Search results for: Saudi EFL context

Authors: Abdullah Alshakhi

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This study aims to explore the assessment practices of transnational western teachers in Saudi EFL writing classrooms. The study adopts a critical ethnographic approach to understand the views and the experiences of four transnational TESOL professionals about how they navigate and negotiate their writing assessment practices in the Saudi EFL context. The qualitative data were collected through classroom observations and video recordings of the classroom teaching, which were followed by semi-structured interviews with the four TESOL teachers from Australia, England, USA, and Ireland. The data were analyzed from three perspectives of these transnational TESOL teachers in the Saudi EFL context: as a transnational teacher in monolingual context, as a transitional teacher abides by the prescribed curriculum and assessment instructions, and as a transnational teacher’s vision for monolingual students. The results of the study revealed that owing to the transnational teachers’ lack of understanding of the Saudi monolingual culture, bureaucratic structures, and top-down assessment policies in the institute where they work, their teaching and assessment of writing and other language skills are negatively affected and consequently had to be modified. Also, the Saudi learners’ lack of interest and their lower level of English proficiency pose serious challenges to those transnational teachers’ writing assessment practices. More often, the teachers find the prescribed writing curriculum and assessment tools ineffective in the Saudi EFL context. Because of these experiences, the transnational teachers in this study have exhibited their awareness of their monolingual/monoculture background, Saudi’s cultural and religious values, and institutional structures, which have helped them customize or supplement the writing assessment practices accordingly.

Keywords: critical ethnography, Saudi EFL context, TESOL professionals, transnationalism, writing assessment

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Authors: Khulood Miliany

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This study examines the media habits of young people in Saudi Arabia, in particular their use of the Internet and television in the domestic sphere, and how use of the Internet impacts upon other activities. In order to address the research questions, focus group interviews were conducted with Saudi university students. The study found that television has become a central part of social life within the household where television represents a main source for family time, particularly in Ramadan while the Internet is a solitary activity where it is used in more private spaces. Furthermore, Saudi females were also more likely to have their Internet access monitored and circumscribed by family members, with parents controlling the location and the amount of time spent using the Internet.

Keywords: domestication of technology, internet, social context, television, young people

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Authors: Musa Alghamdi

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Although Saudi students’ motivation to learn English language as a foreign language in Saudi Arabia have been investigated by a number of studies; these have appeared almost completely as using the quantitative research paradigm. There is a significant lack of research that explores the Saudi students’ motivation using qualitative methods. It was essential, as an investigator, to be immersed in the community to understand the individuals under study via their actions and words, their thoughts, views and beliefs, and how those individuals credited to activities. Thus, the study aims to explore the Saudi students’ motivation to learn English language as a foreign language in Saudi Arabia employing qualitative methodology via applying ethnography. The study will be carried out in Saudi Arabia. Ethnography qualitative approach will be used in the current study by employing formal and informal interview instruments. Gardner’s motivation theory is used as frameworks for this study to aid the understanding of the research findings. The author, an English language lecturer, will undertake participant observations for 4 months. He will work as teaching-assistant (on an unpaid basis) with EFL lecturers in different discipline department at a Saudi university where students study English language as a minor course. The researcher will start with informal ethnographical interview with students during his existence with the informants in their natural context. Then the researcher will utilize the semi-structural interview. The informal interview will be with 14-16 students, then, he will carry out semi-structural interview with the same informants to go deep in their natural context to find out to what extent the Saudi university students are motivated to learn English as a foreign language. As well as, to find out the reasons that played roles in that. The findings of this study will add new knowledge about what factors motivate universities’ Saudi students to learn English language in Saudi Arabia. Very few chances have given to students to express themselves and to speak about their feelings in a more comfortable way in order to gain a clear image of those factors. The working author as an EFL teacher and lecturer will provide him secure access into EFL teaching and learning setting. It will help him attain richer insights into the nature EFL context in universities what will provide him with richer insights into the reasons behind the weakness of EFL level among Saudi students.

