Iranian Journal of Learning and Memory

Learning can only maintain its functional originality when it leads to permanent changes, and such changes are only possible if accompanied by self-explanation. The current study was conducted to investigate the effect of self-explanation and the solved examples on students’ transfer, intrinsic motivation, and cognitive load in English courses. It was an experiment in the form of a 2×2 generalized random block design. The population consisted of all 8th-grade students in Semnan, Iran, from whom 120 students were selected applying random sampling – by considering a figure for each student, writing each figure on a piece of paper, putting all inside a pack, mixing them together, and drawing one piece out each time to get 120 candidates. Teaching English was done using the “Solved Examples” method. The instruments applied  to collect the data included the Intrinsic Motivation Questionnaire by Kuvaus and Dysvik (2009), the Cognitive Load Questionnaire by Paas and van Merrienboer (1993), and the researcher-made questionnaire of near and far transfer. The statistical analysis of the data was conducted using the Two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The findings indicated that the format of presenting content (ordinary and erroneous solved examples) and self-explanation are correlated significantly with the near and far transfer, cognitive load, and intrinsic motivation (P<0.01). Based on the obtained results, it can be argued that self-explaining and presenting solved examples are useful strategies to enhance students’ transfer, intrinsic motivation, and cognitive load in learning English, and can be included in the curriculum of schools to empower students in solving intellectual problems.  

Wisdom is a concept which has been extensively studied in many researches during recent years. On the other hand, occupational burnout is an issue that has affected teachers’ activities for many years. Occupational burnout is caused by increasing responsibility of teachers over the years. To study the effect of wisdom-therapy on teachers’ occupational burnout, 34 EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers who worked in Hamedan high schools were selected using convenience sampling method and assigned randomly into two groups of experimental and control, each including 17 teachers. Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator’s Survey developed by Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter (1996) was used for examining teachers’ occupational burnout and using one of wisdom-therapy techniques, teachers of the experimental group received training in ten sessions. Finally, using the mentioned inventory, teachers’ occupational burnout was examined again. The results of ANCOVA revealed that wisdom-therapy had a significant effect in reducing the level of occupational burnout, depersonalization and emotional exhaustion among Iranian EFL teachers. In addition, the results also showed that wisdom-therapy had a significant effect in improving the level of personal accomplishment. Thus, it is suggested that wisdom-therapy techniques be used in education and be part of teachers’ training.

The present study aimed to investigate Mazandarani-Persian Bilinguals' L3 learning of simple present tense to see whether their L1, L2, or dominant language of communication affect their L3 learning. To this end, 90 male and female students, with the mean age of 14.5 were selected from among the elementary L3 learners of English. The participants were assigned into three groups of L1 Mazandarani/L2 Persian/ L3 learners of English. The first group had Mazandarani as the dominant language of communication while the second and the third group had Persian as the dominant language of communication. The Grammaticality Judgment Task and Oral Translation Task were used to check the participants' production and comprehension of the target structure. The results of the Kruskal Wallis and the Mann Whitney U tests showed that the dominant language of communication, irrespective of its status as the first or second language, was the primary source of cross-linguistic influence in learning simple present tense at the initial stages of learning this tense.

Learning emotions consist of a range of ups and downs students come across in the classroom concerning the subject of study that may affect their performance in academic affairs and the correlation between learning approaches and academic engagement. The present study discussed the mediating role of learning emotions in the relationship between learning approaches and academic engagement in the academic year 2020/2021. The study used a correlation-descriptive research method and multistage cluster sampling. Participants were 384 female upper-secondary school students according to the Cochran formula. Three types of questionnaires were used to collect data: Reeve and Tseng’s academic engagement, Miller et al.’s learning approaches, and Pekrun’s learning emotions. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling in PLS software. Our findings showed that learning emotions (both positive and negative) have a mediating role in the correlation between learning approaches (learning goals, performance goals, instrumental/future goals, perception ability, external and internal evaluation) and academic engagement (P≤0/05). Moreover, learning approaches have a significant positive correlation with academic engagement (P≤0/05). Furthermore, learning approaches have a significant positive correlation with positive learning emotions, but a significant negative correlation with negative learning emotions (P≤0/05). We can hereby deduce that positive emotions have a significant positive correlation with academic engagement (P≤0/05), whereas the correlation coefficient between negative learning emotions and academic engagement is not significant (P≥0/05). It can be concluded that academic engagement is significantly affected by learning approaches and learning emotions and positive emotions increase the effect of learning approaches on academic learning.

With the abrupt emergence and development of the COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face classes have been replaced with online classes (OCs) on an unprecedented scale in Iran. To improve the quality of OCs, it is quite essential to examine to what extent students are satisfied with them. With this aim, the current mixed-methods study purported to examine university students’ learning satisfaction with OCs at Ayatollah Borujerdi University. For the quantitative part, a total of 509 university students, including males (N=34) and females (N=475) filled out a modified version of the Satisfaction with Online Classes Survey (SWOCS) developed and validated by Bolliger and Martindale (2004). For the qualitative part, a sample of 20 students, consisting of males (N=9) and females (N=11) completed a reflective written statement disclosing their perceptions of OCs. Findings evidenced that the participants are moderately satisfied with OCs. In addition, the results of Friedman test documented that all the sub-factors of SWOCS played an important role in the participants’ learning satisfaction with OCs. Complementary with the quantitative findings, the qualitative results yielded five overarching themes: “instructors are a critical factor for students’ learning satisfaction’, ‘familiarity with technology affects students’ learning satisfaction’, ‘course set-up shapes students’ learning satisfaction’, ‘interactions with others are vital’, and ‘students’ learning satisfaction is closely correlated with outcomes’ Finally, a range of implications is proposed for different stakeholders.

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between math anxiety with optimism and perceived classroom structure through mediating role of mathematics attitudes in female high school students. The statistical population of this descriptive correlational study comprised all the female high-school students in Ahvaz (Iran) in the academic year 2020-2021. A sample of 237 students was randomly selected via single-stage cluster sampling. In this study, the sample size was determined based on the number of predictor variables in the structural equation analysis. The research instruments included the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS), the Life Orientation Test (LOT), Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM), and the Mathematics Attitude Scale (MAS). The proposed model was evaluated by structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that all direct paths except perceived classroom structure to math anxiety were significant (p< 0.01). The indirect paths from optimism to math anxiety mediated by mathematics attitude, and the path from perceived classroom structure to math anxiety mediated by mathematics attitude were significant (p< 0.01). The proposed method, therefore, has an optimal fit and is a major step towards identifying the factor affecting students’ math anxiety.

The current study presents an alternative approach toward semantic relatedness research in second/foreign language (L2) education as it looks at the issue from a cognitive perspective. The participants were 35 intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. A semantic priming experiment was used to examine the cognitive processing of semantically related and semantically unrelated words. Repeated Measure ANOVA was run on reaction time and error rate data to establish any potential interaction between the primes and targets with reference to their semantic relatedness. The results showed that semantic relatedness does exercise a noteworthy influence on the ease of cognitive processing of L2 words. This facilitative effect is reflected in faster responses and lower errors on the part of the EFL learners when they dealt with semantically related words in comparison to semantically unrelated words, and can be attributed to the core mechanism of activation of lexical items in the human mind.