درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Language education, among most other aspects of life, has been affected by the ever-advancing technology. To be most efficient, educators need to know the affordances technology brings to the teaching and learning process. Augmented Reality is a recent technology that can be accessed through the Internet and mobile phones and brings several advantages to the language classroom. This mixed-methods study aims to examine the effect of Augmented Reality on adult language learners’ attitudes and motivation. To this end, data were obtained through a questionnaire administered to 40 adult EFL learners in Iran of different ages and educational levels who participated in a pre-test post-test design, followed by a semi-structured interview. Results confirmed that adult learners, disregarding their age and educational background, benefit from AR in the sense that it enhances their attitudes and motivation towards learning the language. The themes revealed in the interviews clarified that this enhancement is because AR is exciting to learners since it gets them engaged in the learning process and attracts them through gamification. Results of the current study have implications for language specialists and teachers to design and incorporate AR-infused materials in teaching to increase learners’ motivation, and consequently, their learning.

This study intended to explore the perceptions of Iranian high-school English teachers and the perspectives of policymakers on success in teaching English. Data were collected through questionnaires and curriculum documents. To this end, one-hundred-twenty Iranian high-school English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers contributed to the research. National Lesson Plan and Fundamental Reform Document of Education (FRDE) were used to explore policymakers’ perspectives on success in teaching English at the high school level. The data were analyzed using both the Constant Comparative Method (Charmaz, 2006) and template coding to realize similarities and differences between the answers. General themes and patterns were recognized and discussed. The results of this study showed that while the teachers tended to improve students’ communication skills, policymakers must also be aware of the fact that change is an all-inclusive phenomenon demanding full cooperation and commitment from a host of policy workers. In conclusion, teachers’ perceptions of success in teaching English and expectations of educational change should be modified in such a way that the teachers see the importance and relevance of educational change to their professional success. In this respect, most Iranian high school EFL teachers are needed to modernize, i.e., to provide them with valuable pre-service and in-service courses with communicative frameworks that they can operate in their classrooms. The findings can be helpful for EFL teachers to reflect on their perceptions and accord them with their practices, use communicative activities that are more constructive in their classrooms.

This descriptive quantitative study scrutinized the relationship between impulsive and reflective EFL learners’ oral communication strategies (OCS) and willingness to communicate (WTC). To this end, 114 impulsive and reflective graduate-level EFL learners (67% female; 33% male), within the age range of 23 to 40, were selected employing convenience sampling. The data collection instruments were the impulsiveness sub-scale of Eysenck’s impulsivity inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1978), the OCS inventory (Nakatani, 2006), and the WTC scale (McCroskey, 1992). Subsequent to checking and verifying the pertinent assumptions, using Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicated that there existed a positive yet insignificant correlation between impulsive EFL learners’ OCS and their WTC; however, a positive and significant correlation between reflective EFL learners’ OCS and their WTC was observed. In addition, the results of linear regression analyses and comparing the β values revealed that impulsive EFL learners’ OCS cannot significantly predict their WTC whereas reflective EFL learners’ OCS can significantly predict their WTC. In general, the obtained results confirmed that OCS can positively affect EFL learners’ WTC, although attention should be paid to learners’ impulsivity o reflectivity prior to planning the pedagogical practice.          

The present study aimed to rediscover the global criteria for English language teacher evaluation. To do so, a large body of research was reviewed, and the characteristics of effective teachers along with their indicators were compiled. Nine characteristics which proved to be the most frequently indorsed by scholars were selected as the global criteria of teacher effectiveness. Then, these criteria were utilized to employ five English language teachers in a language institute in Kerman, Iran. The classroom performance of these teachers and that of five others formerly employed based on some local criteria was observed by the institute supervisor. At the end of the semester, perceptions of the students of both groups of teachers were explored through a questionnaire developed by the authors. Finally, the performances of the two groups of teachers were compared in terms of the students' and the observer's perceptions. The results showed that the teachers employed based on the global criteria of teacher effectiveness outperformed those recruited based on the local criteria. This indicates that the selected criteria of teacher effectiveness can be reliable for English teacher performance evaluation.                 

The current study aimed at investigating the impact of Personal Response System (PRS) on Iranian EFL learners’ English language performance, class communication, and comfort level. To this purpose, a mixed methods design was used. The participants comprised 60 male-female Iranian grade eight junior students studying at Bahonar secondary school, Kazeroon, Iran. They were selected through convenient sampling method from two intact classes and divided into two experimental and control groups. The needed data was collected using the following instruments: Oxford Placement Test (OPT), Preliminary English Test (PET), Observation Checklist, and PRS. The two groups of the participants attended twelve English class sessions of the high school once a week. The only difference between the two groups was that during the class sessions, the experimental group attended PRS. Data analysis was conducted through descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests and qualitative content analysis of the observation data. The results showed that PRS had a statistically significant impact on English language performance, class communication, and comfort level of Iranian EFL learners. Accordingly, EFL teachers are recommended to use this tool in an attempt to enhance EFL learners' general English language performance.  

One of the characteristics of the financial market, especially the stock market, is the effects of behavioral factors and on other financial and non-financial markets. There are several factors that affect the return of a stock exchange. We can refer to political, socio-cultural, technological and finally economic factors. A stock market is an economic market in which securities are traded under specific rules and regulations. Accordingly, in this study, the effect of behavioral financial arguments and other financial markets on stock market returns based on quantitative analysis has been studied. This article tries to examine how exchange rates, gold, and oil as key factors of a model can explain fluctuations of the stock market index. so the effect of those variables on the stock market index in the period 2008 to the first six months of 2018 has been analyzed using the FIAPGARCH-X model. The results of the analysis show that the effect of exchange rates on the stock market fluctuations is greater than the other two factors. The results also indicate that there are asymmetric effects of increased returns on the stock market, which is consistent with behavioral bias in behavioral finance.

The management control system provides valuable information on the managers' needs at different levels of the organization. Today, with changes in the political, social and economic dimensions, the management control system in the public sector also needs to be changed and adapted to new conditions and use new tools to meet stakeholders’ needs. The purpose of this study is to provide a model to investigate the role of the management control system and increase accountability in the public sector administrations and companies. In this regard, the present study explores the role of functions of management accounting in improving the management control system in the public sector. For this purpose, data were collected through interviewing 13 experts in the field of the management control system and functions of management accounting and reviewing related texts, articles and books in this field, and their content was analyzed through grounded theory and content analysis method and MAXQDA 2021 software was used for data analysis in 1399. The findings of this study showed that a management control system, if it has the necessary tools, can play a key role in preventing corruption, increasing transparency and accountability, performance-based budgeting, and performance-based auditing. The existence of a management control system is necessary for any organization; such a system will help identify resource flow, help management in decision making, motivate employees, make decisions related to outsourcing and contracting, reduce service delivery time, and many other issues in organizations, and it will ultimately lead to optimally allocate resources, prevent corruption, and increase legitimacy, transparency and accountability, Therefore, the optimal use of management accounting in the management control system, improves the achievement of organizational goals and the effectiveness of programs

"Corporate governance" includes mechanisms to monitor CEO's performance to assure efficient decision adoption and maximize firm value. One of the most effective aspects of firm performance is the degree of risk-taking. This study investigates the relationship between CEO power and institutional ownership with risk-taking behavior of member firms of Tehran Stock Exchange and Iran Fara Bourse during 2010-2019 by utilizing quintile regression. According to the results, by the increase of CEO's power and the company's benefit from powerful managers, the company risk (total risk and systemic risk) will decrease. As a result, managers are eager to safeguard their reputation as expert decision-makers and, as a result, they try to reduce company risk. In addition, the existence of institutional ownership among the shareholders of the company will reduce the risk, which can be referred to in the agency theory. Also, if the impact of these two variables is considered together, the risk will increase significantly. This very fact reflects the exercise of the power and influence of institutional owners. As a result, large shareholders have a supervisory role in the discipline of managers, but despite their impact on the relationship between managers' power and corporate risk, they do not alter the main negative relationship.

This paper aims to show the asymmetric effect of oil shocks on Iran’s economy. It uses nonlinear time series models to investigate the asymmetric effect of oil shocks on resource allocation in Iran’s economy. The results show that adverse oil shocks have been more persistent during the last decades and severely negatively affect resource allocation in Iran’s economy. Different oil shocks have different implications for importing and exporting countries, and the rigidity of state fiscal systems in exporting countries causes adverse oil shocks to be more persistent. The oil economy’s response to positive and negative oil shocks depends on the structure of the economy. The government budget and trade balance have significant implications for the effects of oil shocks on oil-exporting economies. The government budget is highly dependent on oil revenues, so in the case of adverse oil shocks, the pass-through exchange rate will cause high inflation because of foreign exchange shortage and overshoot in the exchange rate.