A teAm of scholars from the College of educa-tion at SQU, compris-

ing Professor Abdulqawi S al Zubaidi, Dr mahdi A Kathim, Dr Rashid S al Zubaidi and Dr Humaira S al Sleimani, has conducted a study to develop tests to identify gifted Omani students in basic education by giving them tests administered in different ways.

On the nature of giftedness, Dr Abdulqawi al Zubaidi, a

member of the study team, says that scientists have differed in defining giftedness due to its complexity and diversity, which has resulted in the adop-tion of a variety of theories and practices. Identification is in itself considered a major com-ponent of the gifted education programme. Davies and Reim (2001) have given it fifth po-sition among 15 other factors in the preparation of gifted programmes, while Garwwan (2008) has also given it the fifth position among 9 factors in a programme he has devised.

Dr Al Zubaidi believes that though scientists have agreed on the importance of the ap-proach used to identify the gift-ed, and though the first attempt took place about a hundred years ago, deciding on an agree method is almost impossible and is therefore still open for further examination. However, scientists have agreed on the general meaning and frame-work of giftedness, and on the fact that the gifted child is

one whose response to mental, cognitive and leadership issues outranks that of his peers and distinguishes him among them.

Who are the gifted?Dr Al Zubaidi believes that

the gifted can be described as special individual who possess an obvious superiority in a par-ticular field. they show inno-vation, leadership qualities and a great motivation for achieve-ment. that is to say, the gifted display definite behavioural patterns which qualify them to be so. (Renzulli 1978) believes that gifted behaviour is a result of three traits (the three-ring model) which are ability, crea-tivity and motivation.

Dr Rashid believes that sev-eral methods are currently used to identify gifted students in the different educational cycles, beginning from kindergarten. these include structured ob-servation in and outside the classroom, workshops combin-ing kindergarten specialists and parents, and study of familial history and parent expectations of their children. they also in-clude planned play, perform-ance assessment, examination of student portfolios, intelli-gence tests, innovation, aca-demic achievement, activities in and outside the classroom, personal trait measures, and others.

Objectives:Dr Rashid al Zubaidi says

that the project aims to pre-pare structured tests to identify gifted students in the basic edu-cation cycle and to raise aware-

ness among parents and teach-ers of identification methods. It will also assist educational planners to devise programmes to train teachers in identifying and educating the gifted.

Dr Rashid says that key questions raised in study in-clude the following: l How can we prepare and

structure measures to identi-fy gifted students in Oman’s basic education cycle?

l How can we prepare and structure measures to iden-tify the discriminating traits

of gifted students? l What are the discriminating

traits of gifted students? team members visited

neighbouring countries like Bahrain and KSA to famil-iarise themselves with their approaches. Also, the team in-vited the Director of the Arab Center for the Gifted to present the Jordanian experience in this matter.

Dr Rashid says that five measures to identify the gifted were either translated or pre-pared .the team then conduct-

ed the primary studies to ensure their reliability and stability. these included:l turrance’s measure for in-

novative thinkingl Gates’s measure for assess-

ing the talented and giftedl Renzulli’s measure for iden-

tifying the behaviour and characteristics of the gifted student

l Sages’s measure for identi-fying gifted students in the elementary and secondary cycles

l Sigs’s measure for identify-ing gifted students

The Study’s Population:Dr Rashid adds that the

study population consisted of all students (male and female) in the basic education cycle (fifth to the tenth grades) in Oman, who number 288,282, based on ministry of education statistics. Later on, the study’s measures were administered to a final sample of 1,000 students and more than 350 teachers in several schools across the Sul-tanate.

Dr Rashid points out that the preliminary results of the study indicate that the differ-ent measures used possess ade-quate psychometric properties, evidenced by the Cronbach Alpha test-retest reliability, factoral validity, confirmatory factor analysis, concurrent va-lidity and construct validity. this kind of adequacy made them applicable for identifying Omani gifted students in the relevant grades.

26reSearch SATURdAy, SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

Salt tolerant plants for saline lands and

water in Al Batinah

A study has discovered suitable methods for identifying them

Developing tests to identify gifted students in Basic Education

Professor abdulqawi S al Zubaidi

The study examines the influence of international business centres on consumer culture and why consumers prefer one centre to another

mAny people still think that geography is only about the lo-

cation of countries and regions in the world’s continents and the names of capitals, rivers and mountains. this was the way it was understood within the subject of social studies in elementary classes during the 80s of the last century. In fact, in the curricula of some Arab countries, geography is still taught in this way. those con-tents do not realise that it has tremendously developed in the recent decades, and that some of its off-shoots have become closely related to people’s eve-ry-day lives at different levels, including the global, regional and local.

moreover, its interests and research areas have diversified to deal with crucial issues in cities and villages in order to arrive at a better understand-ing of problems and offer scenarios for their solutions within changing conditions. One of geography’s branches which has witnessed a tangible development in its methodol-ogy, interests, solutions and study areas is urban geogra-phy, which not only focuses on the physical components of cities, ie the distribution and

use of land, infrastructure and civil problems, but also deals with the city’s private social characteristics, human behav-iour, which are in fact the first producers of civil and physical phenomena.

Accordingly, Dr muntasir I AbdulGhani, Assistant Profes-sor of Social and Urban Ge-ography in the Department of Geography at SQU, is currently conducting a research on the development of the retail trade in muscat Governorate with the Wilayat Al Seeb as an example.

