Saudi Schools\u27 Openness to Change: An Examination of Elementary school Teachers\u27 Perceptions

Today\u27s world has witnessed change in every aspect of life. As stated by Hargreaves (2002), we live in a world of endless and relentless change (p. 189). Schools have to go through change initiatives, and keep up with the demands of the ever-changing environment to survive in this globalizing world (Küçüksüleymanoğlu & Terzioğlu, 2017; Fullan, 2010; Elmore, 2004). For the Arab context, studies (e.g. Al-Mahdy, Emam & Hallinger, 2018; Hamad & Al-Ani, 2016; Al-Ani & Ismail, 2015) revealed that the past decade has witnessed dramatic change in the direction of education in the Arab Gulf states. Gulf leaders acknowledged that the long-term economic growth required passing the oil economy towards the development of knowledge-based economies. This means radical changes in education systems need to be implemented. Devos et al. (2007) argued that organizations will be able to survive and succeed as long as they and their employees are prepared to change. So the current study aims at determining schools\u27 openness to change in Saudi Arabia based on the views public school teachers. The study is guided by the following research questions: What are teachers’ perceptions regarding the level of schools\u27 openness to change in Saudi Public Schools? To what extent, if any, are there significant differences among teachers’ perceptions based on gender, grade level taught (elementary, middle, or secondary), and number of years of teaching experience? To achieve the study\u27s objectives, a quantitative approach is implemented using the Faculty Change Orientation Scale -FCOS developed by Smith & Hoy (2007). To avoid copyright issues, the researchers asked permission to use the FCOS Scale. For the Arab context, the researchers used the Arabic version of the FCOS Scale; the translation/back-translation technique was implemented. The Scale is administered to a group of (365) public school teachers in Saudi Arabia