SACM - United Kingdom
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://drepo.sdl.edu.sa/handle/20.500.14154/9667
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Item Restricted Investigating Social Integration and Networking among Third Culture Students at Durham university(Saudi Digital Library, 2025) Alghamdi, Faisal Ibrahim; Geampana, AlinaThis dissertation investigates the experiences of Third Culture Kids (TCKs) at Durham University, focusing on their social interactions, integration challenges, and the effects of their multiethnic backgrounds on academic performance and personal well-being. TCKs, who have spent significant portions of their developmental years outside their parents home countries, encounter distinct challenges and opportunities in higher education due to their varied cultural experiences. Using qualitative methods, the study conducted in-depth interviews with TCKs at Durham University to explore how they describe their initial social encounters, adapt to new social norms, and the strategies they use to overcome challenges related to integration. The research also examined how TCKs’ perceptions of social integration evolve, the influence of social networks on their academic and personal success, and how the intersection of socioeconomic status with their cultural and educational backgrounds affects their Durham University experience. Findings demonstrate that TCKs utilize various strategies to navigate initial cultural and social challenges, with their views on integration changing as they form stronger connections within the university. Social networks were found to significantly influence their academic outcomes and personal well-being. Furthermore, socioeconomic status emerged as a necessary factor to discuss that affects their access to resources and overall integration into university life. The study suggests several policy recommendations for universities to better support TCKs, including enhanced cultural sensitivity training, mentoring programs, adaptable academic policies, improved mental health support, and community-building activities designed specifically for TCKs. These measures aim to create a more inclusive and supportive environment that recognizes and utilizes the unique backgrounds of TCKs, boosting their educational experience and fostering a more diverse academic community. The conclusions of this research emphasize the need for higher education institutions to adopt more comprehensive and inclusive approaches to support the distinct needs of TCKs, ensuring their successful integration and enabling them to shine in the globalized educational setting.9 0Item Restricted The Role of Climate Change Education in Shaping Risk Perception, Communication, and Behavior Change: A Study of Saudi Youth(Saudi Digital Library, 2025) Al Buainain, Mozah; Lofstedt, RagnarThis study explores how climate change is perceived, communicated, and addressed across three interconnected domains in Saudi Arabia: media discourse, youth engagement, and postgraduate environmental education. Using a mixed-methods approach, it combines thematic content analysis of Saudi Gazette articles (2021–2025), a structured survey of Saudi youth aged 18–35 (with comparative data from older adults), and document analysis of postgraduate environmental program brochures from leading Saudi universities. The research examines how climate narratives are framed in the media, how environmental education is integrated at the postgraduate level, and how young Saudis perceive, engage with, and respond to climate change. By analyzing these strands together, the study provides critical insight into how national climate ambitions align with youth awareness, generational engagement, and institutional readiness for sustainability transitions.8 0Item Restricted Blended Learning: Exploring the Benefits and Challenges for EFL Undergraduate Students(Saudi Digital Library, 2025) Alsulami, Meshari; Inostroza, MariaBlended learning (BL), which combines face-to-face instruction with online components, has become increasingly popular in tertiary education institutions worldwide. This study aims to raise awareness of recent developments in the effectiveness of BL for teaching English as a second language. It seeks to evaluate both the benefits and the challenges associated with using BL to teach English as a foreign language to undergraduate students. A literature-based methodology was adopted, incorporating a systematic literature review. From an initial pool of 740 studies, 25 met the PRISMA criteria and were included in the final analysis. To address the research questions, both inductive and deductive coding methods were applied. The findings suggest that BL enhances student motivation, interaction, autonomy, and language development. Additionally, BL supports individualised learning, increases teacher–student interaction, and enhances students’ academic performance and language proficiency. However, several challenges were identified, including inadequate technological infrastructure, limited digital competencies, insufficient professional development for teachers, and increased workloads for lecturers. The findings of this research may be valuable for students, educators, and universities, as they can provide a foundation for the successful implementation of BL practices. The results indicate that blended education can be an effective approach to promoting language learning and improving the overall learning environment. It also plays a significant role in motivating students and fostering their interest in language acquisition. Nonetheless, further research is needed to address existing barriers and to develop a sustainable BL model that aligns with the needs of both language learners and teachers.12 0Item Restricted Exploring the experiences and concerns about privacy and security in online teaching by students and teachers in the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia(Saudi Digital Library, 2025) Almekhled, Basmah Fahad; Petrie, HelenThis research programme investigated experiences of online teaching and related privacy and security concerns before and since the pandemic among HEI students and teachers in the United Kingdom (UK) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). As there is little cross-cultural research on these issues, five studies were conducted to explore them. Studies 1 and 2 were online surveys with students. UK students reported difficulties due to the pandemic with practical, interaction, and social isolation. In contrast, KSA students reported difficulties with focus, engagement, and technical issues. UK students used webcams selectively, whereas KSA students reported little use. Privacy