English abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the teacher training program at the Intermediate Teacher Training Colleges (ITTCs) in the Sultanate of Oman based on the opinions of the students, the graduates and faculty members of these institutions.
The population of the study included three strata : the second year Islamic Education male and female students in the nine ITTCs, the graduates and the faculty members of these unstitutions. The sample of the study was made up of all the population of the first stratum, (323) students, (146) graduates accounting for (11%) of all the graduates, and (110) teachers accounting for (37%) of the faculty members in the ITTCs.
The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire which was divided into four categories : the educational component, the field of concentration : the cultural compohent, and the general aspects of the program . Each of the first three categories was further divided into five sub-categories : objectives, content, teaching methods and activities, evaluation techniques , and the extent of gain from the courses. The educational category included a sixth sub-category : the student teaching program . The general aspect category was not further divided into sub-categories and included (12) items. The total number of items in the questionnaire was (245).
The validity of the questionnaire was established by a panel of judges . Its reliability was determined by calculating Cronbach alpha which yielded the following coefficients : (0.93) for the educational component, (0.96) for the field of concentration, (0.94) for the cultural component, and (0.62) for the general aspect.
The questionnaire was administered in the 1993-1994 academic year . The statistical technique which the researcher used for the analysis of the data was the t-test .
The following were the most important results of the study :
1- The means of the four categories of the program given by the students were as follows : (73.2) for the educational component, (73.6) for the field of concentration, (65.5) for the cultural component, and (63.5) for the general aspect .
2- The means of the four categories of the program given by the graduates were as follows: (77.0) for the educational component, (73.4) for the field of concentration, (71.2) for the cultural component, and (72.3) for the general aspect .
3- The means of the four categories of the program given by the faculty members were as follows : (78.6) for the educational component, (82.1) for the field of concentration, (76.5) for the cultural component, and (61.3) for the general aspect.
4- There were statistically significant gender differences in the students' ratings of the appropriateness of the general aspect of the program. The male students gave higher rating than the females.
There were no such differences in the ratings of the appropriatenes of the other three categories : Also, there were no statistically significant gender differences in the graduates' ratings of the appropriateness of the four categories .