Keywords: motivation, ethnography, Saudi, language

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Authors: Ziyad Alghamdi

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This research investigates how issues concerning Saudi women have been represented in selected U.S. and Saudi publications. Saudi Vision 2030 is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's development strategy, which was revealed on April 25, 2016. This study used 115 news items across selected newspapers as its sampling. The New York Times and the Washington Post were chosen to represent U.S. newspapers and picked two Saudi newspapers, Al Jazirah, and Al Watan. This research examines how these issues were covered before and during the implementation of Saudi Vision 2030. The news pieces were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The qualitative study employed an inductive technique to uncover frames. Furthermore, this work looked at how American and Saudi publications had framed Saudi women depicted in images by reviewing the photographs used in news reports about Saudi women's issues. The primary conclusion implies that the human-interest frame was more prevalent in American media, whereas the economic frame was more prevalent in Saudi publications. A variety of diverse topics were considered.

Keywords: Saudi newspapers, Saudi Vision 2030, framing theory, Saudi women

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Authors: Majid Dashtgerd, Eisa Moradi Afrapoli

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The “Yemen War” is one of the longest wars of the recent century, which was launched on 26 March 2015 after the Saudi Arabia-led alliance's military intervention in Yemen. The war began with the aim of fighting Yemen's Houthis and preventing Iranian influence in the region, and Saudi leaders expected a quick victory; However, the “Yemen War” lasted about seven years and is still going on (May 2022), and Saudi Arabia has not been able to achieve its strategic objectives. This study seeks to examine some of the most important reasons for Saudi Arabia's protracted war and failure in Yemen.

Keywords: Saudi Arabia, yemen war, houthis, Iran

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Authors: Norah Salem Al Mosa

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This paper critically examines the ethical position of academic scholarship concerning "women in leadership" in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the context of the Saudi Vision 2030 initiative. While this vision places a strong emphasis on empowering women and increasing their presence in the workforce, women still face significant cultural, organisational, and personal barriers to leadership roles. The existing literature highlights the challenges Saudi women encounter, including the male guardianship system, and international perspectives add complexity to the issue. The debate among scholars about considering cultural context versus highlighting ongoing challenges is explored. The paper underscores that despite efforts to enhance women's representation in leadership positions, progress has been slow due to cultural norms, the absence of legal quotas, and limited access to education and professional development. It raises questions about the seriousness of research efforts and the government's commitment to gender equality in leadership roles, emphasising the need for increased academic scrutiny in this area. Ultimately, the paper aims to enhance understanding of the challenges and opportunities for women in leadership roles, their contributions to corporate governance in Saudi Arabia, and potential implications beyond its borders.

Keywords: female directors, gender diversity, women on executive positions, Saudi vision 2030

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Authors: S. Alotaibi, D. Roussinov

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Mobile government services implementation faces several challenges in developing countries. This paper studies some of those challenges in the context of Saudi Arabia. The study aims to investigate factors affecting m-government acceptance in Saudi Arabia, including ease of use, usefulness, service quality, trust, intention to use and users’ satisfaction. Our investigation will help in integrating the m-government services in citizens’ everyday life. We collected and analyzed our data from focus groups. These focus groups are from King Saud University and Imam Muhammed Bin Saud University, so the samples size are five and seven participants, respectively. We found that there are some factors to identifying citizen requirements to Saudi mobile government services. These services should be easy to use and not require too much effort. Also, these services must be fully trusted.

Keywords: e-government, m-government, focus group, Saudi mobile government services

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Authors: Yaser Mohammed Altameemi

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This research looks at the representation of the social media for the Saudi Government decrees regarding the developmental projects of the Saudi 2030 vision. The paper analyses a television interview with the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman who talks about the progress of the Saudi vision of 2030, and how the government had acted as response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The interview was on 28/4/2021. The paper analyses the tweets on Twitter that cover the interview for the purpose of investigating the development of concepts and meanings regarding the Saudi peoples’ orientations towards the Saudi projects. The data include all related tweets from the day of the interview and the following seven days after the interview. The finding of the collocation analysis suggests that nationalism notion is explicitly expressed by users in Twitter. The main finding of this paper suggests the importance of further analyses for the concordance lines. However, the collocation network suggests that there is a clear highlight for nationalism.