and security concerns were low among UK students but moderate among KSA students. Studies 3 and 4 were online surveys with teachers. UK teachers struggled with students not using their webcams during online teaching, whereas KSA teachers faced communication and assessment issues. Both groups reported difficulties with student engagement. KSA teachers reported low webcam use, whereas UK teachers reported high use. Privacy and security concerns were low among UK teachers but moderate among KSA teachers. Study 5, a field study in a KSA HEI, found neither students nor teachers used webcams in teaching. Students cited flexibility, distractions, and privacy concerns, whereas teachers cited distractions and security concerns. Students reported high levels of privacy concerns about their institutions but only moderate concern about teachers and classmates. Complex relationships were found between students’ online privacy, security concerns and trust. Studies 6 and 7 were online surveys which explored KSA and UK HEI teachers experiences and attitudes in more detail. Both groups valued webcam use for engagement, but UK teachers felt self-conscious and struggled with students' webcams presence, while KSA teachers had privacy, security and cultural concerns. Both groups were uncertain about institutional webcam policies and expressed limited satisfaction with privacy and security guidelines. These findings highlight the need to address webcam use and privacy and security concerns in online teaching in relation to cultural and educational contexts.16 0Item Restricted Learning Art Through Virtual Museums: A Qualitative Study of Art Students in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia(Lancaster University, 2024) Alkamidi, Eman; Sime, Julie-AnnImmersive virtual reality technology is becoming a powerful tool for museums to promote learning. Adopting a qualitative approach, this study investigates how experiencing immersive virtual museums through a head-mounted display affects Saudi Arabian art learners’ experiences, focusing on their sense of presence and flow. It also investigates the effect of that experience on their attitudes toward using immersive virtual museums for learning art and their intention to use such resources in the future. Thematic analysis of data from 30 interviews, revealed the effective role of immersive virtual museum in art learning. Art learners experienced a sense of presence in an immersive virtual museum, enhancing their perceptivity and appreciation of both the museum and its content, surpassing traditional art sources. Additionally, it promoted a flow state, encouraging active engagement and connection. Appreciation and connection are aspects that have been insufficiently addressed in prior research on the effect of immersive virtual museum experiences. The findings demonstrated participants’ positive attitudes toward the use of immersive virtual museums and their intention to use them in the future. This finding offers insights into the reasoning behind art learners' attitudes and intentions, enhancing understanding of their perspectives. The findings provide unique insights into how the art learning experience can be improved through the use of virtual reality headsets, which allow users to actively explore the museum’s content, enabling the construction of more meaningful learning experiences. The study advocates for universities to invest in virtual reality technology and collaborate with museums and technology developers to improve content quality. Integrating immersive virtual museums into university curricula and expanding access to these technologies can make art learning more effective. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift towards digital museum experiences, enhancing accessibility, improving art education opportunities for a wider range of learners and preparing learners for a digital future.29 0Item Restricted Interacting in a Gamified Environment in Higher Education: Research on Collaborative and Competitive Practices(University of Manchester, 2025) Allnjawi, Sara; Whitworth, Andrew; Gatenby Banks, AmandaThe purpose of this study is to investigate higher education teachers' perspectives on incorporating gamification into their courses. Q Methodology is used to gather teachers' subjective views. Fifteen higher education teachers from the UK and Saudi Arabia, who have adopted gamification in their practice, participated in this study. The data collection included 15 Q-sorts, clarification of their ranking of the statements using informed think- aloud tasks, and post-sort interviews which included open-ended and demographic questions. For data analysis, two methods were used. First, the Q analysis was performed, and two factors were identified as representing different orientations of higher education instructors towards the use of gamification in their pedagogical activities. Second, thematic analysis was used to analyse the data collected from the informed think-aloud tasks and the post-sort interviews. The findings of this research indicated that two different perspectives of teachers, which are the “Social Drivers” and the “Digital Individualistic Formative Assessment Drivers”, are aligned with disciplinary pedagogy. Participants working in the Humanities fields focused on social involvement while creating gamified activities to foster a sense of community, bonding and relatedness through collaborative approaches. Participants from Scientific disciplines design activities for individual experience as a formative assessment in a digital/online setting. Further, the study shows how gamification enables social bonding (relatedness) among students. Moreover, the teacher's role in the gamified activities may vary between facilitator, player, and observer depending on the goal intended for the gamified activity. In addition, there are many difficulties in implementing gamification in the context of summative assessment. The conflict between strict institutional requirements of summative assessment and gamified learning highlights that there are a lot of challenges in implementing this aspect. Lastly, the findings highlighted how important competition is in gamified learning settings. Competition, when used carefully, may be a strong incentive for students, encouraging them to perform well and connect with the subject matter more fully.15 0Item Restricted Exploring Female Faculty Members' Perspectives on Flexible Working Arrangements (FWAs) in Saudi Arabian Higher Education Institutions: Implications for Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance.