An evaluation of the effectiveness of the learning resource centres in the colleges of education in Oman

Al-Mahri, Bakhit Ahmed Rajhit (2003) An evaluation of the effectiveness of the learning resource centres in the colleges of education in Oman. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This study reports on an investigation of the effectiveness of the Learning Resource Centres
(LRCs) in the Colleges of Education in Oman. It considers the aims of the LRCs/libraries
and explored the extent to which the LRCs achieve their aims and identified the defects
which represent obstacles to improving the LRCs. The extent to which the LRCs support
the Colleges of Education to achieve their aims is also explored.
Accordingly, this thesis examines the effectiveness of the LRCs and leads to
recommendations, which if implemented, will improve the LRCs for the users. In order to
achieve the research purposes the study surveys the LRCs in the Colleges of Education in
Oman. The survey includes observation of all six LRCs, responses to questionnaires from
140 academics and 436 students and interviews with 24 employees from the staff ofLRCs.
In consideration of the fact that the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman (MOHE) tries to
benefit from the Canadian experience in LRCs/libraries, interviews were conducted with
nine employees working in LRCs/libraries at six Canadian Universities.
The study indicates that, in general, the LRCs have satisfactory factors such as the
provision of resources, accessibility, support from personnel to users, training of users to
develop their skills and increase the utilisation of facilities. Consequently these enhance
the possibility of achieving the aims of the LRCs as well as supporting the Colleges to
attain their aims. The availability of the previous factors also indicates to the reasonable
effectiveness of the LRCs. On the other hand, the findings of the study consider that the
main obstacles to improving the LRCs are: centralisation of acquisition of human and
material resources at the MOHE, space, policy, and the incomplete classification system
and catalogue. Finally the study proposes recommendations which can overcome the
identified obstacles and improve the effectiveness of the LRCs in the Colleges of Education
in Oman.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: L Education > L Education (General); L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Doughty, Gordon and Matthew, Bob
• Date of Award: 2003
• Depositing User: Ms Mary Anne Meyering
• Unique ID: glathesis:2003-4847
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 17 Jan 2014 10:16
• Last Modified: 21 Jan 2014 10:01
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/4847