A Developmental Research of a Taxonomy for Employees’ Mobile Device Cyberslacking and Commitment to the Organization in the Context of Productivity

While the introduction of the Internet facilitated the communication channels at the workplace to improve employees’ productivity, it also raised new challenges, such as Internet use for personal activities. Organizations face productivity losses due to employees’ involvement in counterproductive behaviors, such as cyberslacking. The frequency of mobile device cyberslacking is anticipated to increase due to continuous developments in online connectivity, applications, and the significant growth of mobile device usage worldwide. In addition, research has shown that employees’ commitment to their organization can encourage behaviors that positively influence productivity. Employee’s commitment is a crucial factor because it can benefit an organization in different ways, such as enhancing performance, decreasing absenteeism, and reducing turnover, thus, resulting in sustained productivity. Hence, limited studies have been conducted on the impact of employee cyberslacking using mobile devices and employee’s commitment to the organization on productivity. The research problem that this research study addressed is mobile device cyberslacking at the workplace as it relates to productivity. The main goal of this research study was to develop and validate, using Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), a Mobile Cyberslacking- Commitment Taxonomy using the measures of mobile device cyberslacking based on the self-reported frequency of cyberslacking (FCyS) and employee’s commitment to the organization (EC2O) to provide indirect indication for employee productivity. This research study implemented three phases. Phase One of this study, using the Delphi method, collected data via anonymous online surveys from 19 SMEs to evaluate and validate a set of items relevant to the measures of mobile device FCyS and EC2O, the survey scale, instructions to participants, and the Mobile Cyberslacking-Commitment Taxonomy. In Phase two, using a pilot study, a group of 35 participants were recruited to verify the validity of the survey instrument that was revised by SMEs. In Phase three, the validated survey was sent via email to assess six research questions. The final survey was sent to 1,063 employees who work at organizations in Saudi Arabia and use mobile device on a daily basis. The response rate was 24.93% with 265 usable records. The results of the study showed that employees were dispersed across the Mobile Cyberslacking-Commitment Taxonomy with 4.5% of the employees were positioned in the more problematic quadrant indicating that this portion of employees will not use their mobile devices at the workplace to improve their productivity. The overall results showed that the population had a low frequency of mobile cyberslacking and a high commitment to the organization, thus, have a better potential for productivity. Significant differences in the two constructs were also found across several demographics including age, gender, education level, industry type. Recommendations for practice and research are provided. Moreover, several areas for future research are also presented. The results of this research study contributed to information systems’ body of knowledge by providing researchers and practitioners a novel benchmarking tool of Mobile Cyberslacking-Commitment Taxonomy to enable the measure of employees’ FCyS and EC2O to classify employees’ potential for productivity in the context of the workplace

Standards of Islamic Rooting for the Concepts of Education

The study aimed to identify a set of Islamic standards for the educational concepts that should be taken into account when addressing the process of Islamic rooting. The researcher used the analytical descriptive method, and the results of the study showed the absence of Interdisciplinary studies, which may contribute more to correcting the methodology of Islamic rooting for educational sciences, among specialists in the origins of education and other disciplines in the educational fields or otherwise. Thus, the study presented a set of Islamic Rooting standards for the educational concepts which are: reliance on sources of Islamic education, adherence to the rules of derivation and reasoning in Islamic methodology, ability to critique and deal with the heritage tales and understanding and knowledge of Arabic language methods and their multiple uses. The distinction between the sources of knowledge in Islam and other nations, starting from the Islamic perception of the universe, man and life, extensive knowledge in the field of education and work within the field. Results also indicate the presentation of educational concepts clearly after rooting them, verification of rooting objectives of educational concepts, emergence of features of the methodology of Islamic roots when dealing with educational concepts, averageness in dealing with educational concepts coming from other educational cultures, taking into consideration the aspects of the legal dispute and its reflection on educational applications. The study concluded with a set of recommendations in the light of its finding