Keywords: social media, twitter, political interview, prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi vision 2030

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Authors: Sohil I. Alqazlan

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Introduction and Objectives: The individual educational plans (IEPs) is the cornerstone in education for students with special education need (SEN). The Saudi government supported the students’ right to have an IEP, and their education is one of the primary goals for the Ministry of Education (MoE). However, this support does not reflect the huge government investment. For example, some SEN students do not have an IEP, and poor communication was found between IEP teams and student's families. As a result, this study investigated perspectives and understandings of the IEP from the views of SEN teachers in the Saudi context. Methods: This study design utilised a qualitative approach, where in-depth semi-structured interviews were used with 8 SEN teachers in Riyadh (the capital city of Saudi Arabia) schools. In terms of analysing the interviews’ findings, the researcher used the thematic analyses approach. Results and Conclusion: The legality and the consideration of the legal document in Saudi Arabia are the main areas wherein study participants were questioned. It was observed that the IEP is not considered a legal document in the region of Saudi Arabia. As interpreted from the response of the SEN teachers, the IEP lacks the required legality with respect to its implementation in Saudi Arabia. All teachers were in agreement that the IEP is not considered to be a legal document in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a result, they did not use it for all their students with SEN. Such findings might have affected the teaching quality, and school outcomes as all SEN students must be supported individually depending on their needs.

Keywords: individual education plan, special education, IEP, teachers

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Authors: Majed Alshaibani

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Social media has emerged as a serious contender to TV news networks in Saudi Arabia. The growing usage of social media as a source of news and information has led to significant impact on the content presented by the news networks in Saudi Arabia. This study explored the various ways in which social media has influenced content aired on Saudi news networks. Data were collected by using semi structured interviews with 13 journalists and content editors working for four Saudi TV news networks and six senior academic experts on TV and media teaching in Saudi universities. The findings of the study revealed that social media has affected four aspects of the content on Saudi TV news networks. As a result the content aired on Saudi news networks is more neutral, real time, diverse in terms of sources and includes content on broader subjects and from different parts of the world. This research concludes that social media has contributed positively and significantly to improving the content on Saudi TV news networks.

Keywords: TV news networks, Saudi Arabia, social media, media content

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Authors: Noor Attar

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This paper proposes a qualitative study to examine the roles of the female characters in the Saudi YouTube soap opera Takki and audience reactions to them. It draws on concepts from Western feminist media studies and information about current portrayals of Saudi women in Saudi TV. The study will identify the themes that Takki presents related to new professional and personal opportunities for Saudi women and investigate Saudi women’s views of those themes. And finally, it will demonstrate how those themes may relate to the evolving positions and aspirations of Saudi women.

Keywords: a qualitative analysis, female characters, Saudi Arabia, Western feminist media

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Authors: Wesal A. Maash

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The purpose of this study was to investigate Saudi students' knowledge of CT and their attitudes to it. The sample consisted of 121 students from 23 cities who are studying currently in UK universities with a mix of background variables (age, gender, and university level). A questionnaire was developed by the researcher to be used as the tool of the study. Its validity and reliability were established. The results revealed a negative correlation between knowledge of CT and the attitudes to it. It was also indicated that there exist statistically significant differences between the means of knowledge according to the university level, in favour of postgraduates. Moreover, no significant differences in the level of attitudes to CT were found according to age. Similarly, no significant differences in the knowledge of CT were found according to gender. Further, the attitudes to CT of Saudi students can be predicted based upon their university level. The findings suggest conducting further interpretive or mixed methods research with Saudi international students in order to understand the context in more depth.

Keywords: critical thinking, Saudi international students, knowledge of critical thinking, attitudes towards critical thinking

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Authors: A. Aldawsari

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The complex issue of women working in a mixed-gender work environment has its roots in social and cultural factors. This research was done to identify and explore the social and cultural challenges Saudi women face in a mixed-gender work environment in Saudi Arabia. Over the years, Saudi women in mixed-gender work environments in Saudi Arabia have been of interest in various research areas, especially within the context of a hospital work environment. This research, which involves a female researcher interacting one-on-one with Saudi women, will address this issue as well as the effect of the 2030 Vision in Saudi Arabia, and it will aim to include several new fields of work environments for women in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this research is to examine the perceptions of Saudi women who work in a mixed gender environment regarding the general empowerment of women in these settings. The objective of this research is to explore the cultural and social challenges that influence Saudi women's rights to work in a mixed-gender environment in Saudi Arabia. The significance of this research lies in the fact that there is an urgency to resolve issue of female employment in Saudi Arabia, where Saudi women still suffer from inequality in employment opportunity. Although the Saudi government is seeking to empower women by integrating them into a mixed-gender work environment, which is a key goal and prominent social change advocated for in the 2030 Vision, this same goal is one of the main challenges in the face of achieving female empowerment. The methodology section focuses on appropriate methods that can be used to study the effect of social and cultural challenges on the employment of women. It then determines the conditions and limitations of the research by applying a qualitative research approach to the investigation and analysing the data collected from the interviews. A statistical analysis tool, such as NVivo, will be used for the qualitative analysis of the interviews. The study found that the factor most responsible for creating social and cultural challenges is family—whether close family or distant family—more so than tribe or community.

