Exploring Teachers' Perceptions on Schools' Openness to Change in Omani & Saudi Public Schools

The purpose of this study is to determine schools' openness to change (SOC) in the Sultanate of Oman & Saudi Arabia based on the views of public school teachers. The study implements a quantitative approach using the Faculty Change Orientation Scale (FCOS) developed by Smith & Hoy (2007). A sample of (719) subjects is selected during 2018-2019 school years. The data is analyzed through descriptive statistics, t-test, and ANOVA. The research concluded that Saudi and Omani teachers showed high positive perceptions regarding the degree of principal openness to change (POC) and Teacher openness to change (TOC); nevertheless there were no significant differences between Saudi and Omani teachers in SOC; in addition there were significant differences between male and female teachers in favor of female teachers, finally there were significant differences among elementary, middle, and high schools in favor of elementary schools. The current study contributes to the field of school change management in the Arab Gulf States culture, especially in providing insights of teachers from two different Arab Gulf States.


Introduction
Change is one of the most significant and widespread concepts in today's world. It is possible nowadays to experience change in every aspect of life. For organizations, change has been thought of as an important factor in the development of any organization. Change can be defined as "a movement from one state to another" (Hargreaves, 2004, p.287). In other words, change is the process of transformation from one status to another in a planned or unplanned manner (Hoşgörür, 2016). It is a term used to describe an improvement process and the results of this process (Altrichter, 2000). From an organizational point of view, change describes a process experienced by an organization so as to provide more products and services in a more efficient, productive, and competitive way (Hoşgörür, 2016). As people differ with regard to their perceptions toward change (Yilmaz, 2010); researchers have used different ways for conceptualizing people's reactions toward change (Oreg et al., 2007). Positive terms such as change readiness, change commitment, change acceptance, openness to change; and negative terms such as change resistance, change cynicism, change avoidance are used in literature interchangeably (Kareem & Kin, 2018).
Literature in the field of change acknowledged the need for schools to go through change initiatives (e.g., Fullan & Suzanne, 1992;Elmore, 2004;Ghavifekr et al., 2013). Nowadays, change has become a must for ensuring and sustaining schools' development (Hoşgörür, 2016). Schools, as the core of the education system, are subject to inescapable internal and external change pressures (Hallinger, 2004;Hargreaves, 2002;Harris, 2006). Therefore, schools are required to get along with the demands of the ever-changing environment to survive in such a globalizing world (Küçüksüleymanoğlu & Terzioğlu, 2017). Hence, a school should be ready for change in the most careful and well-planned way, since any positive or negative change in the educational organization will have an unavoidable impact on people such organization is designed to train (Beycioglu & Aslan, 2010).
The critical factor that influences the success or failure of change is precisely the individuals' openness to change, which is related to positive or negative attitudes towards change (Kareem & kin, 2018). Openness to change refers to the individuals' willingness to support change, and is related to the extent to which employees support change willingly. It is accepted as a proposal for readiness to change and a critical factor for identifying the success of organizational change (Yilmaz, 2010). Individuals' openness to change is regarded as a necessary, initial condition for the success of planned change (Blackman et al., 2013). On the other hand, change interventions in the organization often fail because of the limited attention given to the human element (Coetzee & Chetty, 2015). Literature demonstrated how influential individuals who are willing to change are in the success of changes; according to (Tasdan, 2013;Demirtas, 2012;Yilmaz, 2010) change depends mainly on the willingness of individuals to change and their positive attitudes to its potential consequences. Attitude towards change was defined by Vakola and Nikolaou (2006) as certain regularities of the individual's thoughts, feelings, and predispositions towards change launched by the organization. Hayes (2014) and Kotter (2012) indicated that individuals' attitude towards change is a good predictor of change readiness in any organization; it can be seen as one major determinant of the person's intention to perform the behavior to support or resist change. Bareil et al. (2007) found that positive attitudes toward change in schools are more important in achieving the goals of the school and in succeeding in change programs. Similarly, Thomas (2003), Oreg (2003), andkareem &kin (2018) argued that positive attitudes towards change, in schools, constituted an important indicator in adopting innovations, and may result in involving actively in change initiatives, or highly committed to change. On the other hand, negative attitudes towards change will be a disabling factor when trying to implement change initiatives in the organization (Vakola & Nikolaou, 2006). Change resistance makes the change impossible; resistance is a kind of barrier that stops the change from proceeding (Vrabcová, 2015), as it may generate some negative behavioral intentions such as absenteeism, withdrawal, intentions to quit, or sabotage the intended initiatives (Kareem & Kin, 2018). As a matter of fact, change resistance is considered as one of the main reasons for failure of processes that involve change in organizations in general and in the educational systems in particular (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996;Zimmerman, 2006). Therefore; Vrabcová (2015) argued that the openness to change, flexibility, and pro-innovative involvement have become an important part of new value system necessary and specific for the teaching profession and modern teachers.
