Teachers’ efficacy for inclusive practices in the Sultanate of Oman: Effect of gender and teaching experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-192
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Mohamed Emam ◽  
Yasser F. Hendawy Al-Mahdy

The current study investigated teachers’ efficacy for inclusive practices (TEIP) in public schools in the Sultanate of Oman, exploring the effect of teacher gender and years of experience. The TEIP scale was administered to teachers in Oman. Participants included 287 basic school teachers selected from schools identified as embracing and implementing inclusive practices in the capital and largest city of Oman. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-factor model of the Arabic version of the TEIP scale. Omani teachers showed high levels on TEIP three dimensions and general construct. Gender differences were found in TEIP general factor, efficacy in using inclusive instruction (EII), and efficacy in collaboration favoring female teachers, whereas no gender differences were found in efficacy in managing behavior. Novice and experienced teachers reported higher TEIP in efficacy in collaboration compared to teachers with moderate experience, whereas experienced teachers and teachers with moderate teaching experience reported higher TEIP compared to novice teachers. Implications of the study results are discussed in relation to the development of inclusive practices in Oman.

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 828-842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabia Imran ◽  
Kamaal Allil ◽  
Ali Bassam Mahmoud

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the path of motivation leading to organizational commitment resulting in reduced turnover intentions (TIs). It examine the relationship between dimensions of motivation (amotivation, introjected regulations (IRs) and intrinsic motivation (IM)) with dimensions of commitment (affective, normative and continuance). Furthermore, it test the effect of these three dimensions of commitment on TIs. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 467 teachers working in public schools in Dhofar Governate in Sultanate of Oman was selected for the study. A path analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized model. Findings The analysis unveils that teacher’s TIs can be reduced with a right mix of motivation and commitment. Furthermore, amotivation is only linked to affective commitment and this linkage is positive; IRs positively affect continuance and normative commitment (NC); and IM positively affects affective commitment and NC. Moreover, a significant negative effect of affective, normative and continuance commitment is found on TIs. Originality/value This research sheds light on how motivation can indirectly affect TI through commitment. This study is of immense importance as it focuses on the education sector in Oman especially in Dhofar Governate.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Hussain A. Alkharusi

<p>Although educational assessment is one of the main responsibilities of the teachers, there has been little research designed to examine ethical principles in the daily classroom assessment practices of the teachers. Using a descriptive survey research design, the purposes of the current study were to develop a measure of the teachers’ adherence to the ethical principles in educational assessment and identify teachers’ characteristics associated with it. Participants were 3557 teachers teaching grades 5 to 12 in public schools across all educational governorates in Oman. Principal components analysis of the teachers’ responses to an 11-items survey revealed three dimensions of the ethical principles in educational assessment: confidentiality, test integrity, and transparency. Internal consistency reliability ranged from .64 to .78. The correlations among the dimensions ranged from .19 to .32. Construct validity was evidenced by the statistically significant positive low correlation of .10 between the dimensions and knowledge of educational assessment ethics. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed statistically significant differences in levels of adherence to the ethical principles in educational assessment among teachers with respect to gender, educational qualification, teaching subject, teaching experience, and training in educational assessment. It was concluded that the measure developed in this study has the potential to provide educators and researchers with valuable information to understand teachers’ adherence to the ethical principles in educational assessment.<strong></strong></p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 358
Author(s):  
Nadia Siddiqui ◽  
Sadia Shaukat

