From the Department of Curriculum and Teaching Methods in the College of Education at King Khalid University, Dr. Lubna Hussain Al-Ajmi and Dr. Senya Al-Shafie received the 11^th Khalifa Award for outstanding research on "Evaluating the Level of Competence in Light of the New Generation of Science NGSS Standards Among Middle School Students."

The research aimed to evaluate the competence level of middle school students in the region's public schools in accord with the new generation of NGSS standards. To achieve the research objective, the researchers used the descriptive approach over the course of 7 weeks. The sample consisted of 8049 students and a test.