26
research
SATURday, SEPTEMBER 18, 2010
Developing tests to identify gifted
students in Basic Education
Salt tolerant plants for
saline lands and
water in Al Batinah
A study has discovered suitable methods for identifying them
one whose response to mental,
cognitive and leadership issues
outranks that of his peers and
distinguishes him among them.
Who are the gifted?
Professor Abdulqawi
S al Zubaidi
A
team of scholars from
the College of Education at SQU, comprising Professor Abdulqawi S al
Zubaidi, Dr Mahdi A Kathim,
Dr Rashid S al Zubaidi and
Dr Humaira S al Sleimani, has
conducted a study to develop
tests to identify gifted Omani
students in basic education by
giving them tests administered
in different ways.
On the nature of giftedness,
Dr Abdulqawi al Zubaidi, a
member of the study team, says
that scientists have differed
in defining giftedness due to
its complexity and diversity,
which has resulted in the adoption of a variety of theories and
practices. Identification is in
itself considered a major component of the gifted education
programme. Davies and Reim
(2001) have given it fifth position among 15 other factors
in the preparation of gifted
programmes, while Garwwan
(2008) has also given it the fifth
position among 9 factors in a
programme he has devised.
Dr Al Zubaidi believes that
though scientists have agreed
on the importance of the approach used to identify the gifted, and though the first attempt
took place about a hundred
years ago, deciding on an agree
method is almost impossible
and is therefore still open for
further examination. However,
scientists have agreed on the
general meaning and framework of giftedness, and on
the fact that the gifted child is
Dr Al Zubaidi believes that
the gifted can be described as
special individual who possess
an obvious superiority in a particular field. They show innovation, leadership qualities and
a great motivation for achievement. That is to say, the gifted
display definite behavioural
patterns which qualify them to
be so. (Renzulli 1978) believes
that gifted behaviour is a result
of three traits (the three-ring
model) which are ability, creativity and motivation.
Dr Rashid believes that several methods are currently used
to identify gifted students in the
different educational cycles,
beginning from kindergarten.
These include structured observation in and outside the
classroom, workshops combining kindergarten specialists and
parents, and study of familial
history and parent expectations
of their children. They also include planned play, performance assessment, examination
of student portfolios, intelligence tests, innovation, academic achievement, activities
in and outside the classroom,
personal trait measures, and
others.
ness among parents and teachers of identification methods.
It will also assist educational
planners to devise programmes
to train teachers in identifying
and educating the gifted.
Dr Rashid says that key
questions raised in study include the following:
l How can we prepare and
structure measures to identify gifted students in Oman’s
basic education cycle?
l How can we prepare and
structure measures to identify the discriminating traits
of gifted students?
l What are the discriminating
traits of gifted students?
Team members visited
neighbouring countries like
Bahrain and KSA to familiarise themselves with their
approaches. Also, the team invited the Director of the Arab
Center for the Gifted to present
the Jordanian experience in this
matter.
Dr Rashid says that five
measures to identify the gifted
were either translated or prepared .The team then conduct-
Objectives:
Dr Rashid al Zubaidi says
that the project aims to prepare structured tests to identify
gifted students in the basic education cycle and to raise aware-
ed the primary studies to ensure
their reliability and stability.
These included:
l Turrance’s measure for innovative thinking
l Gates’s measure for assessing the talented and gifted
l Renzulli’s measure for identifying the behaviour and
characteristics of the gifted
student
l Sages’s measure for identifying gifted students in the
elementary and secondary
cycles
l Sigs’s measure for identifying gifted students
The Study’s Population:
Dr Rashid adds that the
study population consisted of
all students (male and female)
in the basic education cycle
(fifth to the tenth grades) in
Oman, who number 288,282,
based on Ministry of Education
statistics. Later on, the study’s
measures were administered to
a final sample of 1,000 students
and more than 350 teachers in
several schools across the Sultanate.
Dr Rashid points out that
the preliminary results of the
study indicate that the different measures used possess adequate psychometric properties,
evidenced by the Cronbach
Alpha test-retest reliability,
factoral validity, confirmatory
factor analysis, concurrent validity and construct validity.
This kind of adequacy made
them applicable for identifying
Omani gifted students in the
relevant grades.
A
major part of land and water resources of Al Batinah,
the principal region of Oman agriculture, has become
highly saline due to seawater intrusion and secondary
salinisation. This situation was created due to the over-pumping of water exceeding the annual recharge which has now become almost permanent. To address this problem, Dr Ahmad al
Busaidy, from the College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences
at SQU, has conducted a study to preserve agricultural land in
Al Batinah from disappearing due to new constructions.
A study on the development of the retail trade in Muscat
The study examines the
influence of international
business centres on
consumer culture and
why consumers prefer
one centre to another
Dr Muntasir I AbdulGhani
M
any people still
think that geography
is only about the location of countries and regions
in the world’s continents and
the names of capitals, rivers
and mountains. This was the
way it was understood within
the subject of social studies in
elementary classes during the
80s of the last century. In fact,
in the curricula of some Arab
countries, geography is still
taught in this way. Those contents do not realise that it has
tremendously developed in the
recent decades, and that some
of its off-shoots have become
closely related to people’s every-day lives at different levels,
including the global, regional
and local.
Moreover, its interests and
research areas have diversified
to deal with crucial issues in
cities and villages in order to
arrive at a better understanding of problems and offer
scenarios for their solutions
within changing conditions.
One of geography’s branches
which has witnessed a tangible
development in its methodology, interests, solutions and
study areas is urban geography, which not only focuses
on the physical components of
cities, ie the distribution and
use of land, infrastructure and
civil problems, but also deals
with the city’s private social
characteristics, human behaviour, which are in fact the first
producers of civil and physical
phenomena.
