CLT Professor Breaks Into Global Academic Elite, Ranks Among World's Top 0.5% of Scholars
KKU's Prof. Fakieh Alrabai Ranks Among World's Top 0.5 Percent of Scholars
Abha — The College of Languages and Translation (CLT) at King Khalid University is celebrating a new milestone in its research journey
The College of Languages and Translation (CLT) at King Khalid University is celebrating a new milestone in its research journey: Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Prof. Fakieh Alrabai has been named a 2024 "Top Scholar" by the U.S. analytics platform ScholarGPS, placing him in the top half-percent of more than 30 million scholars indexed worldwide.
ScholarGPS evaluated lifetime and recent-five-year records across dozens of disciplines. Prof. Alrabai earned two distinctions: No. 89 worldwide for "Foreign Language" scholarship across his career and No. 167 for "Motivation" research over the past five years—a field in which his studies of second-language learner motivation are widely cited.
"This honor reflects the collaborative spirit of CLT researchers and the support King Khalid University provides for high-impact inquiry," Prof. Alrabai said. "Our work on how motivation shapes language learning would not reach global audiences without this academic ecosystem."
ScholarGPS awards "Top Scholar" status to academics whose publication productivity, citation impact, and research quality rank them in the top 0.5 percent globally. Its ratings draw on a database of more than 30 million individual scholar profiles and 120,000 institutional profiles.
CLT Dean Dr. Ahmad Assiri noted that the ranking "underscores the College's growing international footprint and reaffirms our commitment to evidence-based research that advances language education in Saudi Arabia and beyond."
Prof. Alrabai's work explores the dynamics of learner autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and classroom practice in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. His articles on motivational strategies and causal links between motivation and achievement have influenced policy discussions on language teaching across the region.
The recognition arrives as CLT expands its research capacity through new postgraduate programs and interdisciplinary clusters. By highlighting Prof. Alrabai's achievement, the College signals its role as a regional hub for cutting-edge language-learning scholarship—an ambition aligned with the Kingdom's vision for a knowledge-based economy.