Change puts some people in the spot (Hargreaves, 2000). It relies mainly on the willingness of those people to change and their positive ideas as to its prospective consequences (Konakli, 2014). With regard to the school community, principals and teachers come to the forefront; they are the most important people in the school to lead the educational change. Literature (e.g., Griffith, 2010;Demirtas, 2012;Hoşgörür, 2016) assured that teachers and principals are considered the most potential variables are influencing the success of change at schools; and their openness to change might affect the success of change that has been carried out in their schools. Whatever change is, school principals are central figures in the leadership of change (Fullan, 2001). Strong leadership and management are required to cope with change problems and to create potential opportunities to make major reforms in the organization (Wallace, 2004). Since principals are central to preparing and organizing schools for change, it is important to be aware of how open they are to change (Harris, 2001), as the roles of a modem principal include being the doer and the leader of change inside the school (Konakli, 2014). In this regard Liu (2010) refereed to two main factors in change leadership, namely: 1) Leader's Change Selling Behavior, which means action that attempts to promote change inside the organization and make it clear why change was necessary, 2) Leader's Change Implementing Behavior, which means action to push a change forward and support success throughout implementing the change. Teachers also can be considered as key components to the success of change initiatives inside their schools (Mitchell & Shoho, 2017). Over the course of their career, teachers encounter change continually (Hargreaves, 2004); they are both practitioners and critical resources of change (Tang, Lu & Hallinger, 2014). The achievement of change initiatives is mainly based on the effective involvement of teachers in the process (Küçüksüleymanoğlu & Terzioğlu, 2017). Devos et al. (2007) argued that organizations would be able to survive and succeed as long as they and their employees are prepared to change.
Considering the Arab context, studies (e.g., Al-Mahdy, Emam & Hallinger, 2018;Hamad & Al-Ani, 2016;Al-Ani & Ismail, 2015;Al-Taneiji & McLeod, 2008) revealed that during the past decade the education systems in nearly all the Arab Gulf states have witnessed dramatic change. Gulf leaders acknowledged the fact that the oil economy is doomed to either a quick or a lingering death, and the long-term economic growth required a movement, beyond that oil economy, towards the development of knowledge-based economies (Education). This recognition resulted in a radical and revolutionary change in education systems in these states.
Education in Sultanate of Oman in general and the MOE, in particular, is facing dramatic changes as it struggles to meet the demands of the current century. These circumstances drived the MOE to adopt a new approach for management that will enable it to deal with these challenges and pressures (ALNabhani, 2007). During his participation in "the university of the 21 st -century conference" held in Muscat, Dearing (2001) claimed that "It is already widely accepted that the rapid pace of advance in knowledge, and pace of economic change, will require us to update our knowledge and skills" (p.29-30). This statement could be considered as advice to educators in facing the challenge of knowledge and technology revolution. The MOE in Oman has considered the importance of change and started educational development programs since 1994, focusing on adaptation within the national educational systems and the development requirements (MOE, 2002, P.146).
With regard to the Saudi Education, when compared to other countries, the Saudi Education System requires development in many aspects specifically in the areas of teaching methods, updating the curriculum content, increasing in-service teacher training programs and using technology inside classrooms (Al-Jarf, 2005). As a matter of fact, Saudi Education is a centralized educational system; and this centralization influences Education in many ways such as: building construction, curriculum design, teacher training, working conditions, and school equipments which are all provided by government (Sywelem & Witte, 2013). Studies (e.g., Ibrahim, Al-Kaabi, & El-Zaatari, 2013;Al-Mahdy & Sywelem, 2016) claimed that teachers in Saudi Arabia and the rest of Arab States are not involved in the planning process and not provided with effective training programs. Definitely, that ignorance of teachers has a negative impact on teachers' performance; Alnahdi (2014) claimed large numbers of Saudi teachers display a lack of a sense of responsibility, desire, and enthusiasm for teaching, which reflects on their students' achievement. Al-Mahdy & Sywelem (2016) referred to the absence of sharing practices among teachers which are considered as an obstacle in front of improving school performance, as teachers won't be able to get benefit from the expertise of one another.
In order to keep pace with the rapid developments in educational activities, continuous development of the Saudi educational system and certain regulations are used to implement educational change. In 2007, a huge project sponsored by King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz was launched for the development of the public education sector in Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of Education (MOE) identified thirty-nine steps to implement this project which included curriculum development, professional development programs for teachers, improvement of the educational environment, and extra-curricular activities for students (Ministry of Education, 2008).
Based on the foregoing review, the objective of the present study is to examine the schools' openness to change in two Arab Gulf States (Saudi Arabia & the Sultanate of Oman) from teachers' perspective. The current study will contribute to the field of school change management in the Arab culture, especially in providing insights of teachers from two different Arab States.