Accordingly, Dr Muntasir I
AbdulGhani, Assistant Professor of Social and Urban Geography in the Department of
Geography at SQU, is currently
conducting a research on the
development of the retail trade
in Muscat Governorate with the
Wilayat Al Seeb as an example.
Dr Muntasir says that the
study of city roles, including
land use and commercial functions, is one of the foundations
of urban geography, but that
the new element in this science is the connection between
these components and the behaviour of the city’s dwellers
and its managers. This is the
focal point which the study
tries to examine, ie to what extent are human behaviour and
city management responsible
for the growth of the retail
trade? He goes on to answer
by saying first that the retail
trade is in quality and quantity
an international phenomenon
found in all the world’s cities.
The extent of the above-mentioned factors depends closely
on the city’s size, demography,
its political and administrative
importance, and its local, regional and international status.
For example the development
of the retail trade in a small
city in the Sultanate of Oman
like Izki or Al Khabourah differs quantitatively and qualitatively from the tremendous
development of the same trade
in the capital, Muscat. But, as
was said earlier, this is an international phenomenon.
Idea behind the study
The idea of the study,
Dr Muntasir explains, was
inspired by the reality of German cities, many of which
have witnessed a change in
the function of the retail trade
and seen new components
added to it, eg the emergence
of giant hypermarkets and
online electronic trade. In addition to improvements in
goods and commodities and
styles of supply and demand,
the retail trade in German cities has produced significant
change in redistributing land
use because commercial areas
have assumed much importance, unlike their situation in
the past. In fact the commercial value of what used to be
the central city locations has
begun to decrease and seen
a reduction in patrons, while
some suburban areas have attracted new customers. These
change pose many questions
such as whether the city centre
area will still attract internal
and external tourism. Many
studies have been conducted
on this topic and applied to
the condition of German and
American cities. Dr Muntasir
says that though some Arab
cities are witnessing the same
phenomenon, (rapid development and change in their retail trade), it has not received
enough scholarly attention and
examination from Arab geographers till now. Consequently
a scientific study is needed to
direct the theories, already applied to foreign cities, to Arab
ones. Muscat, in this regard is
a suitable choice as a typical
Arab city. The results of the
proposed study will help Arab
geographers to obtain a better
understanding of this urban
phenomenon and will be of
great significance both theoretically and practically.
Questions
The study tries to supply
adequate answers to questions related to the nature of
the changes and developments
seen in Muscat’s retail trade,
especially in the Wilayat of Al
Seeb, and the influence of these
phenomena on the wilayat’s
socioeconomic relations with
its rural and urban sections.
The study will also examine
the influence of hypermarkets
on the retail trade’s position
and effectiveness in the same
area and investigate competition between Al Seeb’s business centres and those of Muscat. In addition the study will
ask whether the retail trade’s
in small businesses in Al Seeb
will be able to compete with
global business centres which
have become an integral part of
the Seeb economy. It will also
examine the influence of the
new global patterns of trade on
local models of consumption.
Methodology
Dr Muntasir explains that
research on the development
of the retail trade in a specific
geographical region faces many
problems around the availability of relevant literature and published statistics. While statistics
on categorisation of the activities of wholesale commercial
enterprises are globally available, those on retail trade providers, scattered around street
corner locations, are scarce and
rarely available. Moreover, data
on consumers shifting preferences, due to changes in time
and place, and the influence of
global trade centres on the local consumption cultures, is not
available except through specialised field studies. This aspect of
the study requires and depends
almost entirely on field work.
Here the task can be summarised in the following steps: the
preparation of land use maps on
Al Seeb’s markets and its commercial streets; questionnaires
related to customers and business owners in some markets in
the wilayat’s (Al Seeb Souq and
Al Khoud Commercial Street),
as well as those of modern trade
centres. Sometimes these questionnaires may fail to provide
the desired responses because of
tight structures, so the study will
have to revert to conducting indepth personal interviews. The
proper management of these
requires special procedures because they will reveal minute
details which the questionnaires
are not able to produce.
Team
Dr Muntasir says that the
study will be carried out by a
team which has already been
formed and includes students of
both genders from the Department of Geography at SQU.
A big part of the study has already been done, especially
work on the preparation of
commercial land use at Al Seeb
and Al Khoud souqs, and the
downloading and computerised
analysis of a number of questionnaires which have led to
positive and useful results.
Dr Muntasir concludes by
thanking SQU for supporting
this research project and by
mentioning that while processing the questionnaires, many
people have shown interest in
their results.
Farmers can only be motivated not to change land use and
sell their lands until an economically attractive alternative is
made possible to them. Furthermore, Dr Al Busaidy believes
that farmers will be convinced by a solution through which
they can still use their saline lands for growing economically
viable plants that can bring them fodder, food and a reasonable income. Salicornia and Jatropha are among the species
that can potentially be grown in saline lands and coastal belts
like Al Batinah. Therefore, Dr Al Busaidy is conducting systematic studies for the duration of three years to assess their
salt tolerance, performance under prevailing conditions and
other related aspects like oil and protein content, palatability
and quality of fodder, etc. In the first year, pot study will be
conducted at Agricultural Experiment Station (AES), College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, at SQU to evaluate the feasibility of tested plants irrigated by saline water to
grow under Omani conditions.
The results from the first year will be used to plan a large
scale study at AES or Rumais station. All necessary measurements (soil, plant and yield analyses) will be done based on
reliable published references. In the last year, the findings
will be generalised to the public through extension channel
and farm applications.
The outcome of the study will be the utilisation of degraded saline water and lands and laying future theoretical
and experimental foundation to bring fodder for goats, sheep
and livestock, vegetable oil, burning fuel and even bio-fuel
for vehicles. Thus, employment for the rural communities be
revived and new industry can develop.