Keywords: women, work, mixed-gender, environment

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Authors: Jawaher Bakheet Almudarra

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The Saudi Arabian educational system shared the philosophical principles, in its foundation, which concentrated on the achievement of goals, thereby taking up authoritative styles of leadership. However, organisations are beginning to be more liberal in today’s environment than in the 1940s and 1950s, and appealing to emotional intelligence as a tool and skill are needed for effective leadership. In the Saudi Arabian case, such developments are characterised by changes such as that of the educational supervisor having the role redefined to that of a director. This review tracks several parts: the first section helps western reader to understand the subtleties, complexities, and intricacies of the Saudi Arabia education system and its approach to leadership system of education, history, culture and political contribution. This can lead to the larger extent understand if emotional intelligence is a provocation for better leadership of Saudi Arabian education sector or not. The second part is the growth of educational supervision in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the education system, and evaluates the impact of emotional intelligence as a necessary skill in leadership. The third section looks at emotions and emotional intelligence, gender roles, and contributions by emotional intelligence in the education system. The education system of Saudi Arabia has undergone significant transformation. To fully understand the current climate of Saudi Arabia, it is essential to review this process of transformation in terms of the historical, cultural, political and social positions and transformations. Over the years, the education system in Saudi Arabia has undergone significant metamorphosis. The Saudi government has instituted a wide range of reforms in an attempt to improve education standards and outcomes, facilitate improvements and ensure that high standards of education standards are upheld to keep pace with the global environment and knowledge economy. Leadership itself has become an increasingly prominent aspect of educational reform worldwide. Emotional intelligence is often considered a significant aspect of leadership, but it is in its early stages in Saudi Arabia. Its recognition and adoption may improve leadership practices, particularly among educational supervisors and contribute to national and international understandings of leadership in Saudi Arabia. Studying leadership in the Saudi Arabian context is imperative as the new generation of leaders need to cultivate pertinent skills that will allow them to become fundamentally and positively involved in the regions’ decision making processes in order to impact the progression of the Saudi Arabian education system. Understanding leadership in the education context will allow for suitable inculcation of leadership skills. These skills include goal-setting, sound decision-making as well as problem-solving within the education system of Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: educational supervision, educational administration, emotional intelligence, educational leadership

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Authors: Malak Alqaydhi

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A problem in the Saudi Arabia education system is that there is a lack of curriculum- based Social, emotional learning (SEL) teaching practices with the pedagogical concept of SEL yet to be practiced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Furthermore, voices of teachers and parents have not been captured regarding the use of SEL, particularly in preschools. The importance of this research is to help determine, with the input of teachers and mothers of preschoolers, the efficacy of a culturally adapted SEL program. The purpose of this research is to determine the most appropriate SEL intervention method to appropriately apply in the cultural context of the Saudi preschool classroom setting. The study will use a mixed method exploratory sequential research design, applying qualitative and quantitative approaches including semi-structured interviews with teachers and parents of preschoolers and an experimental research approach. The research will proceed in four phases beginning with a series of interviews with Saudi preschool teachers and mothers, whose voices and perceptions will help guide the second phase of selection and adaptation of a suitable SEL preschool program. The third phase will be the implementation of the intervention by the researcher in the preschool classroom environment, which will be facilitated by the researcher’s cultural proficiency and practical experience in Saudi Arabia. The fourth and final phase will be an evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the trialled SEL among the preschool student participants. The significance of this research stems from its contribution to knowledge about SEL in culturally appropriate Saudi preschools and the opportunity to support initiatives for Saudi early childhood educators to consider implementing SEL programs. The findings from the study may be useful to inform the Saudi Ministry of Education and its curriculum designers about SEL programs, which could be beneficial to trial more widely in the Saudi preschool curriculum.

