The twenty-third (23rd) Quality Assurance Symposium for RCsDP was held last December 22, 2011 at the Theatre Hall of An Namuthajiyah campus in King Fahd Road. The Symposium featured "Qualitative Research in the Health Sciences" with the Director of the RCsDP Research Center, Prof. Hezekiah Mosadomi, speaking on the subject. The symposium was attended by the entire RCsDP faculty members including part-time teaching staffs and demonstrators in all academic departments. Also in the presence of some distinguished personages from King Saud University.
Prof. Abdullah R. Al Shammery, RCsDP Rector and also the Chairman of the Quality Assurance Committee, opened the symposium with a strong call for more research efforts from both the faculty members and students of the college. He urged faculty members to take more active stance with respect in accepting invitations to be research advisers to students, as well as in undertaking their own researches. He also encouraged them to pursue their exertions up to the ultimate publication of their researches in international journals.
The Rector took pride in RCsDP's initiatives toward advancing RCsDP not only in terms of education and training of its students but also in terms of research and community projects. Aside from education, training and research, the Rector announced that the school is also trying to address more and more on the deportment and attitudes of the students. In connection with this, he introduced the new educational consultant-cum-guidance counselor in Qurtoba campus who has been hired to comply with one of the recommendations from the external reviewers from the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA).
Dr. Saleh Al Shamrani, Dean of the College of Dentistry, reported that all academic departments should prepare to update their course specifications and outlines. He also detailed the preparation and specific designation of lecture halls in An Namuthajiyah and Muneseya campuses, and clinics in Olaya for the second semester of the current academic year. He also provided some comments and recommendations for the postgraduate students on how to improve their master's program in dentistry. In view of the proximity of the final exams for the semester, Dr. Saleh reminded the faculty members of the requirement need to submit like the grading sheets duly signed by the course director and the department chairman within 36 hours after the examination.
Prof. Mosadomi then discussed extensively on qualitative research as he first cited the reasons for research from his own point of view. Prof. Mosadomi said that the major advantage that postgraduate students should have today is a related research. Then he proceeded to define experimental research design and outline, and its components.
He identified two options by which RCsDP could be able to undertake experimental research given the absence of the required laboratories at the present time. The first option is the immediate establishment and development of those laboratories; the second is providing of linkages with universities or colleges which already have them for the purpose.
Prof. Mosadomi reported as of September 2011, qualitative research made up a mere 19.2% of the RCsDP faculty members interests while quantitative research, 38.4%; and mixed strategies, 26.9%. The rest had not yet been completed. He defined qualitative research as "a disciplined approach which investigates the personal meaning of peoples' life experiences in the context of their social environments or daily life situations in health and disease". Qualitative research, he further explained, (together with quantitative research) are the classifications of research, according to mode of enquiry. Research, he said, may be also classified according to application and objective. He enumerated and defined eight different research models used in qualitative research.
Prof. Mosadomi suggested RCsDP to focus-on at least ten different topics of qualitative research. He ended his discussion by saying that "there are many gates to the kingdom of knowledge". Qualitative research is definitely one of them.
The symposium was capped with an open forum where comments from the audience and various questions about research were answered by Prof. Mosadomi and/or Prof. Abdullah Al Shammery.
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