Arab and Malay Students’ Attitudes toward Statistics and Their Learning Styles: A Rasch Measurement Approach

Students’ learning of statistics has been studied from a variety of angles, and this study is no different. The main purpose is to compare the Malay and Arab students’ attitudes toward learning statistics and their learning styles in understanding statistics. A survey questionnaire and face-to-face interview techniques were used to elicit information from 150 students based on the cohort. They were asked about how they learn to solve statistical problems based on Kolb’s four learning cycles: feeling, reflective observation, thinking, and doing. Attitude responses were numerically recorded based on a five-point Likert scale, while preference for learning styles was recorded as 1 (Do and Feel) or 0 (Watch and Think). Both attitude and learning style data were combined and subjected to Rasch analysis. Results show that a majority of the Arab and Malay students have moderate to high positive attitude toward learning statistics. Generally, students from both cultures are classified as the “Accommodating” type with a preference for doing and feeling from the experience of doing statistical problems. Arab students are classified as the “Assimilating” type with a preference for thinking, reflecting, and learning from observation, while Malay students are classified as the “Converging” type with a preference for thinking and doing statistical exercises.

GENERAL LINGUISTIC DICTIONARY DESCRIPTIVE STUDY

The first antecedents in the service of the language of the Holy Qur'an were serious about learning, teaching and compilation. They exerted extraordinary efforts that reflected an organized mentality, sincerity and unparalleled dedication which impressed the whole world. These efforts included the linguistic part of the language, its morphology, phonetics and dictionary, and they have in each aspect fruitful studies and precedent and informed opinions. There are several aspects that have contributed to the admission of linguistics into modern Arab culture. Of these, sending Arab scholarships to western universities; conducting university studies and thesis by Arab students in European and American universities; establishing a special section in linguistics in some Arab universities; the emergence of linguistic writings known as modern linguistics; the emergence of Arabic translations of some linguistic articles; the organization of local and international scientific seminars and meetings in the field of linguistics; and the establishment of self-list specialties in general linguistics. However, it is no wonder that others add up to the achievements of the antecedents of theories that deal with linguistic studies, and extract meanings from beyond the linguistic text, all of which is related to the renaissance witnessed by other sciences in the modern era, and which linguists have benefited from in the linguistic field. Some linguists have collected the terms that have emerged from modern linguistic literature, who have varied in their approaches in arranging these terms. I have chosen five of these general linguistic dictionaries and addressed them in description and analysis, indicating the differences amongst them and what distinguishes each from others.

An assessment of critical thinking in the Middle East: Evaluating the effectiveness of special courses interventions

Critical thinking is a requisite skill for college success, employability, and conducive active civic participation. Empirical studies have noted to the low achievement of Arab students on critical thinking assessments. Insufficient endeavors have attempted to propose effective interventions enhancing critical thinking abilities among Arab students. The current analysis provides a preliminary overview of a special course designed to improve critical thinking skills among Arab college students. Results indicated a great improvement in all areas of critical thinking including explanation of information, identification of strategies, implementing solutions, and formulating logical inferences. Students’ scores on a critical thinking assessment increased from sufficient to good as a result of participating in the program. The gains are consistent after controlling for gender, major, class seniority, and nationality. Notwithstanding these promising results, this paper is limited in several respects including the choice of critical thinking assessments represented by two questions, the highly contextualized setting making it difficult to be replicated, and the convenient sampling strategy used to recruit participants. This set of limitations, however, does not discourage proactive attempts like designing special courses to enhance students’ critical thinking acquisition in the Middle East.

“Under the Radar”: How is the Jewish–Arab Conflict Reflected in Internal Jewish Dialogue?

This study explores the role of intergroup conflict in the identity exploration process among 83 Jewish participants in a dialogue in a multicultural college in Israel. Thematic analysis has shown that the behavior of most of the participants has been affected by the Jewish–Arab conflict as follows: they centered on internal commonalities among Jewish subgroups; they neither engaged in conflict among Jewish subgroups nor explored their Jewish identities, and they expressed confusion regarding who the out-group was: the Jewish subgroups’ members or the Arab students in the college. These findings expand the knowledge about the identity exploration process in a social context of religious–ethnic conflict and may pose a practical contribution to the field of intergroup dialogues and conflict resolution in divided societies.   

Prevalence of Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome among Arab Students with and without Learning Disabilities

Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS) is neurologically caused by a dysfunction of magnocellular and parvocellular cells in the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus. The SSS negatively affects the speed and movement of visual stimuli especially those related to academic skills. Because of the comorbidity of the SSS and learning disabilities (LDs), erroneous diagnoses may be made in differentiating between them, and this led the international scholars and researchers to focus on differential diagnosis. In the Arab context, it is essential to find an Arab indicator of the prevalence of the SSS among students with and without LDs. This research aims at determining the prevalence of the SSS among Arab students with and without LDs, as well as to identify the SSS prevalence in dyslexic students. A total of 1657 participants visited Irlen’s clinics in the Arab states. The participants' data are obtained from 6 of these clinics. The results indicated that the general prevalence rates of SSS are 31% among students without LDs, 45% among students with LDs, and 55% among dyslexic students. These rates are in favor of male students.

