Problem solving by Gender, College, and Level among Students at Al-Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University
Hussein Mohammad Ayoub

Abstract
This study describes results of a problem solving skills test (PST) taken by students at Imam Mohammad bin Saud University in 2012. The test instrument which includes 45 items was based on the Graduate Skills Assessment, an assessment developed by ACER and used by Australian Higher Education. A random sample of 2120 students participated in the study, 855 from the Islamic Studies faculty, 620 from the Humanities faculty, and 645 from the Sciences faculty. Study subjects were relatively evenly distributed, with 1,003 male and 1,117 female participating in the assessment. The results reveal differences in scores of problem solving ability according gender, faculty, and level with statistically significant differences between male and female at the .05 level - female outperform males at statistically significant levels. Between clusters of academic disciplines (i.e., Islamic Studies, Humanities and Sciences) there was a statistically significant difference (F=172.7) at the .01 level.Sciences facultyoutperform others.A significant statistically differences at .01 level was found between academic levels as level 5 was better than level 1. There is no statistically significant difference between levels 1 and 8 and also levels 5 and 8.

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