Contrasting perceptions of an innovation in engineering education

There has been considerable criticism about the effectiveness and appropriateness of degree courses in engineering over recent years. In part the criticism have related to inadequate preparation for the profession and in part to the traditional methods of teaching. As a reaction to these criticism, attempts were made at one particular technological institution to change the way in which parts of one particular course were taught. The first problem was created by a relatively high failure rate in examinations. In addition, it was felt that problem-solving was an important skill which had been inadequately taught through the conventional lecture course. Previous research had suggested that audiotapes on which students could work and take notes at their own pace might improve the examination results and help with problem-solving skills relevant to the professional engineer. The innovator found evidence for the success of the innovation in terms of a decreased failure rate and his own satisfaction with the changed emphasis in his part of the degree course. However, an independent evaluation based on interviews and observation found that other members of staff, and the students, all held different perceptions of the effectiveness of the innovation. The contrasting perceptions reflected, in part, the extent to which the staff had been involved with the innovation, and the purposes of the students in using the innovative materials and techniques. The study points up difficulties in introducing an innovation into higher education and shows the importance of the very different perceptions held by those who come into contact with the innovation. Implications for understanding the impact of learning environments on student learning, and for the introduction of innovations, are discussed.     

Development of higher education in Saudi Arabia

This article seeks to trace the development of higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from its origins to the present day. The study includes discussion of the historical roots of education as based on Islam, Islamic philosophy of education, the aims and objectives of higher education and modern university education. Empirical statistics are given to substantiate the Kingdom's rapid progress in higher education. Since 1957 when modern university education began with a single institution with twenty-one students and a staff of nine it has grown until twenty-five years later in 1982 higher education had grown to seven institutions with 63,563 students and a teaching staff of 6,906. The study examines these aspects of higher education; Saudi students studying abroad, foreign students studying in Saudi Arabia, female education, the role of the Ministry of Higher Education and the financing of higher education.     

US news media portrayal of Islam and Muslims: a corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis

This article exploits the synergy of critical discourse studies and Corpus Linguistics to study the pervasive representation of Islam and Muslims in an approximate 670,000-word corpus of US news media stories published between 2001 and 2015. Following collocation and concordance analysis of the most frequent topics or categories which revolve around the representation of Islam and Muslims in US news stories, the Discourse-Historical Approach to critical discourse analysis was adopted to investigate how the discursive strategies of nomination (construction of in-groups and out-groups) and predication (labeling social actors more or less positively or negatively) are used in US news media stories. The findings indicated that, in general, Islam and Muslims are associated with violence, religious radicalism, and Islamic extremist militants. Finally, the article discusses the discursive themes resulting from the analysis of personal pronouns as well as the educational implications of the findings for social studies and multicultural education.     

The effect of a training course based on constructivism on student teachers' perceptions of the teaching/learning process

This study investigates the effect of a training course, based on constructivism, on the student teachers' perceptions of teaching, learning and the roles of teachers and students in the teaching‐learning process. A sample of 188 student teachers (92 of them in the experimental group and 96 in the control group) from the Hashemite University were subjected to a pre‐test that was developed and validated for the purpose of the study, and the experimental group was then trained using a four‐step training course based on constructivist ideas. Results showed that the two groups' perceptions were not consistent with constructivist ideas before the training took place, but after training, there were significant differences between the two groups' perceptions about the four areas. Also, there were significant differences between the constructivist perceptions of males and females, with females' perceptions being more consistent with constructivist ideas than males. The study concluded with recommendations concerning the introduction of constructivist ideas in educational courses that are designed to prepare student teachers for science teaching, and further research to examine the effect of this course on the student teachers' practices in the classrooms.     

Feedback multilevel control for continuous dynamic systems

An iterative technique for the derivation of a nearly optimal feedback control law for continuous dynamic systems with separable cost functions is developed based on the fundamental concepts of multilevel control. The developed technique comprises two major and subsequent stages. In the first stage, a two-level optimization structure is devised using the coordination by control method. An identification processthen follows in order to determine the constant gains of the dynamic controller utilizing the discrete quasilinearization algorithm. A three-level control structure is thus provided for the overall technique which can adaptively compute the unknown gains of the dynamic controller.     

