درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Todays, the issue of environmental instability and destructive environmental behavior can leave many irreparable effects and damage on future ecosystems and the lives of future generations. Method: This study aimed to present an environmental model of sustainable development in the Iranian gas industry. The present study used a qualitative with grounded theory method. In-depth interviews were conducted with 25 academic experts (professors of public administration and environmental engineering at universities in Mazandaran province) and the heads of the National Iranian Gas Company in five regions of Iran using the "rich information" sampling method. Results: The results indicated that the environmental model of sustainable development in the Iranian gas industry had 15 dimensions in terms of causal conditions. 1. Services, 2. Safety and health requirements, 3. Social responsibility, (context condition) 4. Education and learning, 5. Acculturalization, 6. Managers' attitude and awareness (intervening conditions) 7. Contractors, 8. Technical facilities and equipment, 9. Technology and technical operations (Strategy) 10. Medium and long term policies of the Ministry of Energy, 11. Continuous monitoring and evaluation of project progress, 12. Consumption management programs, 13. Pollutants management programs and consequences 14. Improved environmental performance of the gas company and 15. Moving towards sustainable development. Conclusion: Since the gas industry is one of the most polluting industries and the lack of attention to environmental issues in this huge industry will lead the Iranian environment to very serious and perhaps irreparable crises, using the environmental model of sustainable development in this industry seems highly important and necessary.

Plagiarism is considered as a serious problem in academia around the world. The issue of plagiarism has recently received global inquiry in different fields of science, especially in foreign language (L2) academic writing. To meticulously assess the Iranian academics for plagiarism at both theory and practice grounds, developing an accountable instrument seemed to be inevitable. To bridge the gap, in phase 1 of the study, a conceptual framework for Iranian academics’ grasp of plagiarism and its components was designed after a thorough review of literature. In phase 2, a number of M.A. graduates and graduate students (n = 224) in six State and Islamic Azad universities in Iran were recruited to partake in piloting the newly-designed plagiarism questionnaire. After a two-step revising the inefficient items (n = 11), the final draft of the developed questionnaire with 36 items was administered with the main sample of participants (n = 288). An Exploratory Factor Analysis was performed to identify the components of the instrument, followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis to measure its construct validity. As a result, the final draft of the Sociocultural Plagiarism Questionnaire contained 31 Likert-point and 5 multiple choice items in four components of awareness (10 items), attitude (8 items), sociocultural beliefs (8 items), and perception (5 Likert-point and 5 multiple choice items), which were suggested as having fundamental contributions to the Iranian academic writers’ sensitivity to plagiarism. Findings of the study suggested that (a) the Iranian academic writers’ normative sociocultural beliefs can probably reduce their sensitivity to plagiarism, (b) while the Iranian academics might have relatively high awareness and deep perception about plagiarism, their attitude toward plagiarism seems relatively neutral or even insensitive.

In regard to recent revolution in the education domain, English Language Teaching (ELT) assigns a sociopolitical dimension to itself in the light of Critical Pedagogy. The present study, in line with the recent educational revolution, aimed to investigate the effectiveness of critical thinking on improving EFL learners’ productive skills. The statistical population consisted of 164 pre-intermediate attendees of EFL in an English Language Institute in the city of Babol selected for taking an Oxford Placement Test (OPT). The participants were 80 Iranian pre-intermediate EFL students within 10-20-year range, enrolled in Shokouh English language institute in Babol, who were randomly divided into two experimental and two control groups of (N=20) for each group during summer 2018 through the non-probability sampling design. Then, IELTS pre-intermediate speaking and writing tests were taken as the pre-test to make sure that they have failed to have a previous knowledge of objective structures. Unlike the control group, the participants in the experimental group were told to apply critical thinking instructions in learning speaking and writing skills. After intervention, the same pretest was taken to the participants in both groups as the posttest to determine the result of gaining the medical aid. Independent and paired sample t-tests were run to answer the research questions. The results indicated that critical thinking is highly contributive in learning productive skills. The findings of this study can be applied in methodological issues.