A General Perspective on the Use of Conjunctions Across Arab Students as Turkish Language Learners

The present study aims to submit a general perspective to the conjunctions which Arab students whose language levels were B1 and B2 have structured in their written texts. To this end, this research was designed as a document analysis. In the study, the documents were obtained from free writings by 90 Arab students who were studying at Bolu Branch of TÖMER, Turkey. In order to analyse the conjunctions used by the study group in their written texts, frequency and percentage analyses were employed in quantitative findings obtained through this analysis. Additionally, Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare students’ use of conjunctions according to their language levels. The results of the study have indicated that the most commonly used conjunctions by Arab students whose language levels were B1 and B2 were additive, causal, adversative and time; on the contrary, the least commonly used conjunctions were coordinating, expository, exemplificatory and conditional. The general perspectives on the use of conjunctions across Arab students whose language levels were B2 were found to be higher in their written texts compared to those whose language levels were B1. Consequently, it was revealed that Arab students whose language levels were B2 used ‘adversative, conditional and exemplificatory conjunctions’ to a greater extent; contrary to this, it was found that they were not able to progress in the remaining five conjunctions. According to the findings of the study, teaching of the conjunctions used less commonly by Arab students should be focused more to enable them to comprehend what they read and to convey their ideas in written expression more proficiently.

Factors to Consider while Teaching English to Arab Students

When you have a chance to teach English in Saudi Arabia at different levels – beginners, intermediate, and advanced levels, you will discover a lot of challenges that face a teacher of a foreign language. Those barriers vary from one situation into another, from one level into another, and from one place into another. Some barriers are connected with the culture in question, others – with the contents of the syllabus, passing through the method your students are taught with while taking other subjects. These aforementioned barriers are few among many others. They are focused on here because of their importance in obstructing learning and teaching a foreign language like English. Moreover, at a college level, English may be chosen as an optional, elective, pass-guaranteed, and grade-gained subject. In this sense, this issue might become a good topic for researchers who are interested in teaching and learning a foreign language. Some students told me in more than one department and on many occasions that they chose English because they do not like much work and in this subject they are sure of passing the test. What a teacher expects from such students is just nothing; they have no mere idea of learning at all. They need to fill in a number of courses they have to register in their transcripts with no effort on their part. I will address some of the challenges teachers of English at Saudi Arabian schools should be cautious of while practicing their career. The aim of this article is to attract the attention of teachers of foreign languages to these obstacles that definitely exist and hinder all efforts of teaching and learning a foreign language. At the end of this article, some suggestions are provided depending on my experience in teaching English at different levels and to different types of students.

The Influence of Acculturation Strategies, Ethnic Identity and Cultural Distance on the Socio-cultural Adaptation of Arab Students

Background. Adaptation to the educational space of a university is a process that is a prerequisite and a way of socialization, allowing international students to actively engage in various elements of the social environment. This process can be made more complicated as a result of existing linguistic, every day, climatic, intercultural, interethnic, and motivational barriers. This research studies the relationship between acculturation strategies, socio-cultural adaptation, ethnic identity, cultural distance among students from arabic countries (Morocco, Syria, Egypt).Methods. The questionnaire included scales for assessing acculturation attitudes, ethnic identity, cultural distance, and sociocultural adaptation. The following techniques were used during the study: methodology of J. Finney, measuring the severity of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1992; Phinney & Ong, 2007), scales for measuring cultural distance (Wark & Galliher, 2007), questionnaire measuring acculturation strategies for migrants (Berry, 1997; Berry, 2005), scales for measuring sociocultural adaptation (Ward, Kennedy, 1999). The overall number of respondents was 248 (56 from Syria, 84 from Egypt, 108 from Morocco). The average age of the respondents is 28 years (min – 20, max – 34 years).Conclusion. Using correlation and regression analysis, we found that cultural distance is interconnected with sociocultural adaptation. However, among young migrants from arabic countries,ethnic identity and acculturation strategies are not linked to sociocultural adaptation. As a whole, our research shows the specific of adaptation of young arabs in relation to their host country.

Arabic and English Loan Words in Bahasa: Implications for Foreign Language Pedagogy

Many Arab students are currently pursuing their education at Malaysian institutions, and they have to study Bahasa Malaysia as a university requirement to be able to communicate with people in the local community. Therefore, this study aims to help Arab students learn Bahasa easily as Bahasa contains many loan words from Arabic and English. This article gives Arab students examples of Arabic and English loan words with which they are familiar and shows them the different phonological adaptations of Arabic and English loan words in Bahasa as the Arabic, English and Bahasa sound systems are different. A corpus of non-technical Malay words that are commonly encountered in public places in Malaysia was collected and analyzed. A contrastive analysis of Arabic and Malay, and English and Malay phonological systems was performed. Different homogenization processes are applied to Arabic and English loan words depending on the differences between Arabic and Malay, and English and Malay. Examples of Arabic loan words in Malay are: menara, Sabtu, Ahad, Akhir, tahniya. Examples of English loan words in Bahasa are: stesen, kelab, tren, kompleks, imigresen, destinasi. Further implications for learning Bahasa Malaysia by Arab students are given.