Fostering Thinking Skills Through Creative Drama with Primary School Children with Learning Difficulties (LD) in Saudi Arabia

This study aimed to understand how the thinking skills of children with learning difficulties (LD) can be fostered by using ‘creative drama’ in the context of two primary schools for girls in Saudi Arabia. The educational vision of Saudi Arabia Vision 2030 emphasises the importance of the development of skills, such as thinking skills, in addition to knowledge to prepare children for a modern, 21st-century world. Within the Saudi educational system, relatively little attention has been paid to learners with LD, especially with thinking skills as a focus. The study utilised a design-based research approach involving multiple iterations of creative drama sessions incorporating different thinking skills, designed and co-led by the researcher and the teachers. The participants were 14 children with LD (ages 7 to 12) and two teachers with backgrounds in special educational needs. The study was designed in two phases. Phase One was carried out in School A to test and then revise the initial design principles empirically. The findings of this phase were an advanced version of the design principles, which then guided Phase Two in School B. The main findings of this intervention were introducing the elements of the dynamic and collaborative culture established through the use of creative drama for fostering thinking skills. The findings contribute to the empirical and theoretical field of fostering thinking skills using tested design principles for utilising ‘creative drama’ as a medium for teaching. The data were collected by multiple methods: teacher conversations, participant observations, focus groups, and a research journal. The findings suggest that using creative drama as a medium of learning might foster thinking skills by creating a dynamic and inclusive environment. Moreover, promoting the thinking skills of children with LD requires a balance between the facilitator’s role and the learners’ agency. It also requires a collaborative learning culture that supports the children emotionally and provides a safe atmosphere. This DBR concluded that the implementation of creative drama fostered the thinking skills of children with LD and allowed them to practise a variety of thinking skills in a safe, supportive environment and a collaborative culture. By considering the context of the Saudi educational system, this study suggests that there is a need to further investigate a thinking skills approach that supports learners with LD, and suggests the importance of investigating multi-modality and embodied cognition in special education, especially at the primary school level

INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD MATHEMATICS IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS IN SAUDI ARABIA

Many students in Saudi Arabia complain that they achieve poor results in mathematics and appear to have a negative attitude toward the subject. The current study, therefore, investigates students’ attitudes towards mathematics, using a mixed method approach, in 13-16 years old students from the intermediate level of education. The age was important because this period is thought to be crucial to the formation of lasting attitudes and opinions. The first main research question, the study aims to address is therefore, “What are students’ attitudes towards mathematics in Saudi middle schools?” The study also aims to explore gender issues using a second research question, “Is there any significant gender difference in students’ attitudes towards mathematics?” The survey was conducted in two government-run middle schools in Saudi Arabia, one boys’ school and one girls’ school, because Saudi Arabia has an exclusively single-sex education system. 180 participants (90 boys and 90 girls) were asked to complete a questionnaire to show their views about mathematics. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected at the same time, but the analysis of each type of information was conducted separately to enable the full picture to be understood. T-test was used to explore any gender differences. The main findings were that both male and female students in two Saudi middle schools show a positive attitude towards mathematics, with female students being slightly more positive than males. The factors which affect attitudes towards mathematics in both genders include the usefulness of mathematics in everyday and future life and career, the teacher, enjoyment of mathematics and the difficulty of the subjects. Girls’ attitudes towards mathematics were also affected by the influence of social media personalities and internet teachers.   Article visualizations

Informing health-related behaviour change in Saudi Arabia : a social marketing approach