(University of Leeds, 2024) Alharbi, Hind Faleh; Burgess, JoThis qualitative study explores female faculty members' perspectives on flexible work arrangements (FWAs) in Saudi Arabian higher education institutions, with a focus on implications for job satisfaction and work-life balance. Through ten semi-structured interviews, the research examines the current state of FWAs implementation, the extent to which FWAs affect job satisfaction and work-life balance, and the main challenges in implementing FWAs. The findings reveal that while FWAs are present in some institutions, their implementation is largely informal and inconsistent, often relying on the decisions of department heads rather than formalised policies. Where available, FWAs positively impact job satisfaction by enhancing autonomy and productivity. They also contribute to work-life balance, particularly for women managing caregiving responsibilities. However, the study identified barriers to effective FWAs implementation, including institutional emphasis on physical presence, lack of performance metrics for flexible work, and resistance to technological change among older administrators. This study contributes to the limited literature on FWAs in Saudi Arabian higher education and provides recommendations for enhancing workplace flexibility.37 0Item Restricted People's Judgements About Autistic Students' Academic Performance Based on Brief Samples of Their Behaviours(University of Nottingham, 2024-03) Alhusayni, Afaf; Marsh, Lauren; Sheppard, ElizabethThe number of autistic students attending higher learning institutions is growing, but unfortunately, the majority of them do not complete their studies or are less likely to do so compared to non-autistic individuals (Ashbaugh et al., 2017). They demonstrate an increased incidence of repeating courses or dropping out (Dijkhuis et al., 2020). Studies have revealed that the intellectual demands of college do not pose substantial challenges to autistic students, but they struggle with social relationship and interpersonal competence issues, anxiety, stress, poor emotional regulation and difficulties in executive functioning (Brede et al., 2017; Dijkhuis et al., 2020). Therefore, it is critical to examine how communication and socialisation difficulties affect their academic life. In this series of studies, we investigated neurotypical perceptions about autistic university students' academic performance. In Study 1, we developed an experimental paradigm by recording brief samples of the participants' autistic and non-autistic target behaviours while they were writing about different life experiences. These videos were then shown to a group of non-autistic perceivers, who made judgements about the autistic students' academic life (success, motivation, happiness and grade). The findings suggest that autistic targets are judged more negatively in all academic aspects compared to non-autistic targets. In Study 2, we replicated these findings in a new target group and assessed the veracity of these negative judgements by comparing perceiver judgements to target self-reports. Autistic students faced more negative judgements in all aspects of academic life compared to non-autistic targets. Their motivation and happiness were underestimated, while non-autistic students were accurately perceived. However, both groups were unaware of how they were perceived, believing that they would receive more positive judgements. In Study 3, we examined how different social contexts under high-demand (social interaction and self-presentation) and low-demand conditions (writing) could affect autistic individuals' judgements of academic success. We recorded three types of video recordings featuring both autistic and non-autistic individuals. The targets were filmed while either filling out a questionnaire and interacting with the experimenter or introducing themselves to the camera after being informed about the study's objectives to determine whether such disclosures would influence the perceptions formed about them. The findings show that negative peer judgements persist in different social contexts and do not change based on the situations. In Study 4, we examined whether these judgements were extended to educators. The results demonstrate that academic staff hold less negative views of autistic students compared to the perceptions of non-autistic students and the general population. Overall, the findings indicate that negative peer judgements persist in higher education, although their consequences for academic attainment are still unknown.45 0Item Restricted Enabling Translanguaging in the Saudi EFL Classroom: Affordances and Reflections of Collaborative Translanguaging Tasks During Reading Lessons(Saudi Digital Library, 2023) Ghali, Nada; Smith, Heather; Lopez, ElaineTranslanguaging advocates a new approach to the teaching and learning of multilinguals based on the idea that multilingual learners have one linguistic repertoire, rather than moving between two or more language codes (García and Li, 2014). In the EFL classroom, however, the tendency to use the target language only is still advocated as a pedagogy in education policy. In observations before this study and as a teacher in the context of Saudi Arabia, learners still used Arabic during group discussions in the EFL classroom. This study attempts to allow learners to draw on their full linguistic repertoire in a safe space to reconstitute their languaging processes for learning English during collaborative reading lessons. This study positions translanguaging as collaborative and agentive, viewing learning through a sociocultural framework (Vygotsky, 1978; Mercer, 1995; 2002) In this qualitative study, group observations were conducted to observe translanguaging affordances of learning in two cases of different proficiency level groups of students. Students collectively reflected on their weekly learning and were interviewed and provided a structured written reflection at the end of the seven weeks of translanguaging as allowed in the classroom. The study found that students reflected particularly on awareness of their metalinguistic development as they showed creative ways to mediate their learning in the bilingual ZPD (Moll, 2014). Ultimately, students made their translanguaging purposeful through the active processes of interthinking, thus suggesting new mechanisms for how interthinking functions through translanguaging in the collaborative learning classroom. This research has extended the scope of applying sociocultural and translanguaging theory together to provide empirical evidence for translanguaging pedagogy in the EFL Saudi context. Finally, this study provides recommendations for policy and practice in enabling a collaborative translanguaging pedagogy approach in the EFL classroom.71 0