مطالب

Given the growing importance of the use of novel technologies, especially in the field of education, and with regard to the necessity of learning the use of e-learning by community members, specifically students, the present study aimed to evaluate the role of critical thinking disposition and academic self-efficacy in the acceptance of e-learning by students. This was a descriptive survey research, and the statistical population (n=1289) included tenth-grade male students in experimental sciences and mathematics disciplines in Mashhad, Iran. In total, 288 students were selected by cluster sampling method and based on the Morgan table. Data were collected using Morgan and Jing Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (MJSES) (1999), Ricketts' Critical Thinking Disposition Questionnaire (2003), and Technology Acceptance Model by Davis and Bagozzi (1989). Notably, the instruments had confirmed validity and reliability. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 20 using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and stepwise regression. The research question was “do critical thinking disposition and academic self-efficacy play a role in acceptance of e-learning by tenth-grade male students in experimental sciences and mathematics disciplines?” According to the results, critical thinking disposition and academic self-efficacy significantly predicted students’ acceptance of e-learning. In fact, the variable of critical thinking disposition had a share of 0.068 in the amount of acceptance of e-learning in a significant way and based on the standardized beta coefficient. Therefore, this concept can be used as a predictor of e-learning acceptance. Therefore, it is suggested that these skills be reinforced in students by families, principals, teachers and educational authorities to improve the acceptance of new educational innovations and enhance students’ academic achievement.

Online learning platforms have become commonplace in modern society today, but high dropout rates and decrement students’ performance still require more attention in such online learning environments. The purpose of this research is to accelerate the identification of students at risk of academic failure in order to take appropriate corrective action. Therefore, we have proposed model to achieve this goal and ultimately improve the performance of students and faculty. Then, for early prediction of students at risk of academic failure, the short-term memory neural network (LSTM) and the widely used support vector algorithm have been used to analyze students’ time based behaviors using data from the University of Tehran e-learning system. To demonstrate the optimal performance of the predictive algorithm, we compared the LSTM network with the support vector algorithm with different evaluation criteria. The results show that the use of LSTM network for early prediction of students at risk provides higher predictive accuracy compared to the support vector machine algorithm. In this research, our method in predicting students’ performance with LSTM network has achieved 94% accuracy and with support vector machine algorithm has achieved 88% accuracy. In addition, the Area Under the Curve (AUC) was 0.936 and 0.882, respectively, using the LSTM algorithm and the support vector machine. Therefore, according to the obtained results, it can be seen that our proposed algorithm has an important and effective contribution to improving the final performance of teachers and students during the course.

China has invested in the Gwadar port in Pakistan to create an economic corridor with the aim of connecting China to Central Asia through the Indian Ocean. This program is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including several roads, sea routes, and corridors. On the other hand, India, a regional rival to China, is keen to invest in the port of Chabahar in the I.R. Iran to create the International North-South corridor, which can connect India to Central Asia, the Middle East, Russia, and Northern Europe through the Indian Ocean. According to these significant facts, two critical questions will be discussed in the present study: the first question investigates whether Indo-Chinese competition makes Chabahar and Gwadar rival ports, and the second question examines whether it would be possible for China to investigate in Chabahar as an alternative corridor. To address these questions, the present study hypothesizes that Chabahar can be an international port, fulfilling the interests of all parties, including China. This study is a qualitative research, based on the International Order theory by Hadley Bull, using the SWOT analysis in order to address the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of Iran-China bilateral relations in Chabahar for both sides. For collecting the data, existing documents and articles, as well as in-depth interviews have been used. Results indicate that the Chabahar port, as one of the main gateways to the Iranian transit corridors, could be a common point of Interest for Iran, India and China to create a regional order, based on cooperation in transit.