Keywords: social emotional learning, preschool children, saudi Arabia, child behavior

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Authors: Syed Asif Hassan, Tabrej Khan

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The use of traditional medicines for the treatment of various diseases as well as maintaining a healthy lifestyle has gained a significant acceptance across the globe. The increasing popularity of Herbal Medicine can be owed to the fact that is relatively inexpensive and has lesser side effects as compared to general medicines. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a rich heritage of herbal medicine for overages. However, the information about essential traditional herbs of Arabian origin and their implication in the treatment of various diseases are not well documented in an organized manner. Therefore, the requirement of a local platform (database system) for herbal medicines of Arab origin is the need of the day. In this context, various questionnaire and surveys were conducted over a period of 6 months. The surveys were targeted to identify a range of herbal remedies used by the communities of Saudi Arabia e.g., pharmacists and local people. The survey leads us to identify many of the mysterious local medicinal herbs used for the treatment of various ailments and thus reveals a unique insight into the natural herbal resource of Saudi Arabia. The information of the herbal medicines will be further used to develop a Saudi herbal database system using the principles of waterfall method. An interactive dynamic electronic web portal of the herbal database system will be built using MySQL and PHP for accessing the information available in the Saudi herbal database system. The web portal will be a step forward in creating awareness among the Arab nationals of their rich herbal heritage.

Keywords: Saudi herbal medicine, community survey, database system and design, MySQL, PHP

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Authors: Sultan S. Alsajjan

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Understanding the public governance in Middle East's countries is one of the challenging matters for any researcher. The Middle East, for the last century, has been in fluctuated situations. Understating the public governance in Saudi Arabia is an extra challenge because Saudi Arabia has its unique culture and political system. The World Bank had launched 1996 Worldwide Governance Indicators. These indicators assist any country to rank its position in public governance how it is performing in this field. Saudi Arabia had ranked in some worldwide governance indicators at the bottom of indicators' list. For instance, according to the Worldwide Governance indicator (2018), Saudi Arabia had ranked in 192 out of 204 countries in 'Voice and Accountability Indicator'. In this paper, the reader will find in-depth analysis and evaluation of Saudi Arabia's positions in Worldwide Governance Indicators. Saudi Arabia had never considered the concept of public governance and worldwide governance indicators because of its economic situation, political characteristics, and social nature.

Keywords: pubic governance, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and worldwide governance indicators

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Authors: Turki Alotaibi

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Student counseling programs can provide many benefits to students in schools all around the world. In theory, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia) has committed itself to school counseling programs in educational institutions throughout the country. Student counselors face a number of burdens and obstacles that impact student counseling programs. It is also widely known that Saudi Arabia has extremely high prevalence rates for overweight and obesity, anxiety and depression, and diabetes in children. It has also been demonstrated that teachers and staff are inadequately prepared when dealing with health issues relating to diabetes in schools in Saudi Arabia. This study will clearly demonstrate how student counselors in Saudi Arabia could become 'New Educators' in Saudi schools in relation to these health issues. This would allow them to leverage their position as student counselor to improve the management of these health issues in Saudi schools, to improve the quality of care provided to school children, and to overcome burdens and obstacles that are currently negatively affecting student counseling in Saudi schools.

Keywords: anxiety and depression, diabetes, overweight and obesity, policy recommendations, student counseling, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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Authors: Mai Alshareef

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The Saudi government considers the modernisation of the education system as a critical component of the national development plan, Saudi Vision 2030; however, this sudden reform creates tension amongst Saudis. This study examines first the reflection of the social and digital education reform on stakeholders and the general Saudi public, and second, the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the ethnoreligious conflict in Saudi Arabia. This study employs Cyberconflict theory to examine conflicts in the real world and cyberspace. The findings are based on a qualitative case study methodology that uses netnography, an analysis of 3,750 Twitter posts and semi-structural interviews with 30 individuals, including key actors in the Saudi education sector and Twitter activists during 2019\2020. The methods utilised are guided by thematic analysis to map an understanding of factors that influence societal conflicts in Saudi Arabia, which in this case include religious, national, and gender identity. Elements of Cyberconflict theory are used to better understand how conflicting groups build their identities in connection to their ethnic/religious/cultural differences and competing national identities. The findings correspond to the ethnoreligious components of the Cyberconflict theory. Twitter became a battleground for liberals, conservatives, the Saudi public and elites, and it is used in a novel way to influence public opinion and to challenge the media monopoly. Opposing groups relied heavily on a discourse of exclusion and inclusion and showed ethnic and religious affiliations, national identity, and chauvinism. The findings add to existing knowledge in the cyberconflict field of study, and they also reveal outcomes that are critical to the Saudi Arabian national context.