Purpose and Research Questions
Literature, mentioned above, indicates that the success of change depends on the willingness and openness to change as well as a realization of the fact that change is continuous. The purpose of this study is to determine schools' openness to change in two Arab Gulf States (Saudi Arabia & Sultanate Oman) based on the views of public school teachers. The current study is guided by the following research questions: RQ1. What is the level of teachers' and principals' openness to change according to teachers' views? RQ2. To what extent, if any, are there significant differences among teachers' perceptions regarding the level of schools' openness to change based on the teacher's country (Oman or KSA)? RQ3. To what extent, if any, are there significant differences among teachers' perceptions regarding the level of schools' openness to change based on teacher's gender (male or female)? RQ4. To what extent, if any, are there significant differences among teachers' perceptions regarding the level of schools' openness to change based on the educational stage (elementary, middle, or high school)?

Methodology
In this section, of the paper, we describe our methodology in terms of the research sample and measuring instrument.

Sample
The sample of this research was (719) subjects, including (396) from Omani public schools teachers and (323) teachers selected from Saudi Arabian public schools. Data were collected during the spring semester of the 2018-2019 school years. Table 1 shows the specifications of the participants according to grouping variables. A letter of invitation, consent form, and the survey package were sent electronically to Omani & Saudi teachers.

Measuring instrument
The Faculty Change Orientation Scale -FCOS, developed by Smith & Hoy (2007), was used to achieve the purpose of this study. To avoid copyright issues, the researchers asked permission to use the Scale. Dr. Wayne K. Hoy, a research colleague of the authors designated to respond to requests for the use of the instrument, granted permission.
Whereas the first part of the Scale contained questions regarding the participants' country, gender, and educational stage; the second part was based on the items of the Schools' Openness to Change Scale. Purposely, the Scale focuses on participants' perceptions of three important aspects of change: Faculty openness to change (9 items); Principal openness to change (6 items); and Community press for change (4 items). The FCOS Scale utilizes a five-point Likert scale from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. In this research, the first two aspects of the FCOS scale, contained items regarding teachers and principals' openness to change, were used. The selected items of the Scale are categorized into representative groups as follows: -Faculty openness to change: items 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15 -Principal openness to change: items 3, 7, 9, 11, 12, 19

