Arab Educational Information Network

The present study aimed to identify the best practices for the input of college of engineering in mathematics and English courses through the preparatory year program, tracking the processes which lead to achieving the underlined objectives in a high quality manner, and to identify the main challenges by exploring the academic obstacles that preparatory year students as well as college of engineering students are facing, and the degree of variation of these obstacles in the light of the study variables, and the students’ academic level. Based on the statistical analysis of their responses to the questionnaire of this study, which consisted of frequencies, percentages, averages, ANOVA, and Scheffe test. The results showed the best diagnosed practices, and the most important obstacles for outstanding performance in preparatory year as well as college of engineering in university of hail, which can be summarized as follows: 1) identifying students’ abilities, guide them to choose their university specializations, and prevent withdrawal from university. Consequently, students are guided based on their abilities to ensure better engagement within university environment, that is, each student will be given a chance to choose his specialization according to his abilities, and break his fear from university study. 2) Giving students the chance to achieve their ambition to get high scores, and to prove themselves through hard work. 3) Obstacles are lack of support services such as catering, accommodation appropriate material resources in the halls, lack of references and supportive programs, lack of information about the way students are admitted in university colleges after passing the preparatory year the specialization, and lack of information about university colleges and importance of university specialization and reinforcement with the students, many quizzes and exams, unfair marking, many administrative duties assigned to teachers which prevent them from contacting students outside class time, lack of commitment to office hours, and the weakness of the academic proficiency of some non-direct hired English teachers. (Published Abstract)