Curriculum Research

Purpose: This study endeavored to find out the possible relationship between reflectivity and impulsivity as cognitive learning styles and vocabulary/ grammar development as sub-skills among EFL learners.  Methodology: Two intact classes of the third-grade students were selected by the researchers and Oxford Placement Test was run for homogenizing them. After that, Barrat’s (2005) Impulsive/ Reflective questionnaire was given to the participants and they had to respond the translated items in a limited time. Regarding the score scale provided by the questionnaire, the participants were labeled as reflective and impulsive ones. Next, a standard grammar/vocabulary test, extracted from their book, administered to them and the scores were recorded by the researchers. Then, the scores of the questionnaires and tests sent to SPSS software for analyzing and interpreting the data. In inferential statistics, the researchers used correlation test to examine the possible relationship between the students' learning styles and their sub-skills development.  Findings: Results of the study indicated a positive relationship between the students' sub-skills achievements (vocabulary/ grammar) and their learning styles (reflectivity/ impulsivity). In other words, reflectivity and impulsivity had effect on the students' performance in sub-skills, as the reflective students presented better performance and made fewer errors than the impulsive ones in vocabulary and grammar tests.  Conclusion: According to the results, it can be concluded that the higher the reflectivity of the learners is, the more successful they tend to be in such tests. It is expected that the findings of the research indicate the importance of learning styles in educational environment.

Digital communication technologies could play a pivotal role in the realm of learning, entertainment, and education for children, and could significantly affect the nature of commercial relations with children. The use of media as new communication technologies for children over the past decade has hosted many researches. The present study aimed to determine the effect of advertising literacy education on 6th-grade primary school female students' critical thinking skills in facing the media commercial messages in the city of Dezful in 2019-2020. The population consisted of all the 6th-grade primary school students in the city of Tehran, of which 60 students were selected using the random clustering method and randomly assigned into two groups of experiment and control. The tool used in this study was Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT), and analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data. The results showed that advertising literacy affected students' critical thinking. The effects on students' inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, and observational analysis of advertising messages, credibility, and hypothesizing power were found significant.

Purpose: The present study aimed to describe the elements of the preschool curriculum with a problem-solving approach from the perspective of curriculum planning specialists and educational psychologists.  Methodology: This study was a qualitative study conducted in Tehran. The population consisted of curriculum specialists (n=200) and educational psychologists (n=238) who were selected using the purposive snowball sampling method, and 24 subjects were studied until reaching theoretical saturation. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. To analyze and interpret the data, the method of thematic analysis through coding was used. Findings: The findings indicated that from the perspective of curriculum planning specialists and educational psychologists, a problem-solving curriculum for preschoolers includes goals (cognitive, attitudinal, functional), content (organization, presentation methods), teaching methods (traditional methods, attention to learner's age, instructor's characteristics, and active methods), learning activities (individual, group), instructional materials (features and types of resources), space (physical characteristics of facilities), time (duration, attention to the child's preparedness and age), grouping (attention to responsibility, respect for others, attention to ethics considerations, attention to group homogeneity, nature of the problem, group heterogeneity, number of group members, gender, age, personal differences), and evaluation (of the program based on personal, procedural, quantitative, and descriptive differences).  Conclusion: Given the importance of the Comments, it can be continuously applied to and formulated for the preschool level to raise problem-solving skills in children and foster their abilities to understand and reflect on life in the future society.

Purpose: Regarded to the importance of professors' effectiveness, the purpose of this study was structural modeling of the impact of entrepreneurial thinking and professional commitment on professors' effectiveness with the mediating role of satisfaction from organizational climate among professors of Islamic Azad University of Urmia Branch. Methodology: This study in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was cross-sectional from type of quantitative. The research population was the professors of the Islamic Azad University of Urmia Branch in the 2020-21 academic years, which based on the Cochran's formula the sample size was estimated 227 people who were selected by stratified random sampling method according to different colleges. The research instruments of the present study were the Questionnaires of entrepreneurial thinking (Scarborough & Zimmerer, 1990), professional commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990), professors' effectiveness (Salimi & Ramezani, 2014) and satisfaction from organizational climate (Bontis, 1998). Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling in SPSS-21 and SmartPLS-2 software. Findings: The results showed that entrepreneurial thinking and professional commitment had a positive and direct effect on satisfaction from organizational climate and professors' effectiveness and satisfaction from organizational climate had a positive and direct effect on professors' effectiveness. Also, entrepreneurial thinking and professional commitment had a positive and indirect effect on the professors' effectiveness with the mediating role of satisfaction from organizational climate (P<0.01). Conclusion: According to the results of this research, to improve the professors' effectiveness can be used by promoting entrepreneurial thinking, professional commitment and satisfaction from organizational climate.

Purpose: Thesis writing always has been associated with many challenges in different fields and areas and based on this, the present research was conducted with the aim of presenting a pattern of managing the challenges of thesis writing in the educational-research field. Methodology: The current research in terms of implementation method was qualitative and in terms of purpose was applied. The research population was students and graduates of the PhD period of humanities fields at the Islamic Azad University in 2020-21 academic years, which from them number of 12 people were selected as a sample according to the principle of theoretical saturation and with the purposeful sampling method. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews whose validity by 15 professors was obtained by the relative content validity coefficient method 0.84 and its reliability by the Holsti coefficient method was obtained 0.83. Finally, the data were analyzed by methods of open, axial and selective coding and thematic analysis in MAXQDA-18 software. Findings: The findings showed that managing the challenges of thesis writing in the educational-research field had 74 indicators, 13 components and 4 dimensions. The educational gap dimension has includes three components of computer and software training gap, the lack of familiarity with new research methods and the gap in the practical thesis writing course, choosing the subject dimension has includes three components of lack of paying attention to interdisciplinary subjects, lack of suitable guide for choosing subject and not lack of paying attention to students' interests, cooperation of professors dimension has includes five components of back-promising, restrictions on the selection of supervisors, scientific disability of supervisors, lack of access to professors and lack of commitment and responsibility and educational content dimension has includes two components of lack of access to first-hand sources and lack of easy access to content. Finally, pattern of managing the challenges of thesis writing in the educational-research field was drawn using the theme network method. Conclusion: According to the results of this research, planning it seems necessary to managing the challenges of thesis based on the identified dimensions, components and indicators.

The main purpose of this study is to identify and rank the criteria for evaluating the performance of Azad University faculty members using the Analysis Network Process method. The research method is mixed. The sample size of the qualitative section was 15 managers of departments who were purposefully selected by theoretical sampling strategy. Data collection was a semi-structured interview. The data obtained from the analyzed interviews were coded using the Grounded theory. Its validity and reliability were checked and confirmed using the results of three-way consensus. Data analysis was performed in three stages of open, axial, and selective coding. In open coding, concepts and cues were extracted from the interviews. In the selective coding stage, three categories (training, research, consulting services) were compressed and considered as the main dimensions of performance evaluation, and then four sub-components were conceptualized for each dimension. A total of twelve categories were conceptualized and then the dimensions and components were ranked using super design software. The sample size was a quantitative section of 30 faculty members who were randomly selected and the tool for collecting quantitative findings was a researcher-made questionnaire. It was an Analysis Network Process. Findings showed: The factors of consulting services, research and education are in order of priority. In education, respectively, components of teaching quality, spiritual competence, psychological competence and managerial competence, in research, respectively, components of communication competence, competence of new technologies, competence of innovation and creativity, entrepreneurship and cognitive competence. Intercultural competence, foreign relations competence, and the most and least important in the group that experts can use the above dimensions and components in evaluating the performance of faculty members.