Field of Study

This study investigated the answer changing behavior of the Iranian university students and its relationship to the academic course, gender, and field of study. 362 students at the University of Isfahan took part in the study. 76 English language teachers were also surveyed for their attitude toward answer changing on MC tests. The results indicated that 42.11% of the teachers had a negative attitude toward answer changing as they believed that the first answer selected is intuitively the best one and should not be changed. The results also indicated that answer changing would basically have positive effects on the total test scores. It was found that 63.09% of the answer changes were beneficial (from Wrong to Right choices). In contrast, 15.18% of the answer changes were negative (from Right to Wrong options), and 21.73% had no effect on the test scores (from Wrong to Wrong options). As for the effect of gender, no significant difference was found between males and females. Concerning the effect of academic course, the only significant difference lay in the number of Right to Wrong changes. Finally, it was found that field of study would make a difference only when Right to Wrong changes were considered.

Beliefs are an important aspect of any learning program as they affect the way teachers and students define their roles, and the way they approach their duties and responsibilities. Besides, they highly affect teachers’ practices, methods, and lesson plans. The importance of beliefs inspired the present researchers to evaluate and compare EFL teachers’ beliefs before and after a teacher training course (TTC) at language institutes in Isfahan to see if teacher training program influence the enrolled teachers’ beliefs about different aspects of a learning situation. To this purpose, a modified version of Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) was administered to a total of 110 Iranian EFL teachers in Isfahan. The teachers came from different majors (TEFL, translation, English literature, and other non-English majors), and were further divided into two groups: those who had participated in at least a TTC, and those who had no experience of attending a TTC. The BALLI scores of the teachers were then classified and analyzed by a t test and an ANOVA. The results revealed that beliefs about language learning did not significantly change in the wake of attending a TTC, and that no significant difference was observed as far as the participants’ field of study was concerned.