Sulaiman M. Al-Balushi

The effect of environmental science projects on students’ environmental knowledge and science attitudes

The current study explores the effectiveness of involving students in environmental science projects for their environmental knowledge and attitudes towards science. The study design is a quasi-experimental pre-post control group design. The sample was 62 11th-grade female students studying at a public school in Oman. The sample was divided into two groups: an experimental group (N = 34) which conducted five different environmental-based projects for two months and a control group (N = 28) which studied using the traditional methods. For the purpose of study, two instruments were designed: the Environmental Knowledge Test (EKT) and the Science Attitudes Survey (SAS). The results indicated that students’ involvement in environmental projects had a statistically significant positive impact on their environmental knowledge and science attitudes. The experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in both instruments. The results also indicated that the projects that made the most impact were those that required students to produce enjoyable and unusual final products such as a documentary movie, a school-wide campaign, and school-wide environmental exhibit. This promising result is what distinguishes the current study: that PBL could be implemented with few resources, inside the school building and within the assigned time by the official teacher guide for the undertaken topics.

Health Education in The Sultanate of Oman

Geographically, the Sultanate of Oman is one of the Gulf Co-operation Countries. It is surrounded by three Arab countries—the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. The population is almost three million, of which around one million are expatriates, mainly from South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). The Omani government has a long-term vision to shift the country’s economy from one that is highly dependent on oil and gas to one that is more diverse, with tourism as a key contributor.

Using Drawing to Reveal Science Teachers’ Beliefs about Science Teaching

The twenty-first century has brought many challenges in economic, social, and political aspects of life. These challenges put great pressure on educational systems across the world to review the knowledge, skills, and values presented to students, and how they may create a skillful and educated person able to cope with the challenges of the new century (Ambusaidi, 2014). This educated person has to know more and acquire the skills to enable him/her to better understand and use his/her imagination and intelligence to work and interact with others.

Science Education Research in Oman: Opportunities, Trends, and Challenges

The aim of the current chapter is to give the reader an overview of the opportunities, trends, and challenges related to science education research in Oman. The chapter starts by describing the contextual background focusing on the Omani educational system, the field of science education in the country, and the research activities and related funding systems. The chapter admits that science education research in Oman has a short history. It gained momentum in 2000 with the establishment of the first postgraduate program at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU). On the other hand, there are different opportunities for science education research to prosper. Among these are the different funding systems by The Research Council (TRC) and SQU; and the establishment of a new SQU Ph.D. program in science education. Also, the diverse nature of the country provides a considerable number of underresearched issues related to science learning. The main trends in science education research in Oman are its tendency toward the quantitative school of research, its focus on exploring and implementing modern science teaching methodologies, and its equal engagement of male and female students as research participants. However, there is limited focus on lower school grade levels, private schools, and sociocultural factors. There are a number of challenges facing science education research in Oman. The main one is the limited number of science education researchers in the country. Also, the number of female researchers is very low. The author proposes that some of the pitfalls and challenges that face science education research in Oman could be resolved by establishing a national science education research center that coordinates the research efforts and directs them toward the most pressing issues related to science teaching and learning. In addition, providing more scholarships to science education researchers to complete their PhDs and founding a national professional science education research association could help in increasing the number of science education researchers and foster the research activities in the country.

Science Education Research in the Sultanate of Oman

This chapter sheds light on science education research in Oman. More specifically, it analyses the representation and diversification of socio-cultural factors by science education researchers in Oman. To achieve this goal, a survey study was conducted with 16 science education researchers. They all held PhD degrees and conducted science education research.