Dr muntasir says that the study of city roles, including land use and commercial func-tions, is one of the foundations of urban geography, but that the new element in this sci-ence is the connection between these components and the be-haviour of the city’s dwellers and its managers. this is the focal point which the study tries to examine, ie to what ex-tent are human behaviour and city management responsible for the growth of the retail trade? He goes on to answer by saying first that the retail trade is in quality and quantity an international phenomenon found in all the world’s cities. the extent of the above-men-tioned factors depends closely on the city’s size, demography, its political and administrative importance, and its local, re-gional and international status. For example the development of the retail trade in a small city in the Sultanate of Oman like Izki or Al Khabourah dif-fers quantitatively and quali-tatively from the tremendous development of the same trade in the capital, muscat. But, as was said earlier, this is an in-ternational phenomenon.

Idea behind the studythe idea of the study,

Dr muntasir explains, was inspired by the reality of Ger-man cities, many of which have witnessed a change in the function of the retail trade and seen new components added to it, eg the emergence

of giant hypermarkets and online electronic trade. In ad-dition to improvements in goods and commodities and styles of supply and demand, the retail trade in German cit-ies has produced significant change in redistributing land use because commercial areas have assumed much impor-tance, unlike their situation in the past. In fact the commer-cial value of what used to be the central city locations has begun to decrease and seen a reduction in patrons, while some suburban areas have at-tracted new customers. these change pose many questions such as whether the city centre area will still attract internal and external tourism. many studies have been conducted

on this topic and applied to the condition of German and American cities. Dr muntasir says that though some Arab cities are witnessing the same phenomenon, (rapid develop-ment and change in their re-tail trade), it has not received enough scholarly attention and examination from Arab geog-raphers till now. Consequently a scientific study is needed to direct the theories, already ap-plied to foreign cities, to Arab ones. muscat, in this regard is a suitable choice as a typical Arab city. the results of the proposed study will help Arab geographers to obtain a better understanding of this urban phenomenon and will be of great significance both theo-retically and practically.

Questionsthe study tries to supply

adequate answers to ques-tions related to the nature of the changes and developments seen in muscat’s retail trade, especially in the Wilayat of Al Seeb, and the influence of these phenomena on the wilayat’s socioeconomic relations with its rural and urban sections. the study will also examine the influence of hypermarkets on the retail trade’s position and effectiveness in the same area and investigate competi-tion between Al Seeb’s busi-ness centres and those of mus-cat. In addition the study will ask whether the retail trade’s in small businesses in Al Seeb will be able to compete with global business centres which have become an integral part of the Seeb economy. It will also examine the influence of the new global patterns of trade on local models of consumption.

MethodologyDr muntasir explains that

research on the development of the retail trade in a specific geographical region faces many problems around the availabili-ty of relevant literature and pub-lished statistics. While statistics

on categorisation of the activi-ties of wholesale commercial enterprises are globally avail-able, those on retail trade pro-viders, scattered around street corner locations, are scarce and rarely available. moreover, data on consumers shifting prefer-ences, due to changes in time and place, and the influence of global trade centres on the lo-cal consumption cultures, is not available except through special-ised field studies. this aspect of the study requires and depends almost entirely on field work. Here the task can be summa-rised in the following steps: the preparation of land use maps on Al Seeb’s markets and its com-mercial streets; questionnaires related to customers and busi-ness owners in some markets in the wilayat’s (Al Seeb Souq and Al Khoud Commercial Street), as well as those of modern trade centres. Sometimes these ques-tionnaires may fail to provide the desired responses because of tight structures, so the study will have to revert to conducting in-depth personal interviews. the proper management of these requires special procedures be-cause they will reveal minute details which the questionnaires are not able to produce.

TeamDr muntasir says that the

study will be carried out by a team which has already been formed and includes students of both genders from the Depart-ment of Geography at SQU. A big part of the study has al-ready been done, especially work on the preparation of commercial land use at Al Seeb and Al Khoud souqs, and the downloading and computerised analysis of a number of ques-tionnaires which have led to positive and useful results.

Dr muntasir concludes by thanking SQU for supporting this research project and by mentioning that while process-ing the questionnaires, many people have shown interest in their results.

A study on the development of the retail trade in Muscat

Dr Muntasir I abdulGhani

A mAJOR part of land and water resources of Al Batinah, the principal region of Oman agriculture, has become highly saline due to seawater intrusion and secondary

salinisation. this situation was created due to the over-pump-ing of water exceeding the annual recharge which has now be-come almost permanent. to address this problem, Dr Ahmad al Busaidy, from the College of Agricultural and marine Sciences at SQU, has conducted a study to preserve agricultural land in Al Batinah from disappearing due to new constructions.

Farmers can only be motivated not to change land use and sell their lands until an economically attractive alternative is made possible to them. Furthermore, Dr Al Busaidy believes that farmers will be convinced by a solution through which they can still use their saline lands for growing economically viable plants that can bring them fodder, food and a reason-able income. Salicornia and Jatropha are among the species that can potentially be grown in saline lands and coastal belts like Al Batinah. therefore, Dr Al Busaidy is conducting sys-tematic studies for the duration of three years to assess their salt tolerance, performance under prevailing conditions and other related aspects like oil and protein content, palatability and quality of fodder, etc. In the first year, pot study will be conducted at Agricultural experiment Station (AeS), Col-lege of Agricultural and marine Sciences, at SQU to evalu-ate the feasibility of tested plants irrigated by saline water to grow under Omani conditions.

the results from the first year will be used to plan a large scale study at AeS or Rumais station. All necessary measure-ments (soil, plant and yield analyses) will be done based on reliable published references. In the last year, the findings will be generalised to the public through extension channel and farm applications.

the outcome of the study will be the utilisation of de-graded saline water and lands and laying future theoretical and experimental foundation to bring fodder for goats, sheep and livestock, vegetable oil, burning fuel and even bio-fuel for vehicles. thus, employment for the rural communities be revived and new industry can develop.