Challenges Faced by Female Teachers and Students of High School in Teaching and Learning National Social Studies Curriculum in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to assess the challenges faced by female teachers and students of high school in teaching and learning the national social studies (NSS) curriculum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Conducting this study is informed by curricular change in KSA, as a way of addressing labour market demand and economic development. It is also driven by the challenges inherent within the NSS curriculum. The current phase of curricular change in KSA began in 2011. However, there are still challenges in regard to curriculum change and implementation process. In this study, a mixed-methods approach was used to collect the data needed to answer the research questions. Both questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data from female teachers and students. Questionnaire data was analysed using SPSS software while interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings showed that the changes in the NSS curriculum have affected the content, material, activities and evaluation used in teaching and learning, and that the public school sector is struggling with the implementation of the new curriculum. Public schools do not have an adequate level of support and resources required to effectively implement the curriculum. The area of the new curriculum that did rank highly was the evaluation method in the curriculum because of the inclusion of formative evaluation in the overall performance assessment. The activities recommended in the curriculum, teaching methods employed and the recognised text-books also ranked high according to this study. The high issues were resource availability, time limitation, repetition of content and class environment. These have an observable negative effect on the implementation of the NSS curriculum. The researcher suggests recommendations to alleviate these challenges.