learning strategy

The present study was conducted to examine empirically and systematically the effect of explicit instruction of comprehension strategies on EFL learners’ reading anxiety and reading comprehension in Iranian high schools. To this end, two intact classes (65 students) participated in this study as members of control and experimental groups. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of reading strategies training based on McNamara, Ozuro, Best, and O’Reilly's (2007) 4-pronged Comprehension Strategy Framework. Data were collected through the employment of Saito, Garza, and Horwitz's (1999) Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and Preliminary English Test (PET) multiple-choice reading comprehension tests. All the students filled the FLRAS questionnaire and took the reading comprehension test two times, once as a pre-test one week before the beginning of instruction and the other as a post-test one week after the instructional treatment. After the post-test, a group of 7 students who received instruction participated in the focus group interview. T-tests were used to analyze the obtained statistical data. It was revealed that explicit reading strategy instruction was quite beneficial in improving EFL high school students' comprehension and reducing their anxiety level, while reading anxiety and reading comprehension were negatively correlated. The results of the interview with the focus group revealed the positive effect of strategy training on learners' reading comprehension and alleviating reading anxiety. This study rendered some educational implications for materials developers and instructors to invest on reading as a fundamental skill in education.

This study attempted to investigate the relationship among learning strategy, autonomy and language proficiency of Chinese university EFL students. To achieve this objective, purposive sampling and cluster sampling methods were used to select 422 non-English major students as participants in three universities, Henan province, China. Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) and Xu’s (2004) Learner Autonomy Questionnaire (LAQ) were adopted to investigate the participants’ strategy use and learner autonomy, respectively. The participants’ language proficiency was measured by their CET-4 scores. Results of the Pearson correlation analysis indicated that there existed interrelationships among the three variables: learning strategy and learner autonomy were significantly and positively correlated with each other, and both of them had significant positive relationships with language proficiency. Multiple Regressions Analysis results suggested that learner autonomy could best predict the variance in language proficiency. Pedagogical suggestions are offered to English language teachers in assisting their students with regards to the improvement of language proficiency.

Effective strategic leadership entails the implementation of diverse management strategies to develop a forward-looking perspective for the organization. Such a perspective enables the organization to adjust and remain competitive in a continuously changing economic and technological environment. This study aimed to design a strategic leadership model for sports federations in Iran. This study was applied in terms of purpose and adopted a mixed method with an exploratory approach. The statistical population of the qualitative study consisted of experts in the field of sports federations who were selected purposefully, and finally,  14 experts were selected as the research participants based on data saturation approach. The statistical population in the quantitative phase included 319 subjects (president, vice-president, secretary, and three members of the Board of Directors of sports federations) selected through stratified random sampling. The research data collection tool in the qualitative phase was a semi-structured interview whereas, in the quantitative section, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed from interviews' data. Data in the qualitative phase were analyzed using experts’ points of view, and in the quantitative phase, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, divergent and convergent validity, and structural equation tests were used. Moreover, the face, content, and construct validity of the instrument were confirmed. Finally, the model of strategic leadership of sport federations was presented with seven factors including strategic orientation, human resources development, learning strategy, team leadership, strategic control, effective interaction culture, and ethical strategy.