فاعلية استخدام الوسائط المتعددة في تنمية مهارات التفكير الجغرافي لدى طلبة الصف العاشر الأساسي في سلطنة عمان ودافعيتهم نحو التعلم
This study aimed to reveal the effectiveness of using multimedia in developing the geographical thinking skills of tenth grade students and their motivation towards learning. The researcher used the quasi-experimental approach, where the study sample consisted of (60) female students of the tenth grade at Faidh Al Maarifah School for Basic Education (5-10) in the Governorate of Muscat. The students were selected according to the simple random method and were divided into two groups: the experimental group consisted of (30) female students who studied using multimedia, while the control group consisted of (30) female students who studied in the usual way. The equivalence of the two groups was verified by analysing the results of students in the first semester in Social Studies subject. The researcher used two data collection tools. The first tool was the geographical thinking skills scale which consisted of (20) questions distributed on four basic skills: (the skill of dealing with the map - the skill of analysing tables and figures - the skill of interpreting geographical phenomena - the skill of solving geographical problems). Each skill was represented by (5) phrases. The second tool was to measure motivation towards learning, which consisted of (24) phrases. These phrases were distributed over three main axes, with (8) phrases for each axis. These three axes are: trust and learner satisfaction, perseverance and ambition, and achievement and learning pace. The validity of the two study tools was confirmed using the face validity (the sincerity of arbitrators) and the construct validity and their stability was verified by calculating the internal consistency coefficient. The results of the study showed that there were statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≥ 0.05) between the averages of the study sample in the scale of geographical thinking skills and the scale of motivation towards learning. The differences were in favour of the students of the experimental group. In light of these results, the researcher recommended the necessity of activating multimedia in teaching Social Studies subject. (Author’s abstract)