Keywords: education, cyberconflict, Twitter, national identity

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Authors: Fariha Asif

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The Saudi EFL learners face a number of problems in EFL learning, anxiety is the most potent one among those. It means that its resolution can lead to better language skills in Saudi students. That’s why, the study is carried out and is considered to be of interest to the Saudi language learners, educators and the policy makers because of the potentially negative impact that anxiety has on English language learning. The purpose of the study is to explore the factors that cause language anxiety in the Saudi EFL learners while learning speaking skills and the influence it casts on communication in the target language. The investigation of the anxiety-producing factors that arise while learning to communicate in the target language will hopefully broaden the insight into the issue of language anxiety and will help language teachers in making the classroom environment less stressful. The study seeks to answer the questions such as what are the psycholinguistic factors that cause language anxiety among ESL/EFL learners in learning and speaking English Language, especially in the context of the Saudi students. What are the socio-cultural factors that cause language anxiety among Saudi EFL learners in learning and speaking English Language? How is anxiety manifested in the language learning of the Saudi EFL learners? And which strategies can be used to successfully cope with language anxiety? The scope of the study is limited to the college and university English Teachers and subject specialists (males and females) in public sectors colleges and universities in Saudi Arabia. Some of the key findings of the study are:, Anxiety plays an important role in English as foreign language learning for the Saudi EFL learners. Some teachers believe that anxiety bears negatives effects for the learners, while some others think that anxiety serves a positive outcome for the learners by giving them an extra bit of motivation to do their best in English language learning. Language teachers seem to have consensus that L1 interference is one of the major factors that cause anxiety among the Saudi EFL learners. Most of the Saudi EFL learners are found to have fear of making mistakes. They don’t take initiative and opt to keep quiet and don’t respond fearing that they would make mistakes and this would ruin their image in front of their peers. Discouraging classroom environment is also counted as one of the major anxiety causing factors. The teachers, who don’t encourage learners positively, make them anxious and they start avoiding class participation. It is also found that English language teachers have their important role to minimize the negative effects of anxiety in the classes. The teachers’ positive encouragement can do wonders in this regard. A positive, motivating and encouraging class environment is essential to produce desired results in English language learning for the Saudi EFL learners.

Keywords: factors, psychology, speaking, EFL

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Authors: Bukhari M. S. Sillah, Imran Khokhar, Muhammad Nauman Khan

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This paper studies the technical efficiency of Saudi banking sector using stochastic frontier model. A sample of 12 banks over the period 2000-2011 is selected to investigate their technical efficiencies in mobilizing deposits, producing investment and generating income. The banks are categorized as Saudi-owned banks, Saudi-foreign-owned banks and Islamic banks. The findings show some consistent pattern of these bank types; and there exist significant disparities among the banks in term of technical efficiency. The Banque Saudi Fransi stands out as a benchmark bank for the industry, and it is a Saudi-foreign owned bank type. The Saudi owned bank types have shown fluctuating performance during the period; and the Islamic bank types are no significantly different from Saudi-owned bank types.

Keywords: technical efficiency, production frontier model, Islamic banking

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Authors: Faris Algarni

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia adopted a new law of e-commerce on July 10, 2019, which is the first Saudi law regarding e-commerce. The practice of e-commerce has been started in Saudi Arabia a few years ago with no specific rules to govern e-commerce in the Kingdom. The adoption of the law raises the concern of the ability of the law to provide real protection to both the investors and the customers. Based on that, this article seeks to respond to some questions related to the protection of investors of e-commerce in Saudi Arabia, using a quantitative method through questionnaires to gather primary data. The study tried to find the impact of adopting a new Saudi law of e-commerce on the protection of the investors from the point of view of those investors. By answering this main question, this article provides an answer to the question of whether there is a need to reform the Saudi law of e-commerce to convince existing and potential foreign investors to invest in the Kingdom through e-commerce. Questions were put to the respondents to determine their level of satisfaction with the Saudi law of e-commerce and what reforms to that system would enhance the attractiveness of the Kingdom as an investment environment for e-commerce investors, based on the information gathered and the analysis of them. A key finding is that the law of e-commerce is a core factor in the decision of investors to continue investing in the e-commerce market in Saudi Arabia. A subsequent finding is that some of the respondents are not fully satisfied with the new law and think that the law provides more protection to the customers than the investors. So, they are suggesting some legal reforms to be implemented in the bylaw of e-commerce, which is not adopted yet in order to attract them to continue investing in the Kingdom.

