JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES (J.C.S.)
Year:2018 | Volume:13 | Issue:48 |Papers Count:8

The present research aims at designing and validating a local model for curriculum leadership for primary school in the form of the paradigmatic model of grounded theory through a systematic approach. To this end, the research data are collected through semi-structured interviews with 21 scholars and researchers in the field of educational sciences, as well as analyses of the upstream documents and the results of domestic and foreign researches. After the data analysis, 16 general categories in 6 dimensions of the paradigmatic model of grounded theory namely, causal conditions (1 category), contextual conditions (2 categories), intervening conditions (2 categories), strategies (8 categories), consequences (2 categories), and one major category along with 63 minor categories and their 532 related features are presented. The results show that the developed model could be explained, in the form of a scientific framework, in accordance with the characteristics of the centralized educational system of Iran. Furthermore, it could serve as a facilitator for the best possible implementation of curricula at national, provincial, district and the classroom levels. Moreover, theoretical and practical aspects could be applicable and useful for the curriculum developers and practitioners of the elementary levels.

The present study aims to explain the learning objectives of economic education at the elementary levels. This study is conducted within the qualitative research paradigm in which research synthesis procedures are applied including text-mining. This is done with the purpose of extracting meanings from the compiled texts using these techniques: information extraction, summarization, categorization, clustering, and information representation. The purposefully selected texts include basic and classic texts in Islamic Economics, Persian literature and the needs of the society which was generated through surveys and interviews. The findings of the study are categorized into four groups: individual characteristics, social characteristics, economic concepts and economic ethics. Each of these categories includes certain learning objectives.

The goal of the present study is to evaluate the teaching-learning functions of teachers in Yazd elementary schools based on Assure model and demographic characteristics. This study is conducted through applied research and the research method is descriptive-survey. The research community include all elementary school teachers in Yazd in the academic year of 2016-2017 (n=4196). Using the Krejcie and Morgan table (95% confidently), the sample population is estimated as 351 individuals that are selected through a proportional volume method. The data collection tools include a researcher-made questionnaire developed based on Assure model. The statistical methods in this research are descriptive statistics (mean, frequency distribution and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (T-test single-sample, T-test, two-group independent, F-test, one-way analysis of variance and related follow-up tests). The obtained results show that the average functions of Yazd elementary teachers in dimensions such as analysis of students’ characteristics and in choosing methods, media, teaching aids for training are lower than the average and in dimensions such as using media and teaching aids in teaching process is at the average levels. While in dimensions such as expressing the educational goals and students’ participation rate and evaluating and revising the teaching process they show above the average functions. The teachers with high service records use the media and educational materials more effectively and significantly. In addition, female teachers act significantly more effective in expressing educational goals, selecting methods, media, teaching aids for training, encouraging students’ participations and evaluating and revising the teaching process.

Creativity is one of the controversial issues in different fields of psychology and educational sciences. However, few studies have been done on the effects of teaching origami on enhancing children’ s creativity. This study seeks to explore the effects of teaching origami on improving creativity among the fifth grade male students. The methodology of this research is quasi-experimental and the statistical population includes all of the fifth grade male students of district 18 in Tehran in the academic year of 2016-2017. The participants were 45 fifth grade male students of primary school (convenient sample) who were assigned to the experimental (m=25) and the control (m=20) groups. The experimental group received sixteen 45-minute sessions of instruction for creating objects by origami paper folding techniques. The instrument for data collection was Torrance test of Creative Thinking with pictures form B (The figural TTCT) and data gathering was carried out through administering pre-and post-tests to the experimental and control groups. Covariance analysis was used for data analysis by the use of SPSS version 24. The findings of this study confirm the effects of teaching origami on components of creativity including fluency, flexibility, originality (P<0/05). Despite the increase in the average scores of elaboration in the experimental group compared with the control group, this difference was not statistically significant.

This study intends to identify and develop the listening and speaking skills of the Persian Language teaching standards for the First-term primary school students of Iran. It is a qualitative research and is conducted in two sections: primarily, the standards of language skills were extracted by studying the international curricula in other countries. Afterwards, the standards of Persian language teaching skills were developed by conducting a focus group. Further, the analyzed contents were a set of curricula provided in developed countries. Three documents were chosen: Language arts standards of Georgia department of education and The Washington State Early Learning and Development Guidelines: Birth through 3rd Grade from the United States and the curriculum for language arts and literacy from the United Kingdom. The results suggested that Listening and speaking skills in Persian Language Teaching can be divided into sub-skills such as Audio Processing, Grammar Awareness, Discourse and Literary Enjoyment according to the three components of structure, content and function introduced by Crystal (1987) and Lahi (1988). It is worthy of note that learning these sub-skills helps the students achieve communicative competence; in other words, according to Hymes (1972), Canale and Swain (1980), acquiring such skills means creating the grammatical, social and strategic competence.

The objective of this study is to design a model for infrastructures of decentralized curriculum development based on land use planning for primary schools. The research design was qualitative and grounded theory was employed as the research method. The Statistical population included educational experts and curriculum professors and the data were collected through snowball purposive sampling that led to a sample consisted of 15 educational experts and curriculum professors. Next, the semi-structured interviews were conducted till theoretical saturation achieved. Interviews textulaize exactly and objectively to ensure the reliability of data. The model included key factors and their indicators and composed of indicators that are located at the center of model and are used as a basis for evaluating decentralized curriculum based on land use planning. The key factors of model are human infrastructure, cultural infrastructure, local management system legal and legitimate infrastructure, macro-environment policies, delegation of authority, conformity between curriculum and land use planning, social protection and financial infrastructure that are resulting in educational outcomes. And in the paradigmatic model it was composed of casual, central, contextual, interventional and strategic conditions and outcomes reflecting the viewpoints of experts regarding decentralized curriculum patterns.