درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This mixed-method study endeavored to solicit the perspectives of Iranian collegiate students passing the obligatory course of medical English through Navid Learning Management System and its acceptance during COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing Technology Acceptance Model, this study also sought to examine the possible effect gender, academic degree, instructional mode, and e-learning duration in LMS may have on the participants' attitudes. An online survey was employed to gather data from 78 Iranian students. Semi-structured interviews with ten participants were conducted as well to shed more light on the quantitative data regarding main advantages and disadvantages of medical English learning through Navid. The data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics along with inductive thematic analysis, respectively. Findings revealed that Iranian collegiate medical students viewed Navid as a comprehensive e-learning platform to be favorable in terms of its system/service quality, student/educational service quality, and perceived satisfaction, but its perceived satisfaction was not aligned with their needs. Moreover, neither the individual variables, (viz., age and academic degree), nor the instructional variables (viz., instructional mode and e-learning duration) were predictors of the discrepancies among the participants in their perspectives and acceptance of Navid. Learning ubiquitously and lacking face-to-face communication were the main advantage and disadvantage of learning medical English through Navid, respectively. Results revealed that although under the Covid-19 pandemic the acceptance of Navid and students' satisfaction with its use might not be related to the individual and instructional variables in the medical English courses, it might not be the case in others.

The literature on foreign language reading instruction has witnessed a significant bulk of research reporting the effectiveness of strategy instruction in improving reading outcomes. However, few studies have investigated the effects of reading strategy instruction on reading affective variables among young English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of teaching second language (L2) reading strategies on young Iranian EFL learners’ reading self-efficacy and reading attitudes. To this end, a sample of 48 Iranian EFL learners, aged 11-13, was recruited through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to an experimental group (N = 25) and a control group (N = 23). Using a quasi-experimental design, the researchers employed an experimental group that received a 12-week reading strategy instruction and a control group that were taught with the regular method without any strategy instruction. The Reading Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (RSEQ) and Reading Attitude Questionnaire (RAQ) were administered to measure the reading self-efficacy and reading attitudes of the participants as pre-test and post-test of the study. The strategy instruction intervention for the present study was based on Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA). The findings of the study indicated that the learners in the experimental group significantly outperformed those of the control group in terms of L2 reading self-efficacy. However, it was revealed that there was no significant difference between the reading attitudes of the two groups at the end of the semester. Overall, it may be concluded that EFL practitioners can incorporate teaching of reading strategies into their classrooms in order to help learners to gain both confidence and competence to address reading tasks more effectively.