Keywords: e-commerce, law, investors, protection, Saudi Arabia

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Authors: Nourah Alshalhoub

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As Saudi Arabia is one of the countries moving toward more inclusive schools, there are few researchers who have examined the new model of inclusive practice; that is, a model introduced by the Tatweer project. Tatweer is an initiative supported by the Saudi government to develop education with a particular focus on inclusion. This on-going doctoral work aims to find out the nature of inclusive practice that Taweer introduced to create effective practice to include students with different abilities. While stakeholders are important elements to the implementation of inclusive education practice, the study’s goal is to find out and explore their understandings and perspectives. This study considers the perspectives of stakeholders, who are involved and influential on the implementation of the practice, from different dimensions. Tatweer project’s managers, head teachers, teachers and teaching assistants will be interviewed to find out how do they understand inclusive education concept and what perspective do they hold. Reliant on this material, this work seeks to inquire into what meaning inclusion and inclusive practice holds in Tatweer and to what extent this educational models let students with different abilities be more included. Four primary schools in Riyadh were purposively selected and data will be collected through semi-structured interviews. Semi-structured interview was selected as a study tool because it is a relevant and helpful method in understanding the thoughts, views, and beliefs of the stakeholders individually, and investigating issues more thoroughly in the context of Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: inclusive education, perspective, understanding, definition, inclusion

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Authors: Alaa A. Al-Harthi, Abdulrahman S. Bageis, Bingunath Ingirige

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Poor levels of performance and low productivity were highlighted by many previous studies as a major cause of failure in the Saudi construction industry. This paper provides recommendations to address key external indicators that led to poor levels of performance and low productivity in Engineering and Technical Departments (ETDs) within the Saudi governmental agencies. The ETDs are client’s representative on behalf of the Saudi Ministries. This paper represents a part of an investigation which contained external and internal challenges that led to occurrence of the research problem. The paper is focusing on the external challenges which contain 14 indicators. These 14 external indicators had been examined carefully through comprehensive review of the literature then have been tested through quantitative and qualitative methods. 400 questionnaires were distributed to dozens of different bodies. The actual response rate was 47% completed responses. Four semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior practitioners from the Public Construction Sector. The finding showed that the 14 external indicators directly and/or indirectly influence the Public Construction Sector. It was noticed significantly that these indicators have prevented the ETDs from performing properly. It was also found that the 14 external indicators were constant with all kinds of Government Construction Projects in the Saudi context. Addressing the 14 external indicators requires to be planned over the long run which is responsible by relevant Saudi governmental authorities under the umbrella of the Saudi Council of Ministers. The study recommends that Project Management Office (PMO) should be considered in order to improve the performance of the ETDs.

Keywords: construction projects' performance, low engineering productivity, public construction sector

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Authors: Rachel Hasan

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Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has witnessed various significant social and political developments in 2018. Crown Prince of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, also serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, has made several social, cultural, and political changes in the country under his grand National Transformation Program. Program provides a vision of more economically viable, culturally liberal, and politically pleasant Saudi Arabia. One of the most significant and ground breaking changes that has been made under this program is awarding women the long awaited rights. Legislative changes are made to allow woman to drive. Seemingly basic on surface but driving rights to women represent much deeper meaning to the culture of Saudi Arabia and to the world outside. Ever since this right is awarded to the women, world media is interpreting this change in various colors. This paper aims to investigate the portrayal of gender rights in various online media publications and websites. The methodology applied has been quantitative content analysis method to analyze the various aspects of media's coverage of various social and cultural changes with reference to women's rights. For the purpose of research, convenience sampling was done for eight international online articles from media websites. The articles discussed the lifting of ban for females on driving cars in Saudi Arabia as well as gender development for these women. These articles were analyzed for media frames, and various categories of analysis were developed, which highlighted the stance that was observed. Certain terms were conceptualized and operationalized and were also explained for better understanding of the context.

Keywords: gender rights, media coverage, political change, women's liberation

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Authors: Hamed D. Alsharari

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This paper first analyses the current status regarding electrical engineering higher education in Saudi Arabian public universities. The paper focuses on the two EE sub-specialties most commonly present in Saudi Arabia, power and communications and discusses recruitment in this field, showing various market and employment demand for EE.