Subset selection of best simulated systems

In this paper, we consider the problem of selecting a subset of k systems that is contained in the set of the best s simulated systems when the number of alternative systems is huge. We propose a sequential method that uses the ordinal optimization to select a subset G randomly from the search space that contains the best simulated systems with high probability. To guarantee that this subset contains the best systems it needs to be relatively large. Then methods of ranking and selections will be applied to select a subset of k best systems of the subset G with high probability. The remaining systems of G will be replaced by newly selected alternatives from the search space. This procedure is repeated until the probability of correct selection (a subset of the best k simulated systems is selected) becomes very high. The optimal computing budget allocation is also used to allocate the available computing budget in a way that maximizes the probability of correct selection. Numerical experiments for comparing these algorithms are presented.     

Dissipativity analysis and synthesis of a class of nonlinear systems with time-varying delays

In this paper, new results are established for the delay-independent and delay-dependent problems of dissipative analysis and state-feedback synthesis for a class of nonlinear systems with time-varying delays with polytopic uncertainties. This class consists of linear time-delay systems subject to nonlinear cone-bounded perturbations. Both delay-independent and delay-dependent dissipativity criteria are established as linear matrix inequality-based feasibility tests. The developed results in this paper for the nominal system encompass available results on H_∞ approach, passivity and positive realness for time-delay systems as special cases. All the sufficient stability conditions are cast. Robust dissipativity as well as dissipative state-feedback synthesis results are also derived. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the theoretical developments.     

The Effect of Cooperative Teaching on the Development of Reading Skills among Students with Reading Disorders

Cooperative teaching is the result of efforts made by two educators for teaching a heterogeneous group of students, especially one including those with specific needs, due to reading disorders for instance. The present study serves as an experimental investigation focusing on the effect of cooperative teaching on the development of reading skills among students with a reading disorder. To achieve this, three female students were selected from a regular primary school in the 2nd education district of Tabriz, Iran. The research design was a multiple baseline single subject design with different children, in which we used the reading and dyslexia test (RDT) and the revised Wechsler Intelligence Scale to diagnose reading disorders, and a researcher‐made hundred‐word test to measure the development of reading skills. The children received five cooperative teaching sessions during only the (experimental) intervention, i.e. in the baseline and the follow‐up stages, they were not exposed to any cooperative teaching. The comparisons of the students’ performance in experimental phases showed that cooperative teaching is an effective technique for developing reading skills and that the effectiveness of this technique was also maintained over time. This work is the first empirical demonstration of the effectiveness of co‐teaching in dealing with dyslexic reading disabilities. It additionally serves as the first instance of applying co‐teaching to any form of reading disability in Iran.     

Management of inclusive education in Oman: A framework for Action

Inclusive education (IE) and the special education services related to it are relatively new in Oman. Efforts to manage special/inclusive education face many challenges due to a number of culturally rooted factors. Further, empirical research on IE in Oman is scarce and there is a need to advance IE discourse based on empirically validated perspectives. This article examines how IE is managed in schools from the perspective of school leaders in order to develop a framework for action. The author conducted a preliminary qualitative inquiry into how IE is understood and managed in Key stage 1 schools in Oman. The inquiry was based on a focus group interview with a cohort of 25 school leaders who were completing a two year bachelor in educational administration, an endorsement‐like programme at Sultan Qaboos University. Findings showed a number of challenges and tensions between theory and practice, highlighted by school leaders. These challenges and tensions were analysed in order to map out strengths and difficulties. A three level prism shaped framework for action was developed based on the analysis. The framework for action could potentially serve to guide policy‐ and decision‐makers, researchers, practitioners, and is advocated to develop a model of best practice for the successful implementation and management of IE in Oman.