English abstract
The objective of this study was to explore the extent of the effectiveness of an activities bag on the enhancement of the skills in understanding maps for fifth grade students, whereby the study aimed to answer the following questions: 1) What are the skills of maps that are included in fifth grade social studies textbook? 2) At what degree did the level of understanding of maps skills improve amongst students after teaching them the activities bag? 3) Does the level of understanding of map skills differ between the test group sample and the standard group sample ? The stwely sample consisted of (56) girl students from Al-Izdihar School for Basic Education in Muscat, and was evenly divided between the test group and the standard group. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher had made an analysis card which contained the primary and secondary skills for understanding maps. The robustness of this card had been confirmed and had been used to analyze the contents of the social studies textbook. In light of this analysis, the researcher had compiled an activities bag that involved a number of objectives, initial tests to measure the extent of acquisition of the fifth grade students of these skills of understanding the maps, various different activities and a final test that examined the effectiveness of the activities bag. The results of the tests had been analyzed by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), where the arithmetic mean and the Standard Deviation for each primary and secondary skill of understanding maps had been calculated for the answer of the second question and third question. The study had reached to the following results and conclusions: There is a difference in percentages for each skill of the primary and secondary skills of understanding the maps, as the percentages increased with the reduced difficulty and reduce as the difficulty of the skill increased. The skill of reading the map had came at the top with a percentage of (88,75%) while the skill of 'concluding' from the map came the lowest with a percentage of (55,35%). Fifth grade students could achieve a 'good' level in the rating of the skills required for understanding of maps, as the overall arithmetic mean for students' acquisition of skills had reached (72,54%). There was a noticeable difference shown by the statistical means for the test group sample in acquiring the skills of understanding the maps due to the accomplishment of the activities bag. In light of the results, the study had provided some recommendation such as making use of the activities bag that was complied by the researcher in order to make a practical workbook for the skills of understanding maps along with the social studies core textbook for the fifth grade, as well as creating educational bags of all skills of understanding maps for all grades. Furthermore, the study shed light on other recommendations such as conducting other similar studies on the effectiveness of the activities bag in the enhancement of the skills of understanding maps for other grades.