Keywords: communications, electrical engineering, higher education, Saudi Arabia, power

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Authors: Zahra Alqahtani

Abstract:

The use of e-learning technologies is gaining momentum in all educational institutions of the world, including Saudi universities. In the e-learning context, there is a growing need and concern among Saudi universities to improve and enhance quality assurance for e-learning systems. Practicing quality assurance activities and applying quality standards in e-learning in Saudi universities is thought to reduce the negative viewpoints of some stakeholders and ensure stakeholders’ satisfaction and needs. As a contribution to improving the quality of e-learning method in Saudi universities, the main purpose of this study is to explore and investigate strategies for the development of quality assurance in e-learning in one university in Saudi Arabia, which is considered a good reference university using the best and ongoing practices in e-learning systems among Saudi universities. In order to ensure the quality of its e-learning methods, Saudi university has adopted Quality Matters Standards as a controlling guide for the quality of its blended and full e-course electronic courses. Furthermore, quality assurance can be further improved if a variety of perspectives are taken into consideration from the comprehensive viewpoints of faculty members, administrative staff, and students.This qualitative research involved the use of different types of interviews, as well as documents that contain data related to e-learning methods in the Saudi university environment. This exploratory case study was undertaken, from the perspectives of various participants, to understand the phenomenon of quality assurance using an inductive technique.The results revealed six main supportive factors that assist in ensuring the quality of e-learning in the Saudi university environment. Essentially, these factors are institutional support, faculty member support, evaluation of faculty, quality of e-course design, technology support, and student support, which together have a remarkable positive effect on quality, forming intrinsic columns connected by bricks leading to quality e-learning. Quality Matters standards are considered to have a strong impact on improving faculty members' skills and on the development of high-quality blended and full e-courses.

Keywords: E-learning, quality assurance, quality matters standards, KKU-supportive factors

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Authors: Wesal Maash

Abstract:

This paper is part of a PhD mixed-method project currently conducted in the Saudi context. This paper explores the challenges novice Arabic language teachers (ALT) face when starting the teaching profession through semi-structured interviews with ten teachers and a questionnaire with 208 teachers. The data provided details of the challenges faced by those teachers and reasons why they face such a challenge. From the data, it can be deduced that schools are advanced and updated continuously, and the preparation program does not cope with that. This situation makes teachers struggle to cover the gap between what they learnt in their preparation and what is expected from them as teachers when they started their teaching profession. This paper suggests conducting further research to better understand this phenomenon by shedding light on the content of teachers' preparation programs.

Keywords: educational technologies, novice teachers, arabic language teachers, Saudi Arabia

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Authors: Tibah Alharbi, Renzo Cordina, David Power

Abstract:

Relatively few studies have explored how venture capitalist investors (VCs) make investment decisions and the information they rely on when taking an equity stake in an investee company. In addition, little is known about how much investors monitor start-ups after the decision to invest has been made. The VC scene in the US or European context is understood better than that of developing countries such as those in the Middle East. Although some differences among VC investors have been identified, the reasons behind such differences have not been fully explored – especially in a country such as Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this research seeks to understand the impact of external factors on the VC investor’ behaviour. The unique cultural and legal environments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the growing VC sector in the country, and the increasing importance attached to start-ups under the Saudi Government’s Vision 2030 program make such an investigation timely. Ascertaining the perceptions of VC investors in such a context will provide a deeper understanding of the determinants of VC investment in a novel setting. Using semi-structured interviews with over 20 participants, the research explores the structure of VC funds, the cycle of the VC investment in a start-up from the sourcing of deals, the screening and evaluation of such deals, the closing of such deals, and finally, the monitoring of such investments before the decision to exit such deals at the appropriate time. The results show some similarities to the VC model, which characterizes such investment in the US and Europe, but several differences emerge given the unique cultural and legal settings within the Kingdom. The results provide an in-depth understanding of the VC investors’ mindset relative to the existing studies in the literature.

Keywords: exit, monitoring, start-ups, venture capital

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Authors: Abdulrahman Aloufi

Abstract:

E-commerce has evolved to become a functional and mainstream tool of global trading, including in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Consequently, online consumers need protection just as much as consumers in the offline world. In 2019, the Ministry of Commerce in Saudi Arabia established a so-called ‘e-commerce law’; however, this law does not cover the court enforcement of contracts entered into by international vendors, so it is not applicable in cross-border situations. The purpose of this paper is to identify the gaps present in this new e-commerce law in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: consumer protection, e-commerce law, Saudi consumer, international vendor

Procedia PDF Downloads 137