Educational objectives

Iran's National curriculum standards represent the guiding blueprints which provide direction for instruction and assessment nationwide. Iran's official university curriculum standards were designed by Iran's Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technologyto provide a frame of reference and guidance for the instructional materials used and decisions made by university instructors. Using a widely accepted measure of describing cognitive processes, that is,Bloom's revised taxonomy of educational objectives, thispaper aims at comparatively investigatingIran's B.A. official curriculum standards of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and ET (English translation). Thestandardspertaining to TEFL and ET fieldswerecontent analyzed in terms of Bloom's revised taxonomyby using a detailed checklist developedbased on the respective classification of cognitive objectives.The findings showed slight differences between both fields in terms of critical thinking skills and that lower-order cognitive skills were more prevalent than higher-order ones. Furthermore, the English translation standards pertained to critical cognitive skills in general and evaluation and creation in particular to a larger extent. Results of this study have implications for policy makers, curriculum designers, materials developers and instructors involved in language education.

Abstract Purpose: In the current research, the relationship between financing and the three factors of the quality of educational services, the quality of the educational environment and social interactions was examined. On the other hand, the relationship between the three mentioned factors and achievement of educational goals was also investigated. Methodology: the method was descriptive - correlational and variables were quantitative. Research was carried out at Universities and the sample was 214 teacher students and professors. The structural equation modeling approach was used for analysis. Findings: The results of this study indicate that financing have a direct relationship with the quality of the educational environment, the quality of educational services and social interactions. Based on the obtained factor obtained in analyzing the results, the most important method of stable financing was known financing. As a result, this study indicates that commercializing of researches and earning revenue from them was one of the most important financing solutions. Conclusion: Achieving educational objectives is one of the most important goals of educational institutions. This is important at the various educational levels; however, it is vital to achieve the educational goals in the universities that educate future’s professionals, teachers and teachers. The level of achievement of educational goals is also known as educational performance. This function is influenced by various factors such as the quality of the educational environment, the quality of educational effort, and social interactions. Achieving these dimensions requires development programs that undoubtedly require strong financing from various sources.

Instructional materials as a basic component of curriculums and a central constituent of standards-based programs play a provisional role in both setting the aims and leading the way. English textbooks in Iran’s public education are officially developed and used nationwide. One recently introduced English textbook series is Prospects (I-III) . It is intended for the the Iranian junior high schools and is normally supposed to guide teachers and provide students with the basic exposure to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. The textbooks, together with the lessons, have to be aligned in targeting educational objectives given the sequential nature of the intended grades and the serial contents of instruction. This study evaluated the vertical and horizontal alignment among the series’ textbooks and lessons drawing on Bloom’s revised taxonomy of educational objectives (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). The evaluation initially involved descriptive content analysis of the activities within and across the textbooks using a checklist developed based on the taxonomy. Then, the content matrixes were subjected to Porter et al.’s (2007) alignment index for the statistical assessment of lessons and textbooks’ alignment. The findings generally suggested that the lessons were tuned adequately, albeit accommodating mainly lower-order knowledge types and cognitive skills at the cost of discarding the higher-order ones. In addition, the statistically positive and significant PAIs of 0.93, 0.78, and 0.74 between Prospect I & II, Prospect I & III, and Prospect II & III, respectively pointed to a harmony in the series’ content. The paper discusses the findings and implications in the Iranian EFL context