Parental partnership in Oman with specific reference to children with SEN

Ecological theory emphasises the different systems and contexts that have direct and indirect influences on a child's achievement and development. The present study looks at how parental partnership is perceived and promoted by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Oman to help pupils, specifically those with SEN. It employs qualitative research methods to investigate policies, structures and practices of parental partnership in Oman. To achieve the research aims and answer the research questions, the research is carried out in multi-levels targeting different groups. Results showed that while there are good promising practices and efforts to promote parental partnership in Oman, there are also several shortcomings that need to be overcome. The overall findings show that no one particular model of parental partnership is mainly adopted; different models have been found, yet more focus was on some models than others. The study reveals some contradictory views and little understanding between parents and professionals, which may have affected the practices regarding parents' involvement. Findings indicated that the different stakeholders and service providers have challenges related to clear vision, accountability systems, training, funding, poor collaboration and little dialogue regarding parental partnership. Most work on parental partnership lacks consistency, is based on ad hoc organisation and is poorly monitored. However, willingness to promote more effective parents' involvement was found among the professionals. Recommendations for ways forward and implications for further research are provided.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A normative study of the raven coloured progressive matrices test for omani hildren aged 5-11 years*

Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices test has been extensively used across a wide variety of settings in different countries all over the world as a fair culture measure of non-verbal intelligence. The objective of the present study is to extract norms of the test for Omani children. The test was applied on an individual basis on a random sample of 1042 children from different age groups ranging from 5 to 11 years old. All of the estimated psychometric properties including validity, reliability, and norms indicate that the test could be practically utilized when applied in several situations. The study has a number of implications including that the Ministry of Education may use it to diagnose and detect those children with learning difficulties; the Ministry of Health may use it in hospitals to measure the IQ of certain patients in order to make medical decisions. In addition, researchers in psychological and social areas would be able to conduct studies aiming at measuring the intelligence of children