PhD ThesisMany Arab countries, such as Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have a high prevalence of non-communicable diseases (such as Type 2 diabetes) where obesity is a risk factor. In Saudi Arabia, 30% of men and 40-50% of women are classified as obese (Alquout and Reynolds, 2013). This has led researchers to question the factors that have led to the high incidence of obesity, and in particular, the food choices motives and food-related behaviors made by Saudi citizens. Understanding these underlying factors influencing food and lifestyle choice will help to underpin social marketing support recommendations to change food-related behaviours targeted at Saudi women. This research adopted a mixed method research design consisting of three components. The first, determined the food choice motives of Saudi Arabian adults aged 15-65 (n=377) using the Food Choice Questionnaire (Steptoe et al, (1995). The second phase examined the barriers and facilitators to healthy eating using focus group methodology (n=25) and thematic analysis. Focusing on Saudi Arabian females, the third component explored the opinions of health experts via semi-structured in-depth interviews (n=13) using findings from phase two as elicitation prompts, in order to identify potential solutions to improve eating habits and increase exercise in order to reduce health problems of Saudi women. Insights gained from the results of each study were used to develop social marketing recommendations aimed at encouraging and facilitating healthy eating behaviors and exercise among women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Despite Saudi Arabian women being the target market for the recommendations provided by this thesis, both genders were included all stages of the data collection in order to allow comparative analysis. The results from the questionnaire identified 6 of factors as an important factors affecting food choice of Saudi Arabian adults. Significant factors included; taste, health and wellbeing, and convenience; while price, mood and sensory appeal were found to be less important to this cohort. The factors found to be motivating food choices of Saudi Arabian adults helped to inform the design, content and the participants’ requirement for the second phase, which was to gain a deeper insight into the questionnaire using focus group methodology. The results of the focus group identified a number of barriers to healthy eating which were similar for both males and females, particularly in relation to taste, individuals’ time constraints, will-power, culture and tradition and price. Although price and will-power were seen as major barriers for males, specific barriers for females included time constraints and customs and traditions, particularly at social events which hindered their ability to maintain healthy eating habits. Conversely, the predominant facilitator that encouraged both males and females to opt for healthier foods was the support from others, availability of healthy food, reasonably priced healthy foods and education/awareness of health and wellbeing. In addition, Saudi Arabian females viewed changes to diet and exercise and an investment in public transport to be vital facilitating factors. Health professionals interviewed highlighted additional psychological factors such as depression as a significant barrier to healthy eating. Structural solutions such as health centers with an educational focus and Governmental policies to support healthy behaviors were also identified. The results of the data collection culminated in the development of social marketing recommendations to encourage women to maintain healthier behaviours. Recommendations included both short-term and long-terms initiatives such as, improved health facilities including the provision of gyms, educational classes, dietitian support, subsidised transportation and smart phone applications, and an associated decision support tool to inform future implementation options

Approvals and Prices of Systemic Antibiotics in Saudi Arabia and the United States

Introduction Antibiotics is one of the therapeutic classes with the highest level of consumption in the world. Despite the global diffusion of antibiotics, their availability and prices vary by country. This study assessed differences in the availability and prices of systemic antibiotics marketed in the United States (US) and Saudi Arabia and evaluated the factors associated with the differences in prices of systemic antibiotics marketed in both countries. Material and Methods We collected regulatory data from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) and the average sales price (ASP) data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and Saudi prices from the SFDA website. We concerted Saudi rials to dollars and current dollars to purchasing power parity dollars (PPS$). We conducted descriptive statistics and linear mixed-effects regression analysis using Rstudio. Results As of January 2022, 125 active systemic antibiotics were marketed in the United States and 68 in Saudi Arabia. The median$PPP Saudi/US price was higher for oral capsules and tablets (56.4%, n=71) than for oral suspension and syrup forms (33.2%, n=24). However, the median $PPP Saudi/US price of injectable forms was similar in Saudi Arabia and the US (94.9%, n=28). Strength (χ2 =29.19, p2=36.76,p2=36.58,p Conclusions Half of the systemic antibiotics marketed in the US were also available in Saudi Arabia. The PPP prices of antibiotics were lower in Saudi Arabia than in the US, except for injectable drugs. PPP price differences between Saudi Arabia and the US varied according to the drug form and strength and the country of incorporation of the marketing company