue has had some influence upon the Saudi Arabian pupils' knowledge and their attitudes towards drugs.

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia is home to the largest transnational oil corporation and gated suburban residential compound in the world. In exploring Saudi ARAMCO, I will undoubtedly be opening to the centerfold of all socio-cultural, religious, political, economic and pedagogical forces affecting today's geo-political affairs. The theoretical focus of my thesis comes from both a global and critical pedagogy framework that investigates the nature of asymmetrical power relations on micro, meso and macro levels. Additionally, the multiple perspectives I have gained while living in Dhahran and mediating between identities including girl, woman, South-Asian, Canadian, expatriate, student and artist have provided me with particular insights of a hermeneutical, epistemological, narrative, qualitative, phenomenological and visual nature. This has enabled me to perform rich multi-methodological research and informed written analysis. In this way, my thesis hopes to contribute to the examination of this largely un-explored phenomenon.

The globalisation of commerce, alongside growing information on the Internet, has increased the demand of E-Learning (EL). Furthermore, knowledge management (KM) is capable of generating significant organisational/institutional competitive advantages. KM and EL systems contribution to the requirements of education has resulted in their increased demand of their integration across business/academic world. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is one of the most widely used framework of organising levels of expertise. Bloom’s different cognitive domains are based on a hierarchy of learning which progresses from simple to complex and from concrete to abstract. This study considers ways to improve higher education in Saudi Arabia, based on the significant factors (of KM/EL systems) contributing to learner performance and the way in which New Bloom’s Taxonomy could potentially affect/benefit these individual systems; previous academic works will be considered, in an attempt to achieve higher standards of education using this theory/framework. This research presents the value of learning process/tactical approaches, to encourage staff and students to accept the idea of integrating EL and KM factors under New Bloom’s Taxonomy; examples will be given to demonstrate instances where systems have been adopted successfully. To investigate the effectiveness of New Bloom’s Taxonomy on the integration of EL and KM factors in Saudi higher education, a questionnaire methodology was chosen to collect data from experts of both systems; furthermore, the public sector was chosen as it has adopted both systems. Therefore, an integrated framework is proposed.

No description available.

The higher education sector in developing countries is currently facing several challenges generated by a dynamic environment and characterised by rapid technological change and increased demand. This thesis aims to examine the direct and indirect associations between the components of the strategic management, as well as its impact on service quality of university institutions within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Additionally, this thesis tests a mediation effect regarding organisational commitment within the relationship between strategic management and service quality. This thesis employs a quantitative method, and a theoretical model is built based on thorough literature reviews concerning strategic management and service quality. With regard to the findings of the empirical research, six main constructs were successfully validated as multi-dimensional constructs. These were used as within structural equation modelling to analyse influencing factors—be they positive or negative—and the degree to which the creation and operations of such collaborations were successful. The structural paths support hypotheses suggesting that strategic management process has a direct positive influence on organisational commitment and that commitment makes a positive, though weak, contributions to service quality. However, the direct impact of strategy implementation and evaluation upon service quality is insignificant. Furthermore, the result showed a partial mediation between strategic planning and service quality, as well as between strategy formalisation and service quality. However, the relation between implementation and service quality, as well as between evaluation and service equality is fully completed. The proposed model was tested empirically using survey data obtained from those 404 senior managers and academic staff from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Universities who were involved on this study. This thesis synthesises the Social Exchange Theory, Perceived Organisational Support theory and a relational view to explain how commitment influences the Strategic Management process as well as the attributes of Service Quality.

Electronic learning (e-learning) has recently introduced by the Saudi government to expand educational opportunities at higher education level, especially for women. However, due to the status of women in Saudi society, understanding the ability of women to take advantage of such technology rather than just making it available to them is required and should not be ignored. In this regard, this study aims to illuminate the ability of Saudi women to convert the opportunity offered by e-learning into a valuable educational achievement, by identifying the factors that affect their ability and the dimensions that characterise their capability requirements. To achieve this, the study adopts the capability approach as a guiding theoretical framework to provide a strong foundation and address the developmental theoretical insights as well as to demonstrate the ability of Saudi women to access and use e-learning freely in order to achieve their higher educational goals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from twenty-four women living in the Najran and Northern Border regions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using a proxy interview approach. Alkire’s and Robeyns’ techniques, with the support of the Straussian grounded theory procedures, were used to analyse the data collected. The study finds that the ability of Saudi women to convert the opportunity offered by e-learning into a valuable educational achievement is limited and affected by four factors: tribal society culture, cultural use of the internet, family willingness and government stimulation factors. It also identifies thirty-four dimensions that empower or prevent Saudi women’s freedom to access and use e-learning efficiently as a means to attain a valuable educational outcome. The value of the capability approach to inform an analysis on Saudi women's access to e-learning as well as the usefulness of applying the grounded theory to support the capability approach in the process of selecting the valuable dimensions for Saudi women to access e-learning, were also found. The study concludes that e-learning could probably be a bridge to enable women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to access higher education. However, the issue is not just about technical availability, it is also about the capability of women to benefit from such a technology. Therefore, it is not enough to provide Saudi women with an opportunity to complete their higher education via e-learning without giving them the power to access and use it freely, whenever they are able to and want to do so. The study contributes by helping to open the window in front of women so they can make their voices heard and draw the attention of the government on the dimensions that characterise their capability requirements to access and use e-learning freely, as well as to give a better understanding about their situation within Saudi society and its role in affecting their ability. It also introduces a distinctive analytical framework to combine practical and theoretical strands in order to develop practical capability approach dimensions.

No description available.