Translation/back-translation technique
For Arab Participants, the researchers used the Arabic version of the FCOS Scale. The translation/backtranslation technique was used to translate the FCOS Scale; three independent professional translators were involved in the process. First, one of the translators converted the scale statements from English to Arabic. Then two other translators independently converted the scale statements back to English. After that, the two English versions of the scale statements were compared to the original scale statements. Modifications were made to the Arabic versions as a result of the issues raised from the back-translated items. As Geisinger (2003) explained, "The quality of the translation is evaluated in terms of how accurately the back-translated versions agree with the original text" (p. 107).
In addition, the researchers transformed the negative-worded items of the FCOS scale into positive-worded items, in order to avoid participants' misunderstanding of the scale, for example, the item no. (6) "In this school, major change is resisted" was changed to: "In this school, major change is accepted." The corrected final version of the FCOS Scale is administered to a group of public school teachers in Saudi Arabia and Sultanate of Oman. The internal consistency of the variables was analyzed using Cronbach's alpha. Table (2) illustrates the results of internal consistency analysis, in the Arabic version of the questionnaire: The Cronbach's alpha coefficients for each variable were higher than the recommended benchmark of 0.70 (Hair et al. 2010). We also check internal consistency for each item, results indicate all items have a strong significant correlate (above .70**) with sub-dimensions and with a total degree of SOC. These results suggest a satisfactory scale of internal reliability.

Results
In this section, the authors presented the results of statistical analyses of the data in order to achieve the research aims described earlier. Descriptive statistics were used to check for the level of SOC as perceived by teachers in their schools. Differences based on country and gender variables have been checked using t-tests; furthermore, differences based on the educational stage have been checked using analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Level of SOC
Teachers' level of agreement regarding schools' openness to change is defined according to the descriptive statistics for all responses of (719) teachers on the items of FCOS. Participants from Saudi Arabia and Sultanate of Oman responded to the items on the FCOS Scale based on their level of agreement (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4= Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree). Mean scores were calculated for the overall response and for each item of the FCOS Scale. Results of the analysis are presented in Table 3. The overall outcome of the analysis on the dimensions of change orientation is presented as in Table 3. Findings of the analysis reveal that the two selected dimensions of change orientation (faculty openness to change & principal openness to change) have high mean scores of (3.92, 4.08) respectively. However, the mean score of principal openness to change (X=4.08) is higher than faculty openness to change (X=3.92). This finding indicates that school leaders in KSA and Sultanate of Oman are committed to change. This is because change is viewed as something that could not be avoided. In general, the openness to change among teachers and school leaders in both KSA and Sultanate is high.
In finding a more in-depth analysis of the practice level for all of the dimensions in the change orientation aspect, the descriptive analysis of each dimension is provided in the subsequent sub-topics: As shown in table 4, the overall level of practices on the faculty openness to change dimension is high with the mean score of (X=3.92) and standard deviation of (SD=0.95). This indicates that most Saudi and Omani teachers have positive and open perception toward change initiatives. Most of them expressed that they are open to change and they welcome change. The results revealed that all participants scored the scale items in faculty openness to change dimension as "agree" level with mean scores of (X=4.01, SD=0.93) for the first item "faculty relishes innovation"; (X=3.98, SD=0,96) for the second item "faculty embraces new ideas" and (X=3.81, SD=0.99) for the last item "actual change is considerable". Further, mean scores of all items showed that teachers' scores were close to "strongly agree" regarding faculty openness to change dimension. Most of the teachers agree that their school principal is very committed to change efforts. The results indicated that majority of the teachers scored the scale items as choosing "agree" level with mean scores of (X=4.17, SD=0.99) for the first item "the principal balks at new suggestions"; (X=4.12, SD=0.99) for the second item "the principal is committed to major change", and (X=3.93, SD=0.98) for the last item " The principal often supports changes suggested by parents". Further, the mean values of all items revealed that participants' ratings were very close to "strongly agree" level regarding the principle openness to change dimension.

Country differences in SOC
As shown in Table 6, t-test results show that teachers in the two countries (Saudi Arabia & Sultanate of Oman) have somewhat similar degrees of perception of the level of SOC. Similarly, There was no significant differences between the participants' views regarding principals' openness to change (t-value=0.71, p=0.48). As for the overall SOC, Saudi teachers have higher mean score (X =4.02) than Omani teachers (X=3.95) concerning school openness to change; however, there is no any statistically significant difference among the participants. This result reflects the similarities among the educational systems in the Arab Gulf Countries.

Gender differences in SOC
As can be seen in Table 7, t-test results show that teachers have different degrees of perception of SOC according sex.

Educational Stage differences in SOC
To address this question, SPSS software was utilized to perform one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and report the findings, and a post hoc analysis was conducted to compare and analyze mean scores from the SOC to determine which mean raw score ratings were different.

