(91)TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS UNDER EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES: AN UNDERGRADUATE EXPERIENCE UNDER THE ARAB VEIL

摘要

Any typical undergraduate higher education classroom around the globe would look the same in termsof infrastructure and ambience. But, that's not the case in Saudi Arabia. Teaching research to 59female undergraduate Saudi students was atypical in all forms. A mid-size private university located inthe Eastern province of Saudi Arabia is the scenario for this research. Freshmen and sophomorestudents, ages 18 to 20 were the authors of 55 final research papers of a Writing & Research coursetaught in the spring of 2015. Indicating that Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countriesamong the Middle East and Gulf countries might be an understatement. For example, a Saudi womanstarted attending college very recently. Her obedience not only to her family traditions and values butto the rigidity of the law of the country in general makes her to be perceived as a passive and inactivemember of the society. Surprisingly, the opposite was shown in the classroom. Saudi female students'actions and behaviors on selecting research topics would have jeopardized the job and limitedfreedom of any university professor. Since technology played a massive role in their daily lives, in theclassroom their decisions were influenced by that exposure. Regardless of their strong ties to thereligion and cultural norms, the young Saudi female disclosed unimaginable curiosity as they selectedthe topics for research and manifested an incredible route that could make the news globally.Externally, there are many misconceptions about what they do and what they are able and allowdoing. For example, early marriage, drug addiction, adoption patterns, plastic surgery, women drivingin Saudi, environmental hazards, use of cell phones to contact males, cheating and plagiarism in theclassroom, women rape, domestic violence, women empowerment, replacement of note-taking by celimages, as well as the false medical reports for being excused academically are some of the hottopics investigated. Additional topics intended but not allowed by the instructor were homosexualencounters and religion disobedience. The research paper was progressively constructed. It startedwith deep brainstorming of topics, classification and organization by themes, development of onlinemeasurement instruments, choice of data subjects, scrutiny of data and final discussion. For thepurpose of this proposal, the process of teaching research methods in a restrictive social environment,the analysis of anecdotes occurred during the investigation, the exploration of researchable andacceptable/non-acceptable topics were examined in the light of culturally and fully transformativefuture female social behaviors.