Understanding the determinants of teacher mobility is important in order to implement effective policies for the recruitment, retention, and fair allocation of teachers. The teacher transfer policy implemented in Punjab, Pakistan, is intended to address corruption and a fair allocation of teachers in public schools. However, the policy has implications for teacher mobility. This paper presents survey findings on teacher mobility patterns in public schools in Punjab, Pakistan, examining the extent and determinants of mobility in comparison with teachers in private schools. In the survey, 1002 in-service teachers participated, and 46% reported changing school at least once during their teaching career. The findings show that teachers who changed schools in their early career, with an average of two years of teaching experience, gained higher salary benefits by changing schools compared to experienced teachers, with an average of 14 years of teaching experience, who never changed schools. In comparison with early career teachers, experienced teachers who never changed school had lower salaries but higher satisfaction with life in general and with the school as their workplace. The most common reasons for changing school were lack of teaching resources, difficulty in commuting to school, unmanageable student–teacher ratio, and no chance of promotion in their teaching career. Teacher mobility was slightly higher in public schools compared to private schools, despite implementation of a merit-based transfer policy. A binary logistic regression model was constructed with the outcome of teacher mobility (or not), with a base figure of 54%. By adding gender, marital status, school type, length of teaching experience, and teachers’ satisfaction, the model increased correct predictions to 62%. Teacher salary and teaching workload did not explain any variation in the model. These findings have implications for teacher transfer policy in public schools and lessons for private schools to retain teachers by offering longer contracts and reliable pension schemes. Policymakers must consider facilitating teachers’ satisfaction with their workplace, particularly by making public schools in rural areas attractive places for the retention of teachers in early career phases.


Author(s):  
Yi-Ping Hsieh ◽  
Cheng-Fang Yen ◽  
Chia-Fen Wu ◽  
Peng-Wei Wang

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of hospital visits and attendance at scheduled appointments have dropped significantly. We used the health belief model (in three dimensions) to examine the determinants of non-attendance of scheduled appointments in outpatient clinics due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants in Taiwan (n = 1954) completed an online survey from 10 April 10 to 23 April 2020, which assessed how people perceived and responded to the outbreak of a fast-spreading infectious disease. We performed both univariate and multivariate logistic regression to examine the roles of cognitive, affective, and behavioral health belief constructs in nonattendance at scheduled appointments. The results indicated that individuals who perceived high confidence in coping with COVID-19 were less likely to miss or cancel their doctor’s appointments, whereas individuals who reported high anxiety and practiced more preventive health behaviors, including avoiding crowded places, washing hands more often, and wearing a mask more often, were more likely to miss or cancel their appointments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Non-heterosexual participants had a lower rate of nonattendance at scheduled appointments compared with heterosexual ones. The study results increase our understanding of the patients’ cognitive health beliefs, psychological distress, and health behaviors when assessing adherence to medical appointments during a pandemic.


2013 ◽  
Vol 321-324 ◽  
pp. 2106-2109
Author(s):  
Fei Yan Ren

One of the most important factors of management in obtaining organization targets is effectiveness of financial management structures, and user of the financial management structures have more important role in the effectiveness of the structures. The purpose of this research is to study the influence of human factors including personal and individual characteristics of user of financial management structures based on effectiveness PC. For this target, a sample includes 2354 offices, organizations, private companies and organizations than apply financial management structure based-PC. Has been selected randomly and the investigative data has been counting using questionnaires. In order to find personal characteristics of users, the particular questionnaires which are designed according to four factor model of personality, has been done. In order to research the relation between effectiveness of the structure and personality, four hypotheses based on four features of personality. Moreover, in order to find the relationship between expertise (educational level, educational field and amount of training curriculum of PC knowledge), job satisfaction and experience of users, and effectiveness of the accountancy management structure based-PC, some hypotheses have been studied and written. The study results indicates that personal characteristics including Agreeableness, openness, Conscientiousness and experience working , is efficient on the financial management structures based-PC.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salene M. Wu ◽  
Dagmar Amtmann

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive disease characterized by neurological symptoms and sometimes heightened levels of distress. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is often used in MS samples to measure stress but has not been validated in this population. Participants (n=446) completed the PSS as well as measure of depression, anxiety, and mental and physical health. Factor analyses indicated that the general factor of a bifactor model accounted for a large amount of the variance in the 14-item and 10-item versions of the PSS. The 4-item PSS had two factors, the Stress subscale and the Coping subscale, but a one-factor model also fits the data well. Total scores and both subscales had sufficient reliability and validity for all versions of the PSS, although a few items of the 14-item PSS had low item-total correlations. This study supports the use of the total score of the PSS in MS but also suggests that the 10-item PSS had better psychometric properties than the 14-item PSS.