Discussion
Findings of this study revealed that the overall practice level of the dimensions in change orientation of public schools in both KSA and Oman is high. This situation shows that teachers and school principals are very positive and open-minded towards changes and innovation. In relation to perceived openness to change in Omani and Saudi schools, when descriptive study results are considered, it becomes clear that teachers perceive their colleagues (faculty) and principals open to accept and welcome change. Specifically, the results revealed that both Omani and Saudi teachers agree to the perception of their faculty's openness to change with high degrees of receptivity degree (X faculty=3.92). That is, teachers declared that new ideas and substantial changes are welcomed by faculty of the schools with high receptivity. Similarly, when teachers were asked to indicate their perception related to innovation in their school with changes in rules and procedures of the schools, they indicated that these changes were embraced by the faculty with a high level. Concerning teachers' perceptions of the principals' openness to change in schools, the findings of the descriptive statistics showed that principals of Omani and Saudi schools, as perceived by the participants, welcome new change interventions in schools with high degrees of receptivity degree ( X principal=4.08). Indeed, when teachers were asked to point out the dedication of the principals to change practices, they assured that principals in their schools devote themselves to changes with high willingness. These findings are supported with findings of previous researches that concluded with teachers realizing and understanding the importance of change and innovation in education (Fullan & Suzanne, 1992;Hargreaves, 2005;Ghavifekr et al., 2013;Hamzah et al., 2018;).
Teachers are the most critical element of the education system. For this reason, the success of change practices in a school is largely dependent on teachers themselves. Effective involvement of teachers in the process is a fundamental requirement for the achievement of change initiatives. As Devos et al. (2007) claimed that organizations would be able to survive and succeed as long as they and their employees are prepared to change. Also, this view is in line with Jamil (2001) who assured that actual changes would not take effect in the organization if its people do not have a positive attitude and are not sure of the need for the change. Changes will result in something that is expected from it if it is assisted with increased consciousness and positive attitude among teachers.
According to the results of the analysis, teachers view about school' openness to change showed significant differences according to participants' gender (t-value=5.00, p=0.00). Similarly, There were significant differences among the participants in their views of principals' openness to change (t-value=5.00, p=0.00). More female teachers (X=4.01) than male ones (X=3.69) reported that principals were open to change and welcome change initiatives. The analysis suggested that differences came in favor of female teachers, which means that female teachers in KSA and Sultanate of Oman are more open to change than male teachers.
In this study, Omani and Saudi teachers perceived school principals as supportive to change initiatives inside their schools. The school principals are responsible for establishing a vision in their schools and ensuring the adoption of this vision by school members. Studies have reported that the roles of principals are much in the process of change (Portin et al., 2006;Cooner et al., 2008). It is difficult to realize the change in an organization that does not have leaders with the ability, the mission, and the vision to manage change and encourage it.

Implications and Conclusion
The success of change practices in schools, which are educational organizations, depends on the acceptance of those practices by the administrators and teachers of the school. Apart from that, in order for those practices to be successful, administrators and teachers also have to be open and adapt to change. Change is a difficult task.
Considering that people who make up groups and organizations have the knowledge and experiences that they get from different environments with different opinions, thoughts, and tendencies, adaptation to change can be seen as a challenging and difficult process in terms of organizations.
Teachers have to be the people who lead the change in school. Teachers need to take the initiative to learn from each other and to improve teaching in school, which is an important variable in terms of change. For a successful and healthy organizational change, it can be said that teachers in the school must understand the organizational change process effectively and internalize this process by showing necessary behaviors.
The attitude of being ready for change is the first step of change applications. If change is successful, organizational change initiatives are adopted by employees. On the other hand, when the attitude of readiness to change is neglected, employees will be faced with resistance either actively or passively. Therefore, creating an attitude of readiness to change while working in the success of organizational change initiatives emerges as an important necessity.
In reference to the implications of this study, it recommends that educational policymakers in Oman & Saudi Arabia should guide and support schools' openness to change. While this study will add to the existing literature on change and school climate, it is hoped that educational authorities, school principals, teachers, and stakeholders are to be provided with insights into the dynamic relationship between change and school climate resulting in better change management and positive climate in schools that contribute to student achievement.