This study investigated community engagement in developing the 21st-century skills of pre-service and in-service teachers in the context of four skills: communication, creative thinking, collaboration, and critical thinking. It focused specifically on the effectiveness of community engagement in promoting the 4Cs for pre- and in-service teachers and whether such effectiveness differs between pre-service and in-service teachers. This study used a sequential mixed-methods design. A quantitative survey of 160 pre-service and 80 in-service teachers in Abu Dhabi was conducted followed by purposeful qualitative interviews with 20 pre-service teachers. The instrument was adapted from an existing 21st century skills measures. Quantitative data were described using descriptive statistics and analyzed using inferential statistics. The interview transcripts were analyzed. The findings showed that in-service teachers’ performance was better than that of pre-service teachers in all four elements of 21st-century skills, with significant disparities recorded in critical thinking and collaboration, possibly because of field experience. These qualitative results show that community engagement promotes the 4Cs by allowing teachers to apply theoretical knowledge in field contexts and sharpen problem-solving, communication, and teamwork skills. Nevertheless, challenges such as limited resources and time must be compensated for with better initiatives that organizations can employ to promote community engagement activities. This study suggests that using social engagement activities in teacher training is a fruitful way to address this skill gap. This provides implications for teacher preparation and the infusion of community engagement into teachers’ training to foster the 21st-century development of competencies in teachers-to-be.

This study aims to investigate the existence of a relationship between the practice of augmented reality and motivation. The descriptive survey method was used on a sample of 310 students, 165 of whom were females and 145 of them were males. A questionnaire was conducted to determine the extent of augmented reality practice in education. Islamic education consists of five dimensions, namely, the use of augmented reality by Islamic education teachers in Islamic education, readiness to use augmented reality in Islamic education, benefit from augmented reality in Islamic education, employment of augmented reality in Islamic education, and the ability to deal with difficulties. To investigate augmented reality in Islamic education, a questionnaire was conducted to measure students’ motivation level, consisting of four dimensions: perseverance, goal setting, ambition, and perceived competence. The arithmetic means were used to calculate the level of each of the practices of augmented reality and motivation. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to calculate the association between AR practice and motivation. The study found that the level of augmented reality practice was medium, while the level of motivation was high. Also, a positive relationship was found between each of the augmented reality and motivation with a statistical significance at (α < 0.05), and the study also found that there are differences between the sexes in favor of females in both the practice of augmented reality and motivation with a statistical significance at (α < 0.05). There are statistically significant differences between grades in favor of the eleventh grade in practicing augmented reality at (α < 0.05). In the end, the researcher recommended conducting more research to determine the effectiveness of augmented reality in teaching Islamic education and urged designers to design applications that use augmented reality in teaching Islamic education effectively.

Values education has re-emerged as a central educational concern as schooling is increasingly expected to shape judgment, conduct, and social responsibility, not merely academic attainment. In rece...

This study has multifaceted objectives. It investigated the safety level of the learning environment at Al-Ain University from the perceptive of its students, it sought to identify any physical, social, and psychological obstacles that may affect the students' sense of safety in their learning environment. It explored the role of demographic factors, such as age, gender, academic program and year of study in shaping these perceptions. This study adopted a quantitative descriptive research method and used a survey to collect data through a web-based questionnaire. The total sample number consisted of 89 undergraduate and graduate students at the College of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education at the university. The findings revealed that the students' perception of the safety level of the currently existing learning environment at Al-Ain University is high and that they do not experience any significant obstacles whether physical, social or psychological that could negatively impact their feeling of safety at the university premises. Moreover, the findings revealed statistically significant differences in the students' perceptions based on age with older students tending to have different perspectives compared to younger students. However, there were no statistically significant differences reported due to the student's gender, academic program, and year of study. These findings provide important insights for university administrators and policymakers aiming to enhance student well-being. Institutions can further improve the perceived safety and overall quality of the learning environment by addressing the specific needs of different age groups.

Islamic Education provides substantial opportunities to develop higher-order thinking through reflection, evidence-based reasoning, and engagement with religious concepts, yet conventional instruction often emphasizes memorization. This study examined the effectiveness of the McCarthy 4MAT model in developing critical thinking skills and Shari'a concepts among ninth-grade students in the United Arab Emirates. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design involved 56 students from Shakhbout Bin Sultan High School in Al Ain, with 27 students receiving instruction based on the McCarthy 4MAT model and 29 receiving conventional instruction. Data were collected using a critical-thinking skills test covering six skills and a Shari'a concepts test and were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance. The experimental group achieved a higher posttest mean for overall critical thinking than the control group, with a statistically significant overall effect and a large effect size. Significant improvements favored the experimental group in deduction, distinguishing between fact and opinion, evaluating arguments, and accuracy in investigating events. No statistically significant differences were found for categorization or inference, possibly because these skills require more sustained development than the five-week intervention provided. The McCarthy 4MAT model also significantly improved students’ acquisition of Shari'a concepts, while critical thinking and Shari'a concept acquisition were positively related, with a stronger relationship in the experimental group. These findings indicate that integrating active learning through the McCarthy 4MAT model can strengthen critical thinking and conceptual understanding in Islamic Education. Its application may help teachers move beyond memorization toward reflective, analytical, and student-centered learning.