Author(s):  
Sedigheh Salami ◽  
Paulo Felipe Ribeiro Bandeira ◽  
Cristiano Mauro Assis Gomes ◽  
Parvaneh Shamsipour Dehkordi

Aim: To examine the latent structure of the Test of Gross Motor Development—Third Edition (TGMD-3) with a bifactor modeling approach. In addition, the study examines the dimensionality and model-based reliability of general and specific contributions of the test’s subscales and measurement invariance of the TGMD-3. Methods: A convenience sample of (N = 496; Mage = 7.23 ± 2.03 years; 53.8% female) typically developed children participated in this study. Three alternative measurement models were tested: (a) a unidimensional model, (b) a correlated two-factor model, and (c) a bifactor model. Results: The totality of results, including item loadings, goodness-of-fit indexes, and reliability estimates, all supported the bifactor model and strong evidence of a general factor, namely gross motor competence. Additionally, the reliability of subscale scores was poor, and it is thus contended that scoring, reporting, and interpreting of the subscales scores are probably not justifiable. Conclusions: This study shows the advantages of using bifactor approach to examine the TGMD-3 factor structure and suggests that the two traditionally hypothesized factors are better understood as “grouping” factors rather than as representative of latent constructs. In addition, our findings demonstrate that the bifactor model appears invariant for sex.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (17) ◽  
pp. 4019-4040 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Barnhart ◽  
Michael C. Gearhart ◽  
Kathryn Maguire-Jack

Neighborhoods with higher levels of collective efficacy are associated with more favorable family outcomes such as lower teen pregnancy rates and less antisocial behavior among children. Collective efficacy is traditionally measured by combining the constructs of social cohesion and informal social control, yet these two constructs may have unique influences on family outcomes. While prior studies have examined collective efficacy’s factor structure, there is limited understanding of this construct among single-mother families, who have unique social and economic characteristics. In this exploratory study, we tested a single-factor model and two-factor model separating social cohesion and informal social control to examine the underlying factor structure of collective efficacy with a diverse sample of 2,084 unmarried mothers who participated in the third wave in-home survey of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. Results support that informal social control and social cohesion were best modeled as two distinct, but related, constructs.


1982 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-326
Author(s):  
K. J. Eltis

This study was designed to gain substantial information about how teachers form initial impressions of pupils. The particular aim was to examine the relative influence of speech style, physical appearance, and written work on judgments about pupils on a wide range of classroom personality and cognitive variables. Teaching experience emerged as a key rater variable. The results indicated that, for raters in general, pupil voice was a strong discriminator on variables pertaining more narrowly to the child as a learner in the classroom, and was a significant influence on judgments about intelligence and likely success as a pupil.


2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (7) ◽  
pp. 1047-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derya Kara ◽  
Muzaffer Uysal ◽  
Vincent P. Magnini

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine gender differences while controlling for select variables on job satisfaction using data collected from employees in the hospitality industry.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted on 397 employees (234 males and 163 females) in five‐star hotels in Ankara, Turkey.FindingsThe level of job satisfaction is determined by four factors: “management conditions”, “personal fulfillment”, “using ability in the job”, and “job conditions”. The study results show that significant gender differences exist with regard to the “using ability in the job” dimension of job satisfaction. After controlling such variables as age, marital status, monthly income level, education, type of department, position held, length of time in the organization, length of time in the tourism sector, and frequency of job change, most gender differences remained significant.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of hotel employees solely representing five‐star hotels may be considered a limitation of this study. The results provide information that can be utilized in understanding, maintaining, and increasing the satisfaction levels of both female and male employees. The findings indicate that fairness and equity in salary and wages are effective tools to increase the job satisfaction levels of male and female employees.Originality/valueThis study focuses on the identification of gender‐specific drivers of job satisfaction while controlling for select demographic variables. The study provides insight into employees' perceptions of certain aspects of the nature of the hospitality and tourism sector in Turkey.


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