درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The main purpose of this paper is providing a model to calculate the credit risk of Melli bank clients and implement it at Mellat Bank. Therefore, the present study uses a multi-layered neural network method. The statistical population of this research is all real and legal clients of Melli and Mellat banks. Sampling method used in this research is a simple random sampling method. Friedman test was used to calculate the required number of samples in a random sampling method from Cochran formula (1977) and Friedman test was used to rank the factors affecting the credit risk. Friedman test was also performed using data from a completed questionnaire of active experts at the Melli Bank. Based on the results obtained from Friedman test, five important factors in the credit risk of real clients of the Melli Bank of Iran, type of occupation, guarantee value, loan amount, having return checks, the balance average, and the value of the guarantee, the amount of the loan, the average of the balance, having returned checks and deferred loans are the most important factors affecting the credit risk of legal clients, which have been used as inputs in the neural network model. The results of credit risk prediction using the neural network showed that the designed model has a high ability to predict the credit risk of real and legal clients of the Melli bank, while it did not have this ability for the Mellat bank.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to develop a model of the impact of service quality, brand’s social identity and the attachment to the team on the loyalty of Iranian Premier League football team’s fans. Method: This is an applied study of descriptive-correlation type. The statistical population of this study consisted of the fans of the selected Iranian Premiere Football League. A probability clustering method was used for sampling. Azadi football stadium of Tehran, Imam Reza football stadium of Mashhad, Yadegar Imam Football stadium of Tabriz and Naghsh Jahan football stadium of Isfahan were selected and the questionnaires were distributed in the 12th week of the tournament (2018-2019 season) between fans in above named stadiums. 400 questionnaires were distributed equally in four stadiums and finally, 387 full questionnaires were received and this number was considered as a statistical sample of the research. A researcher-made service quality questionnaire, brand’s social identity questionnaire of Boyle and Magnusson (2007), fans’ attachment questionnaire of Yoon, Petrick, & Backman (2017) and fans’ loyalty questionnaire of Tachis and Tzetzis (2015) were used for gathering information. Structural equation model and LISREL software were used to review and test the hypotheses. Results: The result showed that brand’s social identity has a significant positive effect on the attachment and loyalty of fans (P˂ 0.05). The attachment of fans also has a significant positive effect on their loyalty (P˂ 0.05). Conclusions: It is concluded that for enhancing fan's loyalty, managers of football teams should notice to service quality as a key factor.

This study attempts to investigate the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic development of Iranian EFL learners cross-sectionally when making requests in different situations. To this end, 103 university students in three proficiency levels of pre-intermediate, upper-intermediate, and advanced were asked to write three discourse completion tests (DCTs) of requests in different situations with various social and power relation demands and 20% of them were interviewed about their DCTs. The analyses of these written and verbal reports suggested that parallel with proficiency there was a movement from directness to conventional indirectness and an expansion of the repertoire of both external and internal modification devices. Even though all the participants expressed their awareness of the sociopragmatic requirements of different request situations in their verbal reports, increasing proficiency led to the application of this awareness in practice. That is, advanced learners were more successful to differentiate among the situations both sociopragmatically and pragmalinguistically. The results are discussed in light of previous research and available developmental patterns.

Over the past decades, education took a critical-oriented shift. This perspective changed the role of teachers, students, and classrooms. A teacher's role changes from an instructor to a reflective practitioner, a student is considered an active agent of his/her learning, and a classroom is a place for identity endeavor. The assumption underlying such an approach conceptualizes education as a means for social control, not separated from social and cultural influences. This study sought to examine the impediments overshadowing the practicality of critical language pedagogy (CLP) and to explore English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' attitudes toward the dynamicity of transformative L2 materials preparation (TLMP) model. To undertake the study, the model was used in an M.A. language teaching methodology course with 40 prospective teachers. They were asked to write reflective journals (RJs) on several topics, followed by two class-assessments and two self-assessments, all focusing on the course procedure as well as learners' progress in attaining the intended outcomes of the course. Notably, they were requested to report their personal beliefs towards the dynamicity and functional efficacy of the proposed model and the extent to which it contributed to promoting their critical thinking skills and intellectual development. Qualitative data analysis included an in-depth content analysis of written data derived from RJs. The results attested that the participants positively appraised the practicality of the model.

The present study set out to identify the problematic areas of pronunciation among Iranian female EFL learners. Further, this study investigated the relationship between empathy and authentic pronunciation, along with gender as a moderator variable. Comparing segmental features and phonological processes of both languages helped teachers to predict the target errors. To reach such a goal, a total of 69 Iranian undergraduate EFL learners were recruited from the Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, majoring in English literature and translation studies participated in the study. The subjects were conveniently sampled and were taking the course Conversation I. After administrating the Basic Empathy Scale (BES: Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006), the students were assigned to two groups: high-empathic group and low-empathic group. Both groups participated in an oral interview twice (before and after segmental form-focused instruction). The data were collected through taping participants’ pronunciation of some words. Two raters analyzed students’ pronunciation in terms of segmental features. The results demonstrated that the absence of some phonemes in the Farsi sound system and some phonological differences between the two languages caused difficulties for EFL learners. Furthermore, it was witnessed that those in the high-level group (i.e., more empathic learners) were more successful in acquiring authentic pronunciation than those in the low-level group.

The present study is an attempt to discover the relationships among reflection, role stressors and resilience. To this end, a mixed-method approach was adopted. In the quantitative phase, 122 EFL teachers completed three questionnaires namely English Language Teaching Reflection Inventory, Teacher Role Stressors Scale and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. The results of correlation indicated that there is a significant positive relation between reflection and resilience. However, the correlation between reflection and role stressors was found to be negative. Multiple regression revealed that of the five components of reflection, metacognitive and critical reflection are significant predictors of role ambiguity while only critical reflection can predict role conflict. Metacognitive and practical reflection were also found to be significant predictors of teachers’ resilience. In the qualitative phase, fifteen face-to-face interviews were conducted with the participants who had also taken part in the first phase of the study. Data were transcribed, coded and thematically structured based on a grounded theoretical perspective. The two main themes which emerged out of the interviews confirmed that reflection leads to resilience through strengthening teachers’ professional identity while it also leads to resilience or stress through making teachers prepared and knowledgeable. The possible justifications of the obtained results as well as the implications of this study for teaching English and teacher